The Children Arrive

The Children Arrive
Emma's POV

The shadow creature's claws stopped inches from a child's face.

I didn't think. My body moved on instinct, throwing myself between the monster and the little girl who'd stumbled into our valley. Golden light exploded from my hands, burning the creature back through the crack in our barrier.

"Mama!" the girl cried, reaching for me with tiny hands.

My heart broke. I wasn't her mama, but I scooped her up anyway, feeling her whole body shake with terror. She couldn't have been more than five years old, with matted blonde hair and torn clothes.

"You're safe now," I whispered, even though we both knew it was a lie.

Kai killed the shadow creature with one swipe of his silver claws, then shifted back to human form. "Where did she come from?"

"I don't know, but look—" I pointed past the barrier's cracks. In the darkness beyond our valley, I saw more shapes moving. Small shapes. Children.

Dozens of them.

"They're orphans," Sarah gasped, running to my side. "From the packs Derek's hunters destroyed. They must have followed the healing magic here."

Another crack appeared in our barrier. Three more children squeezed through, crying and calling for parents who weren't coming. My healing powers flared automatically, trying to close their wounds and ease their fear.

But each healing drained me a little more. I stumbled, my vision blurring.

"Emma, stop," Kai ordered, catching me before I fell. "You're killing yourself."

"They're children," I said desperately. "I can't just let them suffer."

"You can't save them if you're dead," he shot back.

More children kept coming. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. All of them scared, hurt, and alone. The adult wolves in our valley watched with mixed expressions—some sympathetic, others calculating, a few looking downright hostile.

"We can't feed this many youngsters," Beta Carson said bluntly. "We barely have enough food for the adults."

"Then we hunt more," I snapped, my mama instincts rising fierce and protective. "These are babies, Carson. Babies who watched their families die."

"Babies who will grow into wolves," Alpha Damien pointed out. "Wolves with powers we can't predict or control. Some of them might be dangerous."

I looked at the terrified children huddling together and wanted to scream. How could anyone see them as threats?

"They're coming to me because they sense what I am," I realized suddenly. "The Moon Daughter. I'm calling them here without meaning to."

"Like a beacon," Zara said softly, kneeling beside a boy with burn scars covering half his face. "Emma, your power is drawing every orphaned pup in the territory."

"How many are we talking about?" Jake asked nervously.

The barrier cracked wider. More children poured through—fifty, sixty, seventy. Some could barely walk. Others carried younger siblings on their backs. All of them looked at me with desperate hope.

"All of them," I whispered. "Every abandoned child in werewolf territory is coming here."

The adult wolves started arguing immediately. Some wanted to send the children away. Others wanted to keep only the strongest ones. A few suggested waiting to see which children had useful powers before deciding who could stay.

Their words made me sick.

"Everyone shuts up right now," I said, my voice carrying power I didn't know I had. The silver patterns on my skin blazed bright, and suddenly every wolf in the valley went quiet. "These children stay. All of them. Anyone who has a problem with that can leave."

"Emma—" Kai started.

"No," I interrupted, standing despite my weakness. "This is what we're building here, isn't it? A place where the unwanted and abandoned can find safety? Or was that just pretty words?"

The children watched our argument with wide, fearful eyes. The youngest ones started crying, sensing the tension.

I knelt down and opened my arms. "Come here, babies. You're home now."

They rushed to me all at once, tiny bodies pressing close, seeking warmth and comfort. My healing powers activated automatically, fixing broken bones and infected wounds and traumatized hearts.

I felt my life force draining with each healing, but I couldn't stop. These children needed me.

"Emma, your nose is bleeding," Sarah said urgently.

I touched my face and my hand came away red. More blood dripped from my ears. The triple mating bond was supposed to happen in three days, but I might not last that long if I kept healing.

"Mama?" the first little girl asked, looking up at me with blue eyes that reminded me of Kai's. "Are you dying?"

"No, sweetheart," I lied, wiping the blood away. "Mama's just tired."

"All the other mamas died," another child said matter-of-factly. "The bad men killed them."

My heart shattered into a million pieces. These babies had seen horrors no child should ever witness.

"I'm not going anywhere," I promised, even though my body was literally falling apart.

Kai pulled me aside, his face twisted with pain. "Emma, you have to stop healing them. The bond ritual is in three days, but you'll die tonight if you keep this up."

"So what do I do?" I asked helplessly. "Let them suffer?"

"Let them heal naturally," he suggested. "Their bodies will recover on their own, just slower."

But before I could answer, one of the older children—a girl about thirteen—stepped forward. Her eyes were completely white, like she was in a trance.

"The Moon Daughter must choose," she said in a voice that wasn't quite her own. "Save the children now and die today, or let them suffer and live long enough for the bonding ceremony."

"That's not a choice," I protested. "That's a nightmare."

"It's prophecy," the girl continued, still in that eerie trance. "If the Moon Daughter dies before the triple bond is complete, the Shadow King will use her death to break free. He'll kill every child in this valley first, making them into shadow creatures like himself."

Ice flooded my veins. "What?"

"But if she lets them suffer for three days, some will die from their wounds," the girl went on. "The Moon Daughter must choose which children live and which ones die. That is the price of her power."

The girl collapsed, the prophecy complete. Zara caught her before she hit the ground.

I looked at the seventy-plus children surrounding me, all of them hurt, all of them needing help I couldn't give without killing myself.

"There has to be another way," I said desperately.

"There isn't," a new voice said.

Derek Shadowcrest stood at the edge of our barrier, his human disguise completely gone. In his true form, he was massive—a wolf made of living shadows with eyes like burning coals.

"Hello, Emma," my father said with a smile full of too many teeth. "I see you've finally embraced your maternal nature. How touching."

"Get away from my children," I snarled, golden light blazing around me protectively.

"Your children?" Derek laughed. "They're bait, daughter. I sent them here knowing you couldn't resist healing them. Every child you save brings you closer to death. Every child you ignore dies in agony. Either way, I win."

He gestured to the darkness behind him. Hundreds of shadow creatures waited there, hungry and patient.

"Three days," Derek said. "That's how long you have before I break through this barrier completely and turn every child in this valley into one of my servants. Unless, of course, you die first trying to save them all."

He vanished into the shadows, his laughter echoing behind him.

I looked at Kai, then at the injured children, then at my bloody hands.

Seventy-three children. Three days. One impossible choice.

And then the youngest child—a boy who couldn't have been more than three—tugged on my shirt.

"Mama," he whispered. "My sister isn't breathing."

I turned to see a little girl lying motionless on the ground, her lips already turning blue.