Chapter 158: Shadowblood

“You’re sure she went this way?”

Dani’s voice sliced through the trees, blade drawn, breath steady. She wasn’t scared yet.

Lyla crouched low, fingers brushing the moss. The trail was faint, but the energy burned cold.

“Yeah. She’s trying to stay hidden, but this place… she doesn’t know it like I do.”

Eli was just behind her, silent as always, but his presence was a roar in her chest.

Mason flanked the left, muttering, “This feels like a trap.”

“It is,” Jonas said from the rear. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t spring it.”

The pack moved like one unit tight, silent, deadly. The forest was denser here. The trees darker. They’d crossed into Ridge burial ground territory long abandoned, cursed by blood magic and bone.

But Lyla could feel it: the pull.

She was close.

Not to her enemy.

To herself.

Thirty minutes in, the team reached a clearing.

The trees parted like the forest was holding its breath.

A stone altar stood in the center cracked and bloodstained. Symbols Lyla recognized from her mother’s old notes were carved deep into the surface.

The mark of duality.

A wolf split down the middle.

One side silver. One side pitch black.

“I’ve seen this in my dreams,” Lyla whispered.

Jonas frowned. “So this is real?”

Lyla stepped closer. “No… it’s worse.”

The trap sprung.

Too late.

The fog rolled in fast, thick, unnatural.

Dani vanished in the mist.

Then Mason.

Lyla’s heart raced. “Don’t scatter!”

Too late.

Figures moved through the fog slow, deliberate. Dressed like Ridge wolves but corrupted beyond recognition. Their faces were covered with bone masks, claws dripping with silver and blood.

Then a voice.

Her voice.

“Do you see now, Lyla? This is what you were too weak to become.”

A shadow stepped into the light.

Same hair. Same eyes. Same face.

But her smile?

That was all monster.

Lyla didn’t hesitate.

She lunged forward, blade out aiming for the throat.

Her twin blocked her like she’d been trained by the same hand.

Because she had.

Claws clashed with steel.

The air rippled with power.

“Nice to meet me,” the twin said with a laugh, spinning around Lyla and landing a slash across her back.

Lyla grunted, twisting to return the blow but it wasn’t fast enough.

Eli exploded from the fog, eyes blazing. “Get away from her!”

Shadow-Lyla grinned. “I was hoping you’d come.”

The fight escalated.

Jonas emerged with Dani both bloodied, but standing.

Mason held off three bone-masked wolves at once.

But the center of the storm?

Lyla and her mirror.

Identical. Deadly. Furious.

“You’re not me,” Lyla hissed, blades glowing with silver flame.

“No,” her twin agreed, teeth bared. “I’m the version our mother wanted.”

“Then she was just as blind as you.”

Their clash sent out a shockwave that flattened the grass around them.

And then the betrayal hit.

A scream sharp and sudden.

Everyone turned.

Eli was on his knees.

Blood running from his side.

Behind him… Jonas.

Holding a blood-stained blade.

Lyla froze. “What…?”

Jonas’s eyes gleamed, not with guilt but power. “You’re always looking for the traitor in the wrong place.”

Dani shouted, “Jonas?! What the hell are you ”

“I wasn’t meant to serve you, Lyla,” he said calmly. “I was born to serve her.”

Shadow-Lyla grinned.

“Good boy.”

The moment shattered Lyla.

Not because of the betrayal.

But because she’d felt it coming.

And ignored it.

She’d believed in him. Trusted her blood.

Now Eli was dying. Her twin was ascending.

And the Blood Moon was only two nights away.

Lyla screamed a raw, furious sound.

And then?

She snapped.

Magic erupted around her like a wildfire. Silver turned violet. Her blade shattered. Her hands became claws.

Her twin stepped back, surprised. “Oh… you’re waking up, aren’t you?”

Lyla’s voice was a growl. “You hurt the wrong person.”

She leapt and this time, she didn’t miss.

Lyla’s claws slashed across her twin’s chest, silver light crackling at the impact point. The Shadow-Lyla stumbled back, a twisted grin bleeding across her face.

“Finally,” she hissed. “You’re waking up.”

Lyla didn’t answer. She was done talking.

The next strike came fast, unrelenting. Her movements weren’t just furious; they were something else entirely. Her power had changed. Grown. The silver magic flickered violet and wild, unstable.

Her twin moved to dodge, but Lyla was already behind her, whispering in her ear, “You’ll never be me.”

She drove her elbow into the twin’s spine, knocking her flat.

Before she could follow up

A cry.

Eli.

Lyla spun around just in time to see him collapse, blood pouring from his side.

Her heart seized. “Eli!”

She rushed to him, sliding beside him in a blur.

“Stay with me,” she whispered, cradling his head.

Eli’s lips curled in a half-smile, bloodied. “Still got some fight left.”

Lyla’s rage surged again hot, suffocating.

Behind her, Jonas stood over them, blade red, eyes empty.

“You were never meant to lead,” he said coldly.

Lyla snarled. “You think she’ll let you rule?”

Jonas didn’t blink. “I don’t want to rule. I want to destroy. That was the deal.”

Shadow-Lyla stepped forward, smirking. “And he’s keeping his end perfectly.”

Lyla rose slowly, her eyes blazing. The ground beneath her cracked.

Magic swirled around her, not just silver, not just violet. Something darker.

Her twin frowned. “What… is that?”

Lyla didn’t answer. She just stepped forward.

And then

The sky cracked.

A blood-red slash split the clouds above.

The Blood Moon had begun to rise. Two days early.

Jonas smirked. “Looks like the forest chose a side.”

Lyla’s power surged, and the air turned electric.

She screamed and the world answered.

The scream that tore from Lyla’s throat wasn’t just fury.

It was awakening.

The ground shivered beneath her feet. Cracks laced through the altar stones. Magic pure and wild exploded outward in a shockwave of violet and obsidian flame.

Shadow-Lyla recoiled, shielding her face as the surge ripped through the clearing. Even the trees bent backward, like the forest itself was bowing to the storm.

Jonas stumbled back, stunned. “What, what did you do?”

Lyla’s eyes burned no longer silver. No longer forest-bound.

But something older. Deeper.

Three rings of light spun inside each iris silver, violet, and black.

“I didn’t do anything,” she growled. “She did.”

She pointed behind Jonas.

Everyone turned.

And out of the shattered fog, a third figure emerged.

Cloaked in shadow. Barefoot. Dripping with black liquid that steamed off her skin.

No face. No voice.

But unmistakable in aura.

Lyla gasped. “The Third Bond.”

Shadow-Lyla’s grin faltered.

Even Jonas took a step back.

Because this one?

She wasn’t forest.

She wasn’t shadow.

She was the missing piece.

The one neither Elaine nor fate had planned for.

And she had come to collect.