Knowledge

RORY

After many long seconds with nothing happening, I begin to panic.

Goddess, he can’t die. I can’t let him die.

I have the power to save people and now I can’t even save Ace. I don’t know how to control my gifts, but I had hoped it would just work.

After many minutes with nothing happening, uncontrollable tears begin to fall, rushing down my face. I squeeze my eyes tight to brush away the tears as my hands are covered in his blood.

I know I don’t know Ace all too well, but he was nice to me, I guess, in a way. But he’s also Everett’s gamma, a key member of his pack, and a good friend.

Everett would be devastated, and I would be responsible. Ace was protecting me, because of my stupidity.

He cares about me, even though it’s mostly because I’m Everett’s mate and his alpha would rip his head off if I got hurt and he could have prevented it.

But Ace is hurt, and I’m supposed to cure him, save him.

Why can’t I? When I saved Ophelia, I didn’t even realize I was doing it. It just…happened.

I open my eyes to see the area of the black veins decreasing, shrinking back into their originating hole. And then the hole closes up as if nothing happened.

My heart begins to thud like a racehorse’s hooves in its final sprint. I try to search for breath, but I find none, and it’s almost like I don’t know how to breathe anymore.

So I just claw at my neck and my chest and my body, hoping I’ll find some, somewhere.

I want to scream, and gouge out my own eyes, and rip my skin off my body from the feeling that envelops me.

My senses melt away, my vision clouding and my hearing muffled like I’m no longer living in the world.

And then my eyes close, overwhelming me with sudden darkness and plaguing my entire consciousness, whisking my life force away from my body once again.

There it is again, for the third time that I can remember. The blinding white surroundings that appear infinite and impossible, yet so real.

The branches around that green door twist constantly, tightening around its frame. And the lost souls wrap around my feet again in the form of the mist; their sullen loneliness, the vacant mist.

It’s not so much what it looks like, but what the mist feels like. It feels like a person trapped, alone, desperate for a savior.

If I’m here, that means I am a savior. I died. Not from any wound or illness, but from the feeling I got when I was at the hospital with Ophelia, when I cured her.

I died. Does that mean Ace will live?

“Aurora,” a voice whispers like before, but more prominent than the last time, more haunting, closer to me, like at the back of my neck.

“Aurora,” another one calls out, nearing me. Maybe it’s the mist. Maybe they’re voices from the mist. They must know I can leave by now and want to find a way to go with me. I don’t know.

“Aurora.” This time, the voice that calls my name is not haunting or muffled or whispered. It’s loud and clear and almost heavenly like.

And then a figure appears, a woman, cloaked in a stark black dress that wafts behind her, floating like there is a breeze here. But there isn’t.

Her skin contrasts completely with the dress, as white as snow, quite literally, perhaps as white as her background.

Her hair is ebony, matching her dress.

Her face is the personification of sadness, although she wears a delicate smile.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice strangely echoing as if I am in a large hall. But the sound travels for miles, dying out somewhere along the way of infinity.

“My name is Achlys. I’m the one who is sent to push you back through the door. We haven’t met before, but with you here so frequently, I decided that I would introduce myself. And warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“You’re in danger. You always have been. But she’s closer now. She can get you here. She can get you in rogue territory. They’re unprotected places, and they are not safe for you.”

“She? Who do you mean?”

“Her name is—” she abruptly stops when she snaps her head to the side, her bones clearly defined in her neck and collarbone as if she hasn’t eaten in years.

“You have to go. Try not to come back here, Aurora. It’s not safe for you. It will never be safe for you.”

Before I can ask her any more questions, I’m forced through the door of life once more, leaving this strange place with a little more gained knowledge but not enough.

What I do know is someone is after me, a woman. And I know Achlys. I’ll research her, and maybe I’ll find some information telling me what’s going on.

I needed something to go on, something to look for. I was getting nowhere with finding out why I am the way I am.

And I did notice the way she said, ~I am the one who is sent to push you back through the door.~

Who sent her? Is there someone else I should be wary of? Why is my life so complicated?

I had my old pack wanting rid of me, and now some other woman wants me dead too.

A woman I’m guessing even more powerful than Alpha Nick and Luna Victoria as she can get to wherever I go when I die.

I’m whacked awake, back into my body, and I shoot up from the ground. Dirt paints the back of my body, sticking like glue and molding to me.

I look beside me and see a now-conscious Ace building a fire and a comfortable space to lie down next to some trees for shelter.

I notice that it’s now pitch-black night in comparison to the relative afternoon it was when I ~died~.

“Ace?”

“You’re awake,” he exclaims, rushing to my side. His eyes are wide and questioning, searching my body and face, checking my health.

“Yes, I’m awake. Why is that surprising?” I ask him.

“I must have fallen asleep at some point and dreamed that I was shot by a hunter, and we met some rogues and it was crazy.

“Then I wake up, and you’re passed out next to me. I couldn’t even find your pulse,” he explains with frantic eyes.

He thinks it was a dream? Um…I guess that’s a good thing, right?

He doesn’t have a wound, and it was certain that he was dying. Yet now he’s alive, and has no wound.

Maybe it’s for the best that he thinks it was all a dream. In his position, it would be the most logical explanation actually.

“Yeah, um…you were carrying me through rogue territory, clearly, and we were talking, and you suggested going back to the pack.

“But it was already late and we were tired and you fell asleep. And then I must have fallen asleep.”

“We were lucky no rogues found us. But my chest was covered in blood and my hands and your hands. Do you know what happened there, because it doesn’t make sense?”

“Yes!” I abruptly say, causing him to jump a little. I have to make up some story that he’s not too weirdly forgotten.

“I got hurt on a branch, and I didn’t want to tell you because I caused too many problems already.

“And when you were carrying me, I got blood on you and my hands and then when you put me down, you noticed me bleeding but just rolled your eyes and called me clumsy.”

“Why don’t I remember that then?” he questions, narrowing his eyes. “And if you’re hurt, Alpha Everett would kill me. Let me take a look if there’s this much blood.”

Goddess, I am so bad at lying. Everett was right. Which might be a good thing.

But in my case, being in the situations I’ve gotten myself into, and my gifts, I need to be good at lying. I need to get better, somehow.

Maybe I need a teacher. Maybe I can find a book about lying.

But for now, I have to make him stop questioning it all.

“You already did. I’m just an excessive bleeder. It adds to my clumsy persona. So, there’s no need to worry,” I try to say coolly.

He scoffs then repeats, “Excessive bleeder,” like it’s the weirdest thing ever.

It happens. But I bleed as much as the next human.

Although I did bleed a lot when I got my throat slit. So much that I slipped in my own blood and face planted into it.

Looking back on it, that was incredibly embarrassing.

“It’s weird. The dream I had felt so real.”

“Did it? That’s interesting. So, can you mind-link the pack or something so we can go home?”

“It’s already done. Everett was freaking out, so he’s coming himself, and I didn’t want to move you in case something was wrong. I thought you didn’t want me mind-linking him.

“And since when did you start calling the pack home? I thought you hated it there and you think Everett doesn’t care, even though he’s running out here to get you.”

I just want him. I just want Everett. He just feels safe, he feels like home.

He’ll protect me from everything, from whoever this woman is who wants to get me. Achlys wouldn’t warn me for no reason. This woman is an immediate threat.

And I just want Everett to make me feel safe.

After seeing and feeling all those lonely, lost, trapped dead souls, it takes an effect on me. And I just need him. I need Everett.

“That’s because I’m his responsibility, and you told me because he became alpha at such a young age that he takes his responsibilities incredibly seriously, and I’m his mate, so he thinks I’m his responsibility.”

Ace nods before staring at me like I have something on my face. Shit, did I slip in his blood or something?

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am,” he answers slowly and uncertainly, but I accept it anyway.

“Aurora,” the voice of the alpha calls out behind me.