I was spooked and knew that I needed to walk away before I put her life in danger.
Goddess knows it killed me inside, but I knew I was doing the right thing. Intuitively.
Just as my intuition is guiding me toward doing this.
I bow once to the council elders, all dressed in scarlet cloaks, before turning to Amos. He offers me my cloak, and I step into it while he announces that the healer from Silver Stone will be conducting the ritual since Red Moon lost our pack healer a few months ago.
She’d been out hunting with her mate when a demon struck and took her life. Her mate, Tomas, hasn’t recovered from the shock of watching his mate die in front of his eyes and living to tell the tale.
I see the emptiness in his eyes as he tends to her garden in her absence, and it’s a reminder that I did the right thing by walking away from Sophie.
“Damian!” a cheery voice rings out like an echo through the valley, prompting me to turn just in time to see my sister, Dianna, skipping over with speed. “Don’t start without me!”
Seeing Dianna racing forward brings a smile to my face, even in the midst of what I’m about to do.
I’m doing this for the pack. I’m doing this for my beta. And I’m doing this for my sister, who can’t bear seeing my best friend lying comatose in a clinic bed.
Dianna is in love with James, and while she hasn’t admitted it, I see the way she looks at the beta as if he hung the moon.
If there’s even an ounce of hope that doing this will bring him back somehow, speeding up his healing abilities through my strengthened powers, I have to give this a fighting chance.
Dianna rushes into my arms and hugs me tightly before rambling on with an excuse about being late. She’d probably been to see James first, even if she doesn’t admit it now.
“I’m glad you’re here now, sis. We’re about to begin.” I nod at Amos as Dianna steps back and joins our Uncle Joel on a flat rock. Amos signals for the Silver Stone healer, Anastasia, to step forward and take command of the ritual.
“Alpha Damian,” she greets and bows her head gently, the scroll between her hands. She pulls it open, then places it on the stone ledge in front of the fire. Next, she takes out a vial of murky green liquid from underneath the layers of her cloak, then nods at Uncle Joel, who brings forward the skull of Caius—the only part of our ancestor that wasn’t burnt to ashes, and remains a holy relic for the Red Moon Pack.
The healer turns to me then. “The ritual is as follows,” she begins, holding out the vial in front of my face. “You will shift into wolf form, and I will use this dagger to draw blood from your forelimb.” She pulls out a wooden-handled serrated dagger from beneath the layers of her cloak. “Your blood will be offered to the relic of Caius, returned to the fire to invoke the energy of the Red Moon ancestor, and your cut will be bound with poison so the truth may surface.”
I nod once, no hesitation left in me. Stepping forward, I unfasten the cloak and let it fall to the ground behind me. The night air kisses the skin of my exposed back, sharp and cold, but my wolf is already close to the surface, restless beneath my bones as if he’s waiting with bated breath, prepared for what’s to come. I’m not sure if he’s eager to find his fated mate, or if he’s just neutral about it, but I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and let go of any lingering inhibitions.
This is it. There’s no going back.
Goodbye, Sophie… is my last thought before the shift rips through me in a rush of snapping bone and surging muscle, a familiar pain that grounds me instead of frightening me. Fur ripples across my skin, my spine elongates, and my senses sharpen until the world fractures into scent and sound and instinct. I land on all fours on the packed earth, my wolf towering above the healer, creamy white fur bristling beneath the moonlight.
The fire crackles louder as if beckoning toward the blood it’s about to taste.
Anastasia steps closer, unflinching as she stands tiny in front of me. She nods, I hold up my foreleg, and she grips it firmly, reverently, and presses the serrated blade into my flesh. Hot, sharp pain blooms from the cut, but I don’t flinch. Blood wells immediately, thick and dark, dripping onto the skull placed carefully before the fire as Anastasia holds my foreleg over it.
The moment my blood touches the ivory bone, the air shifts. The fire flares higher, hungry, red and orange flames licking greedily at the skull, and Anastasia presses my wounded limb briefly into the flame. The smoke of the blood being consumed from the skull surrounds the wound, entering me as if Caius’s spirit is seeping in. The burn is immediate and vicious, searing straight through fur and muscle and into something deeper than bone. Before I can react, before my wolf can pull away, she smears the green-black waxy paste from the vial over the burn using the bloodied dagger.
Kambo.
My wolf instantly recognizes the poison when it hits my bloodstream like lightning, a foul, bitter taste on my wolf-tongue, an electric shock tearing through my bones. A raw,violent howl tears out of me, ripping straight from my chest, and it echoes across the valley, bouncing off the mountains, shaking the river itself as the water responds to me as if I’m trying to wield it. I don’t hear the elders anymore. I don’t feel the ground beneath my paws. The world collapses inward as my vision tunnels, and I feel myself moving.
I’m running. Not in the valley. Not anywhere I recognize.
Thick, suffocating mist surrounds me, swallowing sound and sight alike. My paws churn through unseen ground as panic coils tight around my ribs. I don’t know what I’m chasing, or what’s chasing me, but every instinct screams that I cannot stop. I burst through the fog suddenly and skid to a halt, and that’s when the world opens up.
A cliff stretches before me, jagged and sharp, dropping away into endless darkness. Wind howls upward from below, carrying the scent of ozone and fire and something achingly familiar.
A scent I recognize. A sweet one. Like jasmine flowers and honey dripping from every corner of the earth. She’s standing there, her silhouette unmistakably elegant as a white gown sways around her, dancing with the wind. But she’s at the edge, her back turned to me, her wavy dark hair blowing in the same direction as her dress.
She’s human. Small compared to the vastness around her, yet impossibly solid, her luscious curves attesting to Earth’s natural beauty. She hasn’t turned yet, but I already know. Every cell in my body recognizes her before my mind does.
And it’s as if that recognition prompts her to turn.
Dark curls whisper about her face, brown eyes meeting mine with a softness I’ve missed for so long.
