Chapter 125 Momma
In the center of the chaotic, strobe-lit study, Fennigan couldn't take it. The political trap, the Elder Council, the need to expose the High Councilor to his army—none of it mattered anymore. His mate was dying right in front of him, consumed by the agonizing echo of Vane's atrocities.
With a feral, deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the manor, Fennigan lunged forward. He wrapped his massive arms around Leela’s waist, but pulling her away was like trying to rip a drowning woman from a whirlpool. The raw beacon stone had formed a magnetic, parasitic tether to the Elemental Stone embedded in her chest. Fennigan planted his heavy boots, growled through clenched teeth, and violently ripped her backward, physically tearing her hands away from the jagged edges of the crystal.
They crashed to the hardwood floor together, Fennigan taking the brunt of the impact as his broad back slammed against the base of the bookshelves. He immediately curled around her, shielding her body with his own.
But Leela wasn't fighting the fall; she was going completely limp. Her whole body trembled violently, her eyes rolled back and locked in a thousand-yard stare into a horrific void. She was falling into the darkness again.
Through their mate bond, Fennigan felt it instantly—a sudden, terrifying plunge into an abyss of cold, rotting earth and screaming ghosts. The necrotic magic she had just channeled was dragging her consciousness down into the graves of the children Vane had slaughtered. The darkness was swallowing her whole, pulling her away from the waking world.
"No, no, no! Leela, look at me!" Fennigan shouted, his voice cracking with raw, unadulterated panic. He grabbed her face, his large hands framing her jaw, his thumbs desperately wiping away the tears and the faint wisps of smoke curling off her collarbone.
Leela gasped, a shuddering, broken sound, but her eyes remained vacant, trapped in the spectral cages flashing around them.
"Let it go, Sparky! Drop the images!" Fennigan begged, pushing every ounce of his warm, fierce Alpha energy across their bond, fighting a desperate war against the cold void trying to claim her mind. "You are here. You are with me. Come back to me! Think of Caspian and Briar! Think of Zephyr! Do not let him drag you into the dark!"
But the horrors in the room didn't stop.
Even with Leela's physical connection broken, the spell had reached critical mass. The chandelier crystal kept spinning wildly on the desk, fueled indefinitely by the cursed blood-sigil directly under Vane's chair. The bloody iron cages, the macabre, polished bones, and the endless, horrifying screams of the murdered children kept looping. The study had become a terrifying, spectral prison of Vane's own making, projecting his sins relentlessly into the retinas of his paralyzed, horrified elite guards.
Ginny, who had been pressed flat against the far wall of the study, clutched her pregnant belly with both trembling hands. The coppery stench of open veins, the blinding flashes of necrotic light, and the agonizing wails of the ghostly children were too much for her to bear. A raw, ragged sob tore from her throat. She couldn't breathe.
She turned and bolted.
She ran blindly past Vane's frozen vanguards, practically throwing herself out of the open study doors and into the shadowed, quiet hallway.
She slammed her back against the cool plaster of the corridor, sliding down a few inches as she gasped for air. She pressed her hands tight over her ears, desperately trying to block out the sounds of Leela's piercing wails and the ghostly shrieks echoing from the room she had just fled.
But as the ringing in her ears subsided for just a fraction of a second, a new sound cut through the suffocating chaos. It was faint, muffled by the thick floors of the manor, but unmistakable to a mother's ears.
Ginny’s blood ran completely cold.
Upstairs, completely separated from the magical horror in the study, she heard the frantic, terrified cries of Caspian and Briar coming from the nursery. And they weren't just fussing. They were screaming in absolute terror.
Ginny didn't hesitate. Pushing off the cool plaster of the hallway, she hiked up her maternity shirt and sprinted up the grand staircase as fast as her own pregnant body would allow.
She burst through the door of the nursery, her heart pounding in her throat.
Caspian and Briar were wide awake. They were sitting dead center on their large, plush floor bed, their little faces red and blotchy, tears streaming down their chubby cheeks. They had no concept of the political war or the ancient magic tearing their house apart, but the primal, elemental bond tying them to their mother was screaming. They knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that she needed them.
"Momomomom!" Caspian wailed, his little fists clutching the blankets. Briar echoed him, her voice a high-pitched, desperate keen.
"Shh, shh, Auntie Ginny is here. It's okay, sweeties," Ginny gasped, dropping to her knees and scooting onto the edge of the floor bed. She reached out, trying to pull them both into her arms to soothe them.
But the twins weren't having it. They pushed against her collarbone, kicking their little legs and crying harder. They didn't want comfort. They wanted their mother.
Driven by pure adrenaline and instinct, Ginny forced herself to her feet and scooped both heavy toddlers up, balancing one on each hip. She rushed out of the nursery and hurried down the hallway. But the moment they reached the top of the grand staircase, the horrific sounds of the study drifted up to meet them.
Leela’s agonizing, piercing screams echoed up the stairwell.
Hearing their mother in such sheer agony sent the twins into a frenzy. They wailed harder, their cries turning frantic as they reached their little arms out toward the stairs, pointing down into the chaos.
Down in the study, the relentless, flashing projections of terror were doing more than just exposing High Councilor Vane. The raw, furious judgment of the Earth and the Moon Goddess was violently tearing his life essence away. Inside the glowing cage of moon-salt, Vane collapsed to his knees, his hands clawing at his chest as the stolen magic he had hoarded for centuries was ripped from his bones. He was withering into dust and hollow skin right in front of his own men.
The elite vanguard guards, completely broken by the horrific truth of the polished bones and the overwhelming, suffocating presence of divine magic, lost all will to fight. One by one,the soldiers dropped their rifles to the floor, surrendering to the Alpha of the Blackwood pack.
But Fennigan didn't care about the surrendered army. He was still on the floor, holding Leela tightly to his chest. She was still screaming, her eyes rolled back, hopelessly lost in the rotting darkness of the Whisper Wind. He couldn't pull her out.
Then, Ginny reached the open double doors.
She stood trembling on the threshold, her chest heaving, holding the two crying toddlers.
"Momma! Momomom!" Caspian and Briar shrieked, their little voices cutting through the heavy, oppressive magic of the room like a silver blade.
The sound of her babies crying hit Leela’s ears.
It was a tether stronger than the Earth Stone, stronger than the death magic, and stronger even than the Alpha bond. The desperate, terrified cries of her children pierced straight into the pitch-black void pulling her under. The fierce, unbreakable instinct of a mother roared to life, physically dragging her consciousness back to the waking world.
Leela gave a shuddering gasp. Her back arched in Fennigan’s arms, and her eyes snapped wide open, the vivid green instantly locking onto the doorway.
The screaming stopped. The searing crimson vines on her neck immediately began to cool, fading back into a bruised, exhausted purple.
"My babies," Leela breathed, her voice a fragile, broken rasp.
She was incredibly weak—her body completely drained, her skin pale, and her limbs trembling violently against Fennigan’s chest—but she was back. She had survived the dark.