Chapter21
Chapter21
Awakening the Beast
It wasn't me who screamed first.
The thing inside of me was the source of it. I starved, sheltered, and remained silent for my entire life. However, cages deteriorate over time, and tonight the beast awoke beneath a sky split in two by fire and gloom.
It was not a wave of pain. It ripped like claws through me.
Bones broke.
The skin split.
I wasn't turning, though.
I was evolving.
The murmurs came again, deeper now, and were in a language I only heard in my dreams. The Shadow. The old one buried deep within my blood. The one I wasn't meant to live through.
However, I had.
It now want to leave.
not to demolish.
to assert.
The Shadow recalled every lash Jake gave me.
It thrived on every broken promise.
And it swept through my veins like wildfire now that I didn't fear it.
There was no shift here. An ascension took place here.
At first, the power didn't feel like mine.
It was like hunger.
After then, it felt familiar.
The ground shook beneath my feet the instant I gave up resisting. The wind slowed. My breath turned back to dark.
I was no longer Lily.
Not the helpless girl who pleaded to be noticed.
The mate who didn't wait for scraps.
In prophecy, I was the one they feared.
Kade warned me not to become that person.
Jake was unable to kill it.
They all sensed it.
Across the fields, I could hear the wolves halting in the middle of a hunt, their hearts skipping and their ears twitching.
Kieran, too.
Kieran in particular.
His spirit, untamed and untrained, pulled at me.
He sensed the connection changing.
felt like I was evolving.
However, he failed to comprehend.
He still believed he was at the top.
He wasn't.
The test was him.
The storm that preceded the reveal.
I was no longer a partner.
I was their payback.
I had glowing hands.
It wasn't light, though.
It was recollection.
I saw glimpses of all the lives the Shadow had led before me. Kingdoms burned. Packs that are broken. betrayed romantic partners.
One constant, too.
a bone crown.
A throne of nothingness.
And a voice repeatedly whispering the same name.
Lily.
No name.
A curse.
An order.
A caution.
My heart slowed.
Not out of fear.
out of control.
I refused to let the Shadow consume me.
It and I were merging.
Making it perfect.
It required a ship. I required retribution.
mutuality.
No roar came from the beast.
It purred.
And unchained, I strode out into the night.
I'm being hunted by the pack?
They took off running.
didn't notice me. did not have to.
Just the smell made them stoop.
Jake?
For the first time, he paused.
His rejection of me left a mark that shone like a brand against my skin.
Now, though, I recognized it for what it was.
No scar.
A key.
He believed he had ruined me.
I was activated by him.
The twist was that.
The mate link remained intact.
It changed.
And I discovered the truth along that evolution.
I never dated Jake.
Only the initial sacrifice.
The true Alpha, the real mate, was still in the shadows.
Not Kieran.
I didn't know anyone.
But an older person.
observing.
Awaiting.
supplying me with fire-and-obsidian-laced dreams.
And they would come after me now that I had roused the beast.
Not to stop me.
to bow down.
since the Shadow wasn't a bad thing.
It was inherited.
I was also its final heir.
My skin began to flake.
My back exploded with wings made of smoke and wreckage rather than flesh or feathers.
The earth trembled.
The moon was red.
And I sensed it from the east.
A second waking.
Not my.
Not Jake's.
However, something worse.
It recognized me.
I was referred to as "sister."
And it was on its way directly to the Hollow.
For Kieran.
For the truth I hadn't yet discovered.
And if I didn't arrive there first...
It would all have been for naught.
Because it wasn't the last beast I roused.
It was just the start.
It was broken, not merely darkened by the sky.
Around the moon, shards of light broke like glass. No magic. Not the weather.
Caution.
This change, this rebirth, was felt by the world itself. And it flinched back.
The woodland animals froze.
The wind turned around.
I then took off running.
Not far away.
In the direction of pull.
To the other awakening.
What it was, I had no idea. The only difference was that it was connected to me. But like a memory that has been wiped and rebuilt a thousand times, it is twisted and frayed at the edges.
Kieran wasn't the one. It wasn't Jake.
Something older was involved.
older than wolves.
more ancient than the gods.
And it muttered my name in recognition rather than hunger.
As I went by, the forest bowed. Branches of trees fell. To allow me to pass, the shadows expanded.
Nature was aware.
I had changed.
Something definitive.
And the thing in front of me?
I owned it.
But it was too late to realize that.
because it was discovered first by something else.
Off in the distance, the Hollow gleamed. Ash and smoke curled out from its sides.
Kieran was present.
And he wasn’t alone.
I made it to the edge in time to witness him fall to his knees.
Not in agony.
Under submission.
and looming over him
Me.
Not me now.
Not me in the future.
However, there is another me.
The same face.
distinct eyes.
Infinite and void-black.
There was no clone here. or a ruse.
There was a divide.
A part of me that I could have become had I made different decisions has been peeled off by the Shadow.
Kieran had now been located by that version.
And took him.
Sound died in my throat as I attempted to shout.
The air twisted.
There was a time hiccup.
Kieran stood oblivious between two worlds that overlapped mine and hers.
He gave her the same pained look he had given me.
Additionally, she grinned.
But her eyes were not filled with affection.
Conquest was the term.
My mark my bond spilled through his shirt as she stretched out and touched his chest.
She was committing to him.
stealing my possessions.
Not because I'm jealous.
due to necessity.
Because she would become the dominant self if she was successful.
The real Lily.
And I would disappear.
Unwritten.
deleted.
I charged ahead.
It's too late.
The Hollow exploded.
The sky was filled with a ring of violet fire.
Then reality set in.
And I was flung back.
Not into the woods.
But back in time.
Another moment.
A conflict.
A room of thrones.
I was standing over wolf corpses. I didn't identify the packs.
And the Shadow Queen in the middle.
Me. Bone-crowned. She was covered in blood. And tortured and shackled behind her. Kieran. Eyes are hollow.
Heartbroken.
And I was aware.
There was no vision here.
It served as a warning.
This was the future she would create if I didn't stop her from becoming a divided version of myself.
She wasn't against me.
My punishment was her.
Every self-centered decision. All of my nasty thoughts were hidden.
Given shape.
Given a purpose.
She had a partner now.
My friend.
Inside of me, the power surged once more.
Warmer. Wilder.
However, unstable this time.
My inner Shadow wasn't upset.
It was afraid.
Since it recalled her.
The initial one.
The initial version.
The Queen who nearly brought about the end of the world.
She had returned.
Not reincarnated.
Put back together.
Part by part, over all generations.
And I was the last piece of her.
The final fragment.
For me to come back, she needed me entirely.
And she would prevail if I didn't stop her right now.
Not by going to war.
Via substitution.
And nobody would ever know.
It would see me when it looked at her.
It wouldn't be me, though.
No more.
The vision broke.
I returned to the Hollow with burned lungs and wounded knees.
Kieran had left.
She was, too.
However, there was still a sign charred into the grass.
No runes.
No prophesy.
"SOON" is the only word written in blood.
And a second: "SISTER" beneath it.
I made contact with it.
The earth trembled.
For somewhere far to the north, where men and wolves cannot reach.
A gate swung open.
A jailbroke.
And in the darkness, something enormous stirred.
Not her.
Not me.
But the creator of both of us.
The father.
The actual deity of shadows.
The one who has been silently observing all this time.
Awaiting.
His daughters were at war now.
Only one of us would make it through the night.