Chapter 147 BLOOD UNDER MOON
AMBER’S POV
The first time I saw it, I thought I was dying. The sky was not the sky anymore. It was silver and cracked, like glass about to fall apart. I was standing in a place that felt like the in-between. Not earth, not the spirit world. Just… something else and she was there.
The Moon Goddess but she did not look like the stories. She did not glow the way elders used to say. She looked tired…faint. Like smoke that could disappear if the wind blew too hard.
“Amber,” she called my name softly.
Her voice went through me like cold water.
“I know,” I whispered before she even spoke again.
And I did know, everything.
It rushed into my head like memories that were not mine but somehow were. The night I was born. The blood, my mother screaming. The pack whispered that a hybrid would never survive the first shift.
No hybrid survives it. They always die when the wolf tries to rise.
I saw him then.
Soul.
Not the man I know now. Not the cold leader with sharp eyes and cruel plans. Younger and desperate while standing under the full moon with blood on his hands.
He was kneeling and begging.
“Please,” he said to her. “Let her live, preserve her hybrid life. I will do anything.”
Anything. I felt sick.
The Moon Goddess turned to him that night, her face calm but heavy. “A hybrid cannot hold both powers. The body will tear itself apart.”
“She must live,” Soul said. “She is needed.”
I saw my tiny body on the ground. Small and barely breathing. The wolf side is trying to rise too early. The witch’s blood was burning too hot.
I was already dying. The Goddess knelt beside me.
“I will pour my lifeforce into her,” she said quietly. “But there will be a cost.”
“I accept,” Soul answered too fast.
That was the moment, that was the trap.
She placed her glowing hand over my chest, and light moved from her into me. Not just power and life…essence. Something ancient and pure.
I breathed but as she did that, Soul moved.
He carved symbols into the ground. Old binding marks and forbidden ones. He tied her weakened state to me. Anchored her fading essence inside my body.
He used her sacrifice to cage her. My hands began to shake in the present.
“You… you are alive because of me,” I whispered.
She nodded slowly.
“I survive through you, Amber. My essence rests inside your hybrid soul. When you lived, I lived and when you grew stronger, so did I.”
“And Soul knew.”
“Yes.”
Tears burned my eyes. He did not save me out of love.
He needed a vessel strong enough to hold the Goddess. To control her, to weaken her. To stop her from interfering.
That was why I survived my first shift. I remember it now.
The pain. The way my bones felt like they were breaking from inside. The way everyone expected me to die before sunrise but I didn’t because she held me together.
Her lifeforce wrapped around both my wolf and my witch blood, forcing them into balance.
“That is why no other hybrid survives,” she said gently. “They do not have me.”
My heart pounded hard, because there were a lot of things that were going on in that moment, half of which didn’t make sense to me.
“And the mating bond?” I asked.
Her eyes darkened.
“The bond could influence you because you were divided. Wolf and witch pulling at each other. Soul hoped your confusion would make you easy to guide.”
Anger rose in my chest, hot and sharp.
“So all this time,” I said, my voice shaking, “I’ve been walking around with you inside me.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re trapped.”
“Yes.”
Silence fell between us as I felt the truth settle into my bones. Only I could free her because only I carried her.
If she died inside me, the Moon would fall silent. The balance between wolves and magic would shift and everything would crack and Soul would finally have what he wanted.
“What do I have to do?” I asked.
Her face changed then. Not weak anymore, not fading…just honest.
“You must share your lifeforce with me willingly. Not as a vessel, not as a cage but as a bridge.”
“And then?”
“I will rise fully again.”
I swallowed.
“And what will it cost me?”
She did not answer right away, that scared me more than anything.
“It will cost you one part of yourself,” she finally said.
I knew before she explained. Hybrid, two sides.
Wolf and witch.
“If I free you…” my voice broke, “I cannot stay both.”
She nodded.
“The balance inside you was forced. When my full essence awakens, your body cannot hold all three forces…one must go.”
My wolf stirred inside me at that moment, restless and afraid.
It had always been there. Even when I was confused, even when the mating bond pulled at me. My wolf was my fire, my strength and my instinct.
My pack and my teeth and my howl under the moon. If I gave that up…I would never shift again.
Never feel the forest through paws, never hear the heartbeat of the earth the way wolves do.
But if I didn’t free her? She would remain trapped. Weak and used and Soul would still have his hidden chain around her. I closed my eyes as the memories hit me fast.
Derek. The pull toward him that never felt fully mine. The way the bond sometimes clouded my anger. Softened my thoughts, twisted my choices.
Was it love? Or was it wolf instinct screaming mate?
If I lost my wolf… There would be no mating bond influence.
No pull, no forced tie. Any choice I made after that would be real.
Mine. The thought was both freeing and terrifying.
“Will I still live?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” she said. “You will be fully a witch. Powerful, whole in a different way.”
Whole… just not the same.
I opened my eyes and looked at her properly. She was fading again, the longer she stayed half-awake, the more unstable this space became.
Soul had bound her tightly.
If I walked away now, nothing would change but I would always know.
I would always feel her inside me. Trapped because I was afraid to let go.
“I’m tired of being used,” I said softly.
She did not speak.
“I’m tired of being pulled by bonds I didn’t choose. Tired of secrets, tired of Soul thinking he owns the board and we’re all just pieces.”
The air around us began to move… reacting.
“Amber,” she warned gently. “The choice must be calm. Not anger.”
I took a deep breath, not anger.
Truth.
“I choose to free you.”
The words felt heavy and real.
“How?” I asked.
She stepped closer.
“Place your hand over your heart. Call your power, all of it. Do not separate the wolf from the witch. Let them rise together one last time.”
My chest tightened.. one last time.
I did as she said. Power burned through me instantly. My wolf rose, fierce and protective. My magic followed, sharp and bright.
They clashed for a second like they always did but then I stopped fighting it. I let them blend, the pain was sharp. My body is shaking and my knees almost gave out.
“Now,” she said.
I pushed, not outwards but toward her. It felt like tearing something from my own chest. Light poured from me into her, thick and silver and alive.
She gasped, the space cracked open. The faint smoke around her form burst into real light. Strong and blinding, the tired look vanished from her face.
Her true essence woke up. It was not soft, it was ancient.
Powerful. The sky above us turned whole again and the cracks sealing, the silver deepening and then I felt it. The split, a sharp clean break inside me.
My wolf howled once, not in pain but in goodbye. Tears streamed down my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The wolf faded gently, like mist at sunrise and then there was silence.
No second heartbeat and no animal instinct humming in my veins.
Just magic and strong, clear.
Steady. I fell to my knees, breathing hard.
The Goddess stood tall now. Fully formed, eyes glowing with real moonlight.
“You have done what no one has done before,” she said.
I looked up at her.
“Am I free?” I asked.
She held my gaze.
“You are no longer bound by forced instinct. Your future choices will be yours.”
The weight of that truth settled slowly, I was no longer hybrid. I was a witch, fully.
Soul’s trap was broken. The Goddess was no longer surviving through me, she was alive on her own but as the light around us calmed, I felt something else shift in the world beyond this place.
Like a thread snapping, Soul would feel it.
He would know. I wiped my tears and stood slowly.
For the first time in my life, my power felt steady. Not divided or even confused.
Whole and whatever came nex
t… whatever choice I made about love, about war, about my future…It would finally be mine.
BROKEN MOON CHAINS