Chapter 99 What the hell..?

Chapter 99 What the hell..?

/Edlyn/

I had never heard Moon sound like that before.
She wasn’t irritated. She wasn’t warning me the way she usually did, sharp and impatient. She wasn’t even angry. She was terrified, plain and simple, and that alone was enough to make every part of my body go cold.

“Edlyn, get behind us.”

Nelson’s voice was firm, but I barely heard him. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the thing climbing out of the opening in the ground.
At first, I couldn’t even understand what I was looking at. It was too large, too dark, and its body seemed to shift every time the moonlight touched it, like it couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to hold. Four massive legs pulled it up from beneath the earth, followed by a long body covered in black scales that seemed to move beneath its own skin, restless and alive in a way that made my stomach turn.
Then its head emerged, and my stomach dropped completely.
It wasn’t a dragon. At least, not the kind we had fought before.
This creature had two enormous horns curling back from its skull, and its eyes burned with a strange silver light that didn’t belong to anything natural. Its mouth opened slowly, revealing rows of teeth far too long for anything that should exist in this world.
The warriors around us began backing away, their formation breaking apart despite Nelson’s earlier orders.

One of them whispered, “What the hell is that?”
I didn’t know. For once, even Moon had no answer to give me.
Luca stepped in front of me, his entire body coiled tight as his senses reached out, searching for something, anything, that might tell him how to fight it.
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Nelson’s claws extended, glinting in the moonlight. “Neither have I.”
The creature lifted its head, and then it looked directly at me.
Not Nelson.
Not Luca.
Me.
The moment our eyes met, something slammed into my mind with enough force to knock the breath out of me. I screamed and grabbed my head, images flooding through me faster than I could process them.
The stone chamber.
The woman who looked like me.
The witches kneeling in silent rows.
The vampires and werewolves standing together, united in a way that felt impossible.
Then another image surfaced, older, buried deeper than the rest.
A baby. Me. Lying inside a strange circle surrounded by candles, several people standing around me in a loose, watchful ring.
My mother was there. She was crying.
A man stood beside her, though I couldn’t make out his face no matter how hard I tried to focus.
“She can’t stay here,” someone said, their voice tight with urgency.
“She’s too powerful.”
My mother’s voice broke. “She’s my daughter.”
Another voice answered, colder than the first. “She’s more than that.”
The image shifted. My mother was holding me against her chest while someone reached forward and pressed a strange symbol against my forehead. I could feel her fear even through the memory, sharp and suffocating. I could hear her whispering, her voice barely holding together.
“I’m sorry, Edlyn.”
I gasped, and the vision tore itself away from me as suddenly as it had come.
I dropped to my knees, the ground cold and hard beneath me.
Nelson was at my side instantly. “Edlyn!”
I grabbed his arm, needing something to hold onto. “My mother.”
“What did you see?”
“They knew me.” My voice shook badly. “Everyone. They knew what I was before I even grew up.”
Luca crouched beside me, his hand steady against my back. “What else?”
I looked at him, my whole body still trembling from the memory. “They did something to me.”
His expression darkened, something protective and furious sparking behind his eyes. “What?”
“I don’t know.”
Before either of them could press further, the creature roared, and the sound shook the entire forest. Trees bent under the force of it, several warriors dropping to one knee as though the noise itself carried weight.
Luca stood immediately. “Everyone back!”
The creature opened its mouth, and a strange silver light began gathering inside it, growing brighter by the second.
“Move!”
Luca grabbed me. Nelson grabbed my other hand, and together they hauled me out of the way just as a blast of silver energy tore through the exact spot where we’d been standing.
The earth exploded. Trees were ripped apart at their roots. Warriors scattered in every direction, shouting orders that nobody had time to follow.
I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air from my lungs, but Nelson pulled me upright before I could even register the pain.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true.
Luca looked toward the creature, his jaw tight. “We can’t fight that thing normally.”
Nelson nodded grimly. “I know.”
“We need a strategy.”
“We don’t have time.”
The creature charged.
Nelson shifted first, his wolf tearing through his body in a blur of motion, fur replacing skin as he landed heavily on four powerful paws. Luca disappeared into the shadows a heartbeat later, vanishing like smoke.
I stood frozen for half a second before forcing myself to move, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Moon, what is that thing?”
I don’t know.
“You do know something.”
She remained silent for a long moment.
“Moon.”
It is connected to you.
My blood ran cold. “What?”
I can feel your power inside it.
I stared at the creature, horror creeping through me. “What does that mean?”
I don’t know.
For once, I believed her completely.
Nelson attacked first, his wolf launching himself at the creature’s side, claws digging deep into its scales. The creature barely reacted. It swung its tail in a single fluid motion, and Nelson flew across the clearing, crashing hard into a tree.
“Nelson!”
I started toward him without thinking.
“Stay back!”
Luca appeared above the creature, driving his claws down into its neck with brutal precision. The creature roared and shook violently, and Luca was thrown to the ground, rolling before he came to a stop.
I felt both bonds pull at the same time, twin threads of feeling tangled together inside me.
Fear.
Pain.
Anger.
Something inside me snapped.
“No.”
The word came out louder than I expected, echoing across the clearing.
The creature turned toward me.
I stepped forward, something rising inside my chest that I didn’t fully understand yet.
“No more.”
Light exploded beneath my feet.
The warriors stopped fighting. Nelson lifted his head from where he’d fallen. Luca stared at me across the clearing. Even the creature went still.
The strange glow spread across my arms, brighter than it had ever been before, and I could feel Moon inside me, and Vamp too, but there was something else underneath both of them. Something deeper. Something that didn’t feel like either of my bonded wolves.
It felt like me.
The power rose through my body until I could barely contain it, pressing against my skin like it wanted out.
“Edlyn,” Luca said carefully, like he was talking someone down from a ledge.
I didn’t answer him.
The creature took one step toward me, and the ground cracked beneath its weight.
I raised my hand.
“Stay.”
The creature stopped.
Everyone went silent.
I stared at it, hardly able to believe what I had just done.
It was listening to me.