I can’t open my eyes. The very attempt sends lightning bolts of agony through my skull, as if someone has taken a hammer to the delicate bones behind my sockets. All I can feel is pain, an ocean of it that threatens to drown what’s left of my consciousness. So much pain wracks my body, each nerve ending screaming in protest, every muscle fiber torn and burning. It feels like I’ve been shattered into a thousand pieces, each fragment sharp enough to cut me from the inside out.
A crushing weight presses down hard on my chest, an invisible boulder that prevents even the smallest breath. My ribs feel cracked, maybe broken, and each shallow gasp is a monumental effort that leaves me dizzy and desperate. Beneath this suffocating pressure, there’s warmth as well—a gentle heat that seeps through the layers of torment, offering somethingI thought I’d lost forever. There’s comfort in that warmth, a sanctuary that my battered soul recognizes even through the haze of trauma. Safety. Such a stark juxtaposition, these conflicting feelings. They twine around each other like thorned vines, the sharp barbs of anguish intertwining with tendrils of hope, wrapping through my bones, my blood, my mind in an endless, maddening dance.
Why am I not dead? The question echoes through the hollow spaces where my thoughts used to live. I should be nothing more than ash scattered on the wind by now. I’m broken, utterly, irreparably shattered. She broke me and took everything from me, stripped away pieces of my very essence until I was nothing but an empty shell. My magic, my identity, my future, all of it ripped away with the clinical precision of a surgeon’s blade, leaving gaping wounds that will never properly heal.
A hand brushes across my forehead then, fingers trailing like whispered promises against my fevered skin. The touch was soft, cautious, reverent, like it thought I might break apart completely under even the gentlest pressure. Like I was made of spun glass and morning frost, too fragile for this world.
The touch was familiar, achingly so. Gentle in a way that made my chest constrict with something that wasn’t physical pain. Safe. I tried to follow it, tried to swim up toward that beacon of tenderness through the murky depths of my suffering. Tried to breathe it in, to let it fill the hollow spaces inside me, but pain drags me back under before I can reach the surface. It wraps around my ankles like chains, pulling me down into the abyss. Darkness pulls me under, surrounding me tight like a burial shroud, heavy and suffocating and absolute. I’m lost once more, snatched from the comfort of a touch I lost so long ago—a touch that feels like home, like safety, like everything I’ve been searching for in the endless wasteland of my existence.
“Where are you going, Esmeralda? You can’t escape. I will never grant you permission to leave. You are mine! Surrender now!” The high priestess bellowed maniacally, her eyes wild as she pushed more of her priestesses toward me. I grew up with these women, none of them gave me an ounce of acceptance. All of them treated me like I was invisible most days. I’d be damned if I felt bad about bombarding them with water.
I watched them fumble, tripping over their feet as the force of my power brought them down all around me. It was moments like this that I wished my magic was more defensive, that I could control Fire or Earth. Anything to give me an advantage. I wasn’t kickass like Micah, and it was moments like this I wished I hadn’t been so afraid at the Academy and had actually learned to fight. Hell, to get away from this place. I wouldn’t have felt bad about snatching a few souls to stop them from coming after me. I would never admit that to Ty and Trys.
I needed to get back there, back to the people who actually gave a damn about me. My family, as weird as it sounded, they were my people. Now, I had to free not only myself but the child I carried inside of me as well. I made a run for it, reaching the edge of the circle as I collided with an invisible force that sent me flying backwards.
I hit the ground with a smack, the wind knocked out of me.
I surface once more, just enough to hear fragments of conversation floating through the hazy darkness that has become my world.
“Do we even know if she’s going to wake up?” Sam’s voice cracks through the air like lightning splitting the sky, each word laced with a desperation that makes my chest tighten even in my semiconscious state. The raw fear in his tone is palpable, bleeding through the layers of fog that shroud my mind. I want desperately to sit up, to reach out and touch his face, to reassurehim that I am still here, still fighting, still breathing—but my body feels like it’s made of lead, unresponsive to every frantic command my consciousness tries to send.
“She has to wake up.” The plea that follows is barely above a whisper, but it might as well have been a shout for how it resonates through me. I can almost see him in my mind’s eye—my beautiful, broken mate pacing back and forth across whatever room they’ve placed me in, those strong hands that had held me so tenderly now pulling at his shaggy brown hair with anguish. The image of his green eyes, usually so steady and reassuring, now wild with panic, It has my insides seizing with an answering desperation. If I could move, I would throw myself into his arms right now.
“Mr. Baker,” another voice cuts through his distress like a blade, firm, commanding, unmistakably authoritative. Miss Margaret. Even in my semiconscious state, I recognize the no-nonsense tone of the woman who has served as both nurse and secret emissary during our time at HellNight Academy. The room seems to hold its breath at her intervention; the only sound is Sam’s labored breathing that serves as my lifeline to the world beyond the darkness.
“You need to be calm,” she continues, her voice carrying that particular brand of authority that comes from years of dealing with supernatural crises. “She was on death’s door when we brought her here. Her magic is not aiding in her healing the way it should, and this kind of trauma, this kind of recovery. . .it takes time. Perhaps considerable time. Maybe I should take you back with me to HellNight Academy. Esme will be fine here, and you could?—”
“I’m not leaving my mate.” The words erupt from Sam in a growl so deep, so primal, that I feel the vibration of it through whatever surface I am lying on. Even semiconscious, I recognize the telltale signs of his wolf rising to the surface, the wayhis voice drops to an inhuman register, the barely contained violence that hums beneath his words.
“I’m never leaving her again.” Each word falls like a stone cast into still water, creating ripples of meaning that wash over me in waves. “They took her. They took her from me, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop them. I failed her once.” His voice cracks again, but this time it isn’t just with fear—it’s with the weight of guilt, of self-recrimination that I know is eating him alive. “Never. Again.”
The vow in those final words feels like something tangible, something carved into the very fabric of reality itself. A line drawn in the sand, a promise sealed in blood and desperation and love so fierce it could move mountains. I want to tell him that he hasn’t failed me. That none of this is his fault, that I love him beyond reason or measure, but the darkness is already pulling me back under, swallowing their continued conversation as unconsciousness claims me once more.
“Esmeralda, daughter of Cashira, you have a choice to make, and not an easy one.” She smiled kindly, but it was not as genuine as it had been before she touched me. “It appears that Isadura made a grave error. You were banished, taken from us when you had yet to receive your gifts. You were made to feel unworthy, an outcast. For that, I am truly sorry. It’s with my solemnest regret I allow you the choice I am offering now,” she said sincerely as she beckoned me forward.
I stepped toward her, and a pool of blue light surrounded me. I panicked and tried to step out of the small circle, only to find myself imprisoned within it. Before I started to freak out, she placed her hand on the barrier. “Don’t be afraid. This is only temporary,” she said softly. I took a deep reassuring breath as I let my anxiety subside.
“I just want to go home,” I pleaded.
“Home. Yes,” she said. “Soul Tethered to a Nephilim and a fated mate. A wolf. But there’s more, Esme. You hold within you a child. Half wolf, half witch. A new tiny light inside of you. So much potential, with access to so much power.” She looked at me and I felt excitement, surprise, and shock at her confirmation of my pregnancy. “Power that no longer belongs to you.”
I startled at her words. “What do you mean?” I asked. I’m a witch. My power is mine by blood, by right of who and what I am.
“Oh, so much potential. You’ve only begun to feel the power living inside you. It’s a shame.” She paced then stopped. “Yes, the choice,” she said as if someone was talking to her and reminding her to stay on track.
“Come back to us, Esmeralda Blu.”
Time slips sideways, fracturing like broken glass against the edges of consciousness.
I don’t know how long passed before I rise again, caught between the crushing weight of sleep and something infinitely softer, more tender. Minutes? Hours? Days? The concept of time feels foreign here, meaningless in this space between waking and dreaming where pain lives and breathes.
Darkness swims behind my eyes in lazy, hypnotic waves, but I feel pressure beside me, heavy, warm, steady as a heartbeat. Fur brushes the sensitive skin down my arm, each strand soft as silk against my fevered flesh. A low, rumbling breath moves against my ribs, rising and falling in the ancient rhythm of pack comfort, of unconditional love made manifest.
Sam. He’s shifted into his wolf form. I don’t need to open my eyes to know it’s him. His scent wraps around me like a protective cocoon, earthy and familiar, tinged with the wild musk of his other half. The massive bulk of his brownwolf presses against my side, a living barrier between me and whatever darkness threatens to pull me under.
Humming, soft and melodic, drifts through the air like morning mist. The sound comes from somewhere else in the room, weaving through the space with practiced ease. A melody so achingly old it makes my chest constrict with longing, notes that seem to carry the weight of generations, of love passed down through bloodlines and whispered prayers. A sound lost to my memories, buried beneath years of separation and forced forgetting.
My mother’s voice. Cashira. Not possible. That can’t be right. My mother was forced away from me when I was barely five years old, made to leave by Isadura’s cruel decree. She’s gone. Gone. Gone. The mantra echoes in my mind like a funeral dirge, each repetition driving the knife of loss deeper into my heart.
