Chapter 131 AFTER A HOWL

Chapter 131 AFTER A HOWL
AMBER’S POV
I wake up gasping, like I’ve been dragged out of deep water even as my chest hurts. My hands are shaking. The room is dark, quiet, too quiet, and for a few seconds I don’t know where I am. Then the smell of the old wooden walls hit me, and I remembered my room and the pack house and I realized it was in another dream again.
I sat up slowly and pressed my palm against my chest, trying to calm my breathing. My heart is racing like I’ve been running for miles, even though I haven’t moved an inch. Sweat sticks my nightshirt to my back. My hair clings to my neck.
The dream is already fading, but the feeling stays and it was one of fire and screams and blood on snow and that golden light.
“Stop,” I whisper to myself, rubbing my face. “Just stop.”
But it won’t because it never does.
Every night for the past week, it’s been the same thing. Different pieces, different faces, but the same ending. The same fear is sitting heavy in my gut when I wake up. Like something terrible is coming and I’m the only one who can feel it.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand. The floor is cold under my feet as I walk to the window and push the curtain aside. The moon hangs high in the sky, bright and full, too bright.
It was golden even as my stomach twisted because this was the first time I was seeing something like this play out.
“I hate you,” I mutter.
There’s a knock at my door, soft but firm.
“Amber?” Lila’s voice. “Are you awake?”
I hesitate, then answer, “Yeah.”
She opens the door and steps inside, holding a candle. The light flickers across her face, and her eyes soften when she looks at me.
“Another dream?” she asks quietly.
I nod because there’s no point lying.
She sighed and closed the door behind her. “You should’ve told me they were still happening.”
“I didn’t want to make it a thing,” I say. “But it is a thing and a big one.”
She sets the candle down and crosses her arms. “You look worse every morning.”
“Thanks,” I mumble.
She doesn’t smile but instead, she studied me for a long moment, then said, “You need answers.”
My stomach tightens again. “About what?”
She hesitates, and that’s how I know she already knows more than she’s told me.
“About the war,” she says. “And the Golden Moon Pack.”
The name alone makes my skin crawl.
“I don’t want pack stories,” I said quickly. “I want this to stop.”
She steps closer. “Amber… the dreams won’t stop because they’re not just dreams.”
I look at her sharply. “What does that mean?”
She lowers her voice. “It means you’re remembering things that were buried. Things no one wanted you to know.”
The candle flickers, and suddenly the room feels smaller.
“What things?” I ask.
She takes a breath. “The real reason the war started and what the Golden Moon Pack did.”
We sat at the small table by the wall. The candle burns low between us as I keep my hands clenched in my lap, like if I let go, I might fall apart.
“The war wasn’t about land,” Lila says. “Or power. That’s the lie we were told.”
I swallow. “Then what was it about?”
She looks at me carefully. “Bloodlines.”
My stomach dropped because I knew what this could mean for all of us. I had watched it play out in the past and I wasn’t sure I wanted to experience that ever again.
“The Golden Moon Pack believed certain wolves were… chosen,” she continues. “Stronger and closer to the moon. They believed others were threats just for existing.”
I shake my head. “That’s insane.”
“I know,” she says. “But belief can make people cruel.”
My mind flashes to the dream. Wolves kneeling in snow even as fire tore through houses with a child crying in the distance.
“What did they do?” I whispered.
Lila’s jaw tightens. “They wiped out entire families even as packs that refused to submit took children and marked them, they trained them or broke them and it was in moments like that that I remembered that they weren’t even humans to begin with.”
My breath catches. “Children?”
“Yes.”
I stand suddenly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “No. That’s not…this isn’t real. This is just old history meant to scare us.”
She stands too. “Amber, listen to me. The Golden Moon Pack didn’t just win the war. They erased it.”
My head spins. “Why would they do that?”
“Because if the truth ever came out,” she says, “every pack would rise against them.”
The room feels like it’s tilting.
“And you think,” I say slowly, “my dreams are about that war.”
“I think,” she says carefully, “your dreams are memories.”
I laugh, sharp and shaky. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.” She said.
I back away until my shoulders hit the wall. “You’re saying I was there?”
Her silence answers her.
“No,” I whisper. “That’s impossible, I will remember.”
“They made sure you wouldn’t,” she says. “They’re good at that.”
My chest burns. “Why tell me now?”
“Because the Golden Moon Pack is moving again,” she says. “And whatever you are… whatever you were… they’re going to want it back.”
A loud knock suddenly echoed through the pack house and it was not polite or even gentle. It came with an urgency that I knew was never going to go away until we sorted it out.
My heart jumped into my throat even as Lila’s eyes went wide. “That’s them.”
Another knock came and this time, it was harder than before.
A deep voice followed, cold and calm. “Amber,” it said. “Come outside, the Alpha wishes to see you.”
The candle went out and in the darkness, I realized the dreams were ne
ver warnings. They were a countdown.

THE SECOND ULTIMATUM