Chapter Thirty-Two

N I C C O L O

I can hardly feel my heart beating inside my chest. The presence of the Moon Goddess seems to have sucked out every molecule of air in the forest, and I have to remember how to breathe.

She meets my eyes, and suddenly I’m struck with a strange kind of coldness and awe. She’s unearthly beautiful, but not in a way that incites any kind of attraction. It’s like staring at a nuclear bomb, recognizing its pure power, and waiting for the destruction that it can cause at a moment’s notice.

Slowly, I step away from her. I know I should get on my knees and bow, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

Instead, I just face her head-on.

The Moon Goddess’s lips don’t move, but I hear her voice ringing inside my head. “What are you planning to do here, Alpha Niccolo?” She glances back at the cliff. “Are you seeking relief by jumping off that cliff?”

I don’t say anything.

A small smile appears on her lips. “Hope is not lost. Your lover will come back.”

I don’t know why, but that statement strikes something sensitive in me. Perhaps it’s just me being raw from my encounter with Hardy, but I find myself advancing toward her. “I do not wish to be this dependent on Florence when she is her own person. She deserves to come home and be happy with her own family. I refuse to pull that away from her.”

“Shame.” Her face turns serious again. “She is your only hope to lift that curse. She holds the answer, but you hold the power. She is only the key.”

“For once, stop speaking in riddles.” My anger is rising in my throat like bile. “How can you watch my people suffer? How can you give them a part of this curse when they have done nothing but worship you? Why can’t you just take me and set them free?”

The Moon Goddess steps forward and meets my eyes. “Because the punishment has to be borne by you. The divine law excuses no one.”

With that, she turns around and makes a move to leave, but I can’t let her. I need answers. I need solutions.

I run past her and block her way. “Tell me what I did that was so wrong that it broke your fucking divine law.” I jab a finger into her chest. “I protected my people. I saved them from the tyranny of the old Alpha! Why are you doing this to me?”

I expect her to maybe smite me into oblivion, but to my surprise, the expression in her eyes softens into pure sympathy.

She raises her pale hands and places them on my cheeks, and just like that, everything turns black.

I’m taken back to the past, and this time I’m just another spectator. I see her beside me, and we’re watching two people, a man and a woman, crossing the pack borders in a rush. They’re both flushed and panicked, but they succeed in going over the wall and running away.

They look up to the moon, and I freeze.

It’s my mother and my father.

“She is carrying you in her womb,” the Moon Goddess points out, her voice echoing in layers. “Four full months.”

My chest constricts as I see Mom holding her belly protectively, then the vision shifts.

It’s her and my dad again, but this time I am already born. They’re playing with me in my crib, smiling at each other. My pink hand reaches up and grabs my mom’s finger, and she laughs.

But Dad’s face turns serious. “Are you sure... he won’t know?”

The question is so cryptic that I turn to the Moon Goddess in the hopes of hearing an explanation, but she doesn’t offer me any.

“I’m sure,” Mom says. “We will run away as far as possible from him. I will protect my child at all costs.”

Dad nods, but he still looks unsure; however, when he looks at the version of me in the crib, his face becomes stoic with determination. “Niccolo. His name is so fitting. He shall become the people’s champion.”

“What do they mean?” I ask the Moon Goddess, but she just waves her hand and changes the scene.

This time, we’re in the office of the pack house, the very same office I work in.

But sitting on the desk is the tyrant, Alpha Magnus.

He went down in our pack’s history as the Killer Alpha. He had dreams of expanding our territory, and for some reason he acquired great power to do so. Some kind of supernatural dark magic. He conquered the lands around Ombra Nera and burned them to the ground. That’s why they’re sacred now.

His reign only ended when I killed him as a child.

Even now, looking back at how he attacked my home and killed my parents before my very eyes, I don’t know how I was able to do it. I just remember lunging at him when he taunted me, shifting into a strange wolf form that was bigger and more dangerous than all the others, and killing him and his allies in an instant.

My wolf form remains to be a mystery even now.

In the vision, Alpha Magnus is looking at some scrolls. There are strange writings on it, things that I don’t understand. He looks up at his Beta who I also killed that night, asking, “Have you found Margaret?”

“Yes, Alpha. He is with Lazaro... and the child.”

A strange smile appears on his lips. “Perfect. We will ambush their house tonight, while it is still full moon. Then I can take that child and get my way once and for all.”

I wait for more clues, but the Moon Goddess erases the scene with her hand and takes us back to the cliff. She faces me, her eyes burning almost white.

“Why do you think he wanted to take you, Niccolo?” she asks softly. “Why do you think he wanted you?”

“Because he somehow knew that I will be different from all the rest,” I say. This was something told to me by my mother before she died. “He knew that I might take over someday and—”

“No.” The Moon Goddess steps closer to me. “Alpha Magnus took you because you are the product of his ventures into dark magic.”

My heart freezes. “What?”

“He stole power from me.” Her eyes continue to burn brighter. “He harnessed my energy to put his plans of conquering into action. He studied the blessing of my full moon, my full power. He saw that he would need a vessel, and he thought it could be his body, but it would not work. The spell works on something innocent, something inherently good. And he set his eyes on you.”

“But how?” I demand. “That can’t be possible. That’s not—”

“He realized he has to find another way,” she continues intensely, her voice getting louder and louder in my head. “He needed a body. He needed a child. He forced Margaret to be his Luna—”

“Stop.” I back away from her. “Stop, please—”

“He created a child with her.” The Moon Goddess stares into my eyes. “You are the result. The cursed child. The Killer Alpha’s only son.”