Chapter 16: Consequences

I kept my mouth shut as the guards escorted me through the tunnels, but alarms were blaring in my head still.

I had seen it, clear as day. The guard had lifted up his hand like he was holding a phone, muttering something about reinforcements, before he froze and realised what he was doing.

But there were definitely no phones here, neither were there any cell towers or Wi-Fi. This was supposed to be medieval werewolf land, with torches and swords and forests that stretched for miles in every direction.

So why the hell had he just acted like he was calling someone?

The safe house turned out to be less of a “safe house” and more like a “creepy storage bunker.” The guards shoved open a heavy wooden door, revealing a dark stone chamber with thick walls and no windows inside.

A single lazy fire torch sputtered on the wall, its shadows creeping eerily across the floor, doing little to take away the darkness.

“Stay here,” one of them said in a calm, even voice.

Because of the fight that I had just barely survived, I didn’t even have it in me to crack one of my usual jokes. I just watched them as they closed the door behind me, leaving me alone with the drip-drip-drip of water that was seeping down from somewhere in the ceiling.

I pressed my back to the cold wall, hugging my arms to myself, and my head spun with questions I couldn’t answer.

What if he wasn’t just acting weird? What if he really did think he had a phone? What the hell did that mean for me?

Maybe I was losing it. After all, I was sleep-deprived and traumatised. Hell, I could have already been poisoned by being so close to the purple wolf-zombie goo, so my brain could be making up anything at this point.

Except I knew what I saw.

I pulled my knees to my chest, rocking slightly. “Get a grip, Iris. You’re not Sherlock Holmes. Just be grateful that at least you’re alive.”

After what felt like forever of sitting alone in the dark with my thoughts, the door slowly creaked open.

My head snapped up to see who it was, and I’d started to brace myself for another fight before I noticed it was Maris, innocently slipping inside with a tray balanced in her arms.

On it was arranged a simple meal of bread, soup, and a jug of water with steam curling out of the bowl.

“Luna,” she whispered, setting it down gently. “They told me to bring this. You should eat.

“Thanks,” I said, grateful for some food and a friendly face. “Maris… have you noticed anything… off with the guards lately?”

She blinked at me, her dimples showing as she tilted her head. “Off? Like what?”

“Like… like maybe they do things that don’t make sense.”

Her brows knit together as she frowned. “They’re werewolves. None of them make any sense.”

Okay, fair. But not the answer I wanted.

I picked at the bread. “What if one of them acted like they had… I don’t know… some kind of… weird tool? Something that doesn’t exist here?”

Her smile faded. “I don’t understand. Why would you ask me that?”

I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “No reason. Just… curious.”

She held my gaze for a second too long, then smoothed her expression back into a polite smile. “You should eat before it gets cold.”

And then she slipped back out, closing the door with a click.

I stared at the broth like it was poisoned. Maybe it was, or maybe I was just paranoid, but my stomach growled anyway, so I ate it anyway.

The broth was good, actually, too good considering the circumstances. It was rich and spiced well, warm enough to ease the shaking in my hands, but judging by the sheer number of humans who wanted every wolf dead, including me, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that could be my last meal and they’d carry me out of here on a slab, whispering about how the “Luna” met her tragic end by choking on poison.

I shoved the bowl away before my paranoia could make me even more sick.

The door scraped open again, and for a second, my chest seized, but again, there was no danger.

Instead, wolves poured into the room. Not the werewolf soldiers I had grown used to seeing, standing tall and unbreakable, but… broken ones.

A group of betas staggered in first, blood dripping from their faces, their leathers torn. One had a makeshift bandage pressed to his side, and blood soaked through it faster than he could hold it down.

Another one limped heavily; his legs were bent at an angle that made my stomach turn. I knew their wolf blood would heal them eventually, but right now? They looked like hell.

And then came the mothers. Three of them were holding on to children who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. The kids were pale and sickly, one of them twitched violently in his mother’s arms, purple foam crusting on his lips.

The mothers huddled in the corners, crying and whispering prayers into their children’s hair. Saying soft, broken things like, Moon Goddess, please. Spare him. Spare them all and take me instead.

The warriors sat against the walls, their chests heaving as they groaned in pain, some pressing hands to each other’s wounds to keep the blood inside until their wolves caught up and healed them.

And every single one of them looked at me like I was the last candle in a pitch-black room; with relief, awe, and shame, all written across their faces.

“Luna,” one warrior rasped, bowing his head despite the blood streaming down from his jaw. “Thank the Goddess you were preserved.”

Another one clenched his fist against his chest. “Forgive us. We failed to safeguard you. We… we are not worthy.”

A murmur rippled through the room, wolves whispering their apologies, their shame and their prayers. They saw me sitting there in a stupid cloak with soup on my lap, and yet they somehow thought that I was their salvation.

And for the first time, I felt the weight of it. Of my responsibility and their expectations.

I wasn’t just some impostor girl anymore, fumbling through their world with sarcasm and half-baked survival instincts. To them, I was the Luna. I was their anchor and their hope, the one that they believed the Goddess herself had given them.

I cast my gaze down as I felt overcome by the guilt of what I’d done.

I ran away and hid, thinking only of myself while these people bled for me. I had thought of myself as a powerless, useless fraud, but to them, I was everything.

I stood up and moved without thinking, crossing over to the other side of the room to one of the werewolf mothers. I recognised one of them, Derell's wife, who screamed and reached for her husband as the purple poison took him. She cradled her small boy with shaking hands as his body trembled with violent convulsions.

“Please,” she whispered, voice cracking as she cried into my shoulder. “Please, Luna. Save him. Don’t let him leave me. He’s all I’ve got.”

My throat closed up. “I…” I wanted to say that I couldn’t possibly do that, that I didn’t know how, that I wasn’t who they thought I was, but I couldn’t. I had no words for them.

Instead, I sat down beside her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders as her whole body shook against mine, and I held her tighter, like maybe I could will some of my borrowed courage into her.

“You’re not alone,” I whispered into her hair. “He’s not alone. You hear me? He’s going to be okay.”

The lie burned on my tongue, but I said it anyway. What else did I have to give?

My hands trembled as I reached down to press my palms against the child’s chest. His skin was burning hot, and his heart raced wildly beneath my touch.

I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to any deity that would listen, even the Moon Goddess that I knew was a fictional figment of some writer's imagination.

Please. Please don’t let him die, not like this.

And then it happened. I felt a burning heat, and it wasn't coming from the fevered skin beneath my hands; it was coming from me. A rush of white light flowed down my arms, spilling into the boy like water flooding a cracked vessel.

Steadily, the boy’s convulsions slowed down, his breathing steadied, and the foam at his lips cleared as his body went slack, no longer trembling, only resting.

The mother gasped in disbelief, clutching him tighter and checking his pulse with her frantic fingers. And then she broke, finally realising that he’d been healed and sobbing harder into my shoulder, whispering her thanks to me and to the Goddess.

How the hell did I do that?!

I snatched my hands back, staring down at my open palms as though they belonged to someone else. They still tingled with the faint trails of white heat that shone brightly in my veins.

All the werewolves had seen what happened, and they were all bowing down now, one-by-one their heads pressed low to the stone floor as their voices solemnly whispered one word over and over like a prayer.

“Luna.”