130

130
Maeve's POV

I scream until my throat tears. I claw at my chest, terrified the glowing marks will fade, terrified the Shadow will rip them from me. “They’re mine! They’re mine! You can’t have them!”

The Shadow kneels in front of me, her eyes eclipses of fire and ash. She grips my jaw until my teeth crack.

“Little wolf… everything you love, everything you cling to—belongs to me now. You are the cage. You are the meal. And when the last of you is gone, I will wear your love like a crown.”

Through veil to the real world. I see them. Rowen clutching his face, Brinley sobbing in the dirt, Kieran shaking with fury. I feel them through the bond, raw and searing. Their guilt. Their shame. Their desperate love.
For a heartbeat, I believe it. For a heartbeat, I feel whole.

Then the Shadow twists it all. She plunges her claws into the bond, turning their love into pity, their guilt into betrayal, their voices into mockery.

I collapse, my body writhing on the floor of the cage, sobbing so hard I choke. " Please. Please don’t let it be a lie. Please don’t let them give up on me."

Stormi wheezes, her light dimming under the smoke binding her throat. “Hold on pup. They’ll save us.”

The Shadow only laughs. Her voice shakes the bars, cracks the stone.
“Let them try. You’ll be ashes before they save you.”

And the cage slams shut again.

Flashback: My old School

I’m back in the hallways of my human school.
The lockers slam shut around me like gunshots, echoing in my skull. Someone shoves my back, laughter crackling in my ears.
“Freak.”
“Loser.”
“Go crawl back to your psycho mom.”

I stumble, books scattering across the floor. The hall roars with laughter. My face burns so hot I can’t look up. I trip into class — Eric Rhyerson’s history. The words blur on the board. My head drops into my arms, heavy with exhaustion, bruises blooming on my ribs where no one can see.
When I wake, it’s to everyone in my class laughing. Panic claws through me — she’ll kill me if she finds out I fell asleep in class, she’ll kill me—

Eric is there Stern but calm. "See me after class.". His face tight with worry, his voice soft. He saw. He tried to help. I turned away, swallowed the lie. Because the truth would’ve destroyed me.

Flashback: Lucian

Lucian’s office. His face a mirror of mine.

I hated him at first. Hated the pity, hated his questions. 

He told me about my mother. How she hid me. How she lied, used him. Used her coven.

“When I was four,” I whisper into the darkness now, “I told her about the shadows. The whispers. How they made my heart hurt, made me choke. How when I felt too much, the world shook.”
She dragged me to a doctor. He handed her aconite. Told her it would “help.”

Help me not feel. Help me not see.

So I swallowed poison every day of my life without knowing for 15 years.

Flashback: Meeting Stormi

After having the aconite out of my system I felt her stiring.
My voice trembles like a dream breaking. Wait—how are you talking to me? I thought the poison killed you.
Her voice was soft " Little pup. I’ve always been here. The poison made it so we couldn’t shift, couldn’t speak. It should have killed me, but we are stronger than anyone realizes. I’ve been protecting you all along."

I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.

"I know." She presses close inside my head. " I’m okay."

Flashback: Delilah

The Shadow twists the air and suddenly I’m back in that dorm, surrounded by witches. Cloaks, smirks, cruel eyes.

“So you’re the hybrid. The joke everyone’s whispering about. A freak with no wolf, no magic. Nothing.”

Their laughter claws me raw. The memory burns until I taste blood.

I remember standing. My voice snapping: “I am not weak!”

The closet door shattered when I hurled her across the room. My power spilling, uncontrolled, beautiful.

The witches cowered. And for the first time in my life, they looked afraid of me.

The Shadow laughs low now, curling through my bones. That’s when I was born. When you realized anger felt better than fear.

Flashback: Nythera

I’m twelve again, scrubbing baseboards until my hands are raw.
Her slap knocks me sideways. Her voice spits venom: “You’re not special. You’re a freak.”

My body shakes. My mother’s eyes are glassy with whiskey.

Something inside me snapped.

The room shuddered. Frames rattled. Her face paled.

She shoved aconite down my throat until the fire died, then dragged me down to the basement and locked the door.

The memory stinks of mildew and fear. The cage presses tighter.

Flashback: First Shift

Then the moon. The courtyard. The twins, Brinley, Lucian. All of them staring at me.
Lucian’s voice thundered: “Born of two worlds. A hybrid. Let her first shift mark her destiny.”
And gods, the pain. My skin burning, my bones snapping, my scream ripping through the night.
Then light. My fur gold under the moon. Gasps. Whispers. The Golden Wolf.

They feared me. But my wolf ran. And they followed.

Brinley. Rowen. Kieran. Running with me until the forest swallowed us.

At the lake, I panicked again, unable to shift back. “I don’t know what I am,” I whimpered to them.

Brinley’s hands were gentle. “You’re not alone.”

Kieran’s wolf pressed his nose into my neck. Rowen’s paced, protective, whispering through the mind link: Beautiful.

Safe.

That’s what they promised me. That’s what I felt. But it was a lie.

WAIT -- NO IT WASNT A LIE

The memory flickers. Twists.

The Shadow slithers into it, turns Brinley’s comfort to sneers, Rowen’s growl into scorn, Kieran’s vow into pity. The gold of Stormi’s fur blackens, burning away into ash.

I claw at my chest until blood drips between my fingers. “Stop twisting them! Please—just leave me this one. Please—”

But the Shadow only smiles, her voice a razor:

“Every memory is mine now. Every truth you cling to burns darker every time you feed me. And you do feed me, Maeve. Every scream. Every fight. Every drop of power. You are mine.”
Stormi’s chains tighten. Her light flickers. She snarls, forcing the words through the suffocation:

“They chose her. They always will.”

The Shadow laughs. “Then I’ll break her until she believes otherwise.”

And I collapse to the cage floor, sobbing, whispering the last word that feels real
on my tongue.

safe...

They made me feel safe.

I touched my mate marks from the three poeple I have loved. And I realzied, I completley fucked over not just them by dragging them into this.. But Lucians school.. I brought the darkness, I channeled power when I shouldnt have.. The shadows have always been at my disposable but now I made myself into a ticking time bomb, and I just screwed over everyone in my life.. All because I wanted revenge.. Revenge for what?..

Revenge I cant even complete.. Becasue Valeriese has won. And Im out of time.