Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Five

After making love to the twins and biting each other repeatedly, I fall into a deep sleep. At first, my dream is beautiful and oddly comforting. I’m hunting in the forest with my pack, but suddenly, I feel magic exploding through my limbs.

Ice spreads underneath my paws, filling the entire forest and freezing everything in its path. I gasp when it travels towards the vampires and ends them in seconds. My Ice magic pierces them, and blood splashes everywhere. Within seconds, they are dead.

Horror grips me as I whirl around in panic when pack members, vampires and wolves alike, freeze into blocks of ice. It’s my magic, but I can’t control it. I’m not the one doing this!

“Please,” I whisper after having turned back into a human. My eyes fill with tears, and I stare down at my hands. “Make this madness stop! This shouldn’t be happening!”

But my magic doesn’t listen to me.

More and more people are dying while my magic creates a winter wonderland.

My heart pounds painfully in my chest as the killing cold spreads unstoppably. The entire forest is nearly unrecognizable – a crystalline cathedral of ice etched with shapes of frozen despair. I scream, a desperate plea to the skies, but the ice–ravaged silence swallows my words.

Trying to move forward, my bare feet slip on the frosty ground. My hands instinctively reach out to grasp onto something, anything for balance, but find only frozen forms of pack members I once knew. Their eyes stare back. at me, void of life yet pleading for mercy.

“Why can’t I control this?” I cry out helplessly, trying to resist the force that’s using me as its source. Like icy rivers, magic surges from my body, forcing its way out. Packs of wolves that were half a moment ago alive and breathing lay silent–gleaming icy statues in their final struggle against the unseen assailant.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on my shoulder. I turn to find another version of me staring back into my eyes blankly. “This is the future if you stay.”

If I stay?

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Chapter 41

I bolt upright in the hotel bed, my heart pounding fiercely against my ribcage. Cold sweat makes my white cotton sheets stick uncomfortably to my back as I try to swallow down the terror. The room is dark, but the full moon’s flickering light comes in through the cracks in the shutters, and the twins” light snoring fills the room.

I’m safe, but for how long? The other me in the dream told me I would end up freezing everyone if I stayed–was she trying to tell me to leave?

Guilt churns in my stomach. As my pack’s Luna, a lot of people depend on me. Since Eric has been a prisoner for so long while Logan hasn’t been himself, I’ve been the pillar preventing the pack from falling apart. Without me, I’m not sure the vampires and the werewolves would get along. But if I stay…

I shiver as images of my pack freezing into statues of ice hit me. That nightmare was very fucked up. But what if it wasn’t a vision of the future but just a normal nightmare? Do I really have to be worried?

My eyes land on my mates, and my heart swells with love for them. The twins and I are bound by fate and destiny itself. I couldn’t just abandon them because of one bad dream. That would be insane.

…even if the dream was terrible.

I look down at my hands, gasping, when I notice snowflakes in my palm. I stare at it in silence but stand up when I notice the rest of the room is covered in ice.

What the hell?!

I press my back against the headboard of the bed, breathing loudly until Logan and Eric lift their heads.

They blink sleepily at me, then at the room, their eyes widening as they take in the icy spectacle. “What…?” Logan begins, rubbing his eyes as though he believes it’s some sort of dream, but the cold starts to seep in and

he shivers.

“Did you do this?” Eric asks, struggling to sit up, his gaze intense on my face. I stare at him, lost for words. I look back at my own hands, now devoid of any snowflakes.

“I think so…” I manage to utter. The words taste sour in my mouth. It feels like a betrayal, an affront against my own body. My magic – my blessing – has become a curse.

There’s a long silence in the room until Eric suddenly stands up from the bed and storms over to the window, opening the curtains harshly. The moonlight spills into the room, reflecting off the ice–covered surfaces creating an eerie beautiful glow.

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The twins don’t say anything more. They just sit there and stare at me with worry etched on their faces. Their silence is more terrifying than any words they could’ve spoken because it confirms my worst fears. My magic is out of control and right now, I am a danger to everyone around me.

Suddenly overcome with an urgent need for space and air – perhaps a subconscious desire to run from this reality – I stand from the bed abruptly causing Logan to flinch slightly.

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“I need…I need some air,” I manage to say before bolting for the door. But I’m blocked by Eric’s large frame and concerned eyes as he gazes down at me.

“Or maybe you need your mates,” he murmurs before picking me up into his arms.

This time, however, he won’t win me over with his perfect face and charming red eyes. I’m a danger to my mates and won’t be cuddled into submission.

“Release me!” I growl. “Put me down!”

Eric hesitates, his gaze softening as he seems to register my panic. “Are you sure about this, Five?” he asks quietly. His voice is gentle, and his red eyes hint at fear. He knows as well as I do what’s at stake here.

“Yes. Release me!” I repeat, struggling against him futilely. “I can’t stay! Don’t you understand? All of you are in danger if I stay!”

But instead of releasing me, he tightens his grip around me as if afraid that I might disappear if he loosens his

embrace.

“You’re not a danger, Luna. You’re our mate,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes as he sits on the bed with me in his lap.

Logan takes a seat beside us, placing a comforting hand on my arm. “We’re not leaving you to face this alone,” he states firmly, “especially not when you’re this afraid.”

Their words and actions touch me deeply but they also heighten the fear I’m already feeling. My magic–or

whatever it is that’s causing this – could hurt them. Kill them even. The memory of the nightmare crashes over

me like a furious wave once again.

The icy statues… The cold… The guilt…

“I need to figure this out,” I insist, feeling weak under their steady gazes full of concern and love, which only fuels

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my determination to protect them from myself. “I need some time alone.”

Eric and Logan exchange glances and I use that moment of weakness against them. I shape–shift into my wolf form in Eric’s lap, forcing him to let go of me. He swears in confusion, but I’m already darting for the door.

I need to be alone!

Without a care in the world of being seen, I run down the stairs. It’s late, so I don’t run into any other hotel guests, but the woman in the lobby gasps when she sees me L.!ting for the doors.

“A wolf?!”

If I hadn’t been so set on escaping, I would have laughed at the panic in her voice. But I’m on a mission. I run through the doors out into the street.

I’m convinced I’m making the right choice…until something jumps out from the shadows. It smells like a… rogue? Panic settles in my chest, but before I can attack, something hard hits me in the head–a frying pan?

I lose my balance and fall to the ground. I’m not weak enough to stay there and try to call for my magic, but a second hit to the head, and I’m out cold. My consciousness is slipping away, but the last thing I hear is, “Great work, Ada. Now that we have captured the Wintercrest pack’s Luna, we can finally harvest her powers…that is if the rumors are true and a numbered werewolf has magical powers.”

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