“Goodbye, Luna Omega.”
I step into the dark and fall, screaming as my entire being is ripped apart, leaving me just a dried husk of who I used to be. I am less, so much less.
“The Omega Goddess of the Moon is no more,” the All-Seer’s voice intones, and it echoes across the worlds. Thrumming with grief and satisfaction. I try to hold the memory of my wolf to me, fighting to keep it, but the undoing steals everything, and he’s gone.
All that’s left is a quiet unease that something is missing.
I am dead, and now…I have to be reborn.
Chapter 62
The tears of memory
I step back from my Winter Wolf, pulling away. “Who are you? What’s your name? Tell me the truth now.”
“The Anarchy Wolf, the Alpha God of Winter,” he murmurs. “I have been wanting meet you for so long.”
I stare at him. He’s a ghost. One I desperately want to cling to, but it’s impossible. It’s always going to be impossible.
He’s really here. Panic cuts straight through me, the All-Seer’s words are loud in my mind, but everything is so confused. My memories are out of order.
“How are you here?” I plead, tears filling my eyes. “Did you fall? Please, tell me you fell.”
He slowly shakes his head. I press my fist to my mouth to stop the sob that tries to escape. I creep towards him, staring up, wanting to scream.
It’s not fair. It’s not. Why is this happening?
“You shouldn’t be here!” I murmur, swiping at my tears, but memories slam back in, sorting themselves out, and I remember the wolf in chains. “Oh, Cadel, you need to go back. You can’t stay here.”
His eyes flame, and he reaches for me again, but I step back, unwilling to let him touch me. It doesn’t matter how we feel; a god of his strength shouldn’t be here. It upsets the balance. The All-Seer’s warning comes back, louder and louder.
“There is a final way, but if the god goes to Earth and stays there, he will destabilise the world, his power leaching out, destroying everything. It’s forbidden.”
The damage he’s doing to both worlds just by being here will only get worse.
I don’t want to lose him again.
I press the back of my hand to my mouth and spin away. Flames burn my vision and through them, I spot Jarek. Memories slam into me. He’s just standing there, staring at me, his face white, eyes intense, looking far too nervous. Waiting for me to remember him. He doesn’t look like a god anymore, but I have loved this alpha in a thousand ways in a thousand lives.
“Jarek,” I whisper.
He rushes me, wrapping his arms around me so tight I don’t think he’s ever going to let me go. “I missed you, Kaida. I missed you so much.”
I sob into his shoulder but lift my head, searching for…I pull free of Jarek and throw myself at Mordecai. He catches me and lifts me off my feet, holding me close as he kisses my hair, my face, my lips.
“I’m here now. I’m here. We’re never going to leave you again,” he murmurs. “Kaida, I missed you.”
“You died!” I say in a broken whisper. “Where did you go? I woke up, and you were gone. I could feel you through the bond; it was fading. Mordecai, I tried to get to you, but it was too late. Why did you leave?” My broken, frantic questions are dismissed with each kiss he presses to my face.
I curl my fingers in his shirt, pulling us closer, refusing to let go as I search his eyes.
“I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left. I don’t know why I did, I’m so sorry.”
Jarek sniffles, and I open my arms. He rushes into them and hugs us both. The trauma, the pain of seeing them dead and dying, the lives we’ve lived and lost.
I didn’t sign up for this. It’s not fair.
“What happened?” Mordecai asks. “To you after I was gone?”
