Natalia’s P. O. V

My heart was pounding.

With every step that took us to the Lightwood territory, my body revolted. My hands clammed up with sweat and my stomach teetered on nauseousness. By the time we were on the edge of the territory, the most primal part of me wanted to jet off back to my territory, to where I felt safe.

“Are you alright?” Kirstin asked beside me.

I nodded, “I’m fine. Let’s do this.”

I put my necklace on and she followed suit, our forms fading out of sight. I shoved my fear aside and let my muscle memory lead me. My lungs threatened me with hyperventilation, filling with scents I wanted to scrub from the face of the earth, but I forced my breathing under control, only focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

My steps came to a halt at the edge of the forest. When my eyes fell on the pack house, I nearly burst into flames.

‘I’ll go on ahead.’ Kirstin’s voice cut through the pandemonium in my head.

‘Okay’

The grass rustled softly under her feet as she pushed off her toes in a sprint. I could make out the vague shadow of her form as she scaled the side of the building and climbed in through her still open window.

All that was left was to wait.

I eased myself into a cross legged position on the grass. My unblinking gaze remained trained on the building, my very own house of horrors.

Candy stirred in the back of my mind, but said nothing in silent comfort.

I’d been hunted for sport in these woods. My blood had been soaked in the soil of these woods. I’d limped my way to freedom in the dead of the night through these woods.

It was time to make a new memory in these woods.

I waited for half an hour, before I noticed Kirstin’s light treads towards me.

‘I’m over here.’ I told her, knocking lightly on a tree next to me.

She followed the sound, feeling around till her hand brushed mine and she took a seat, ‘I did as you instructed and waited in my room till Kylie passed. When she did, I grabbed her from the hallway and used my gift to tell her to leave a note saying that she’ll be staying with her parents tonight then to walk beyond the territory in the woods and confess her biggest fear. She should be here soon.’

I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me, ‘Good work, thank you.’

‘It’s my pleasure.’ Her inner voice dripped in bitterness.

‘Are you alright?’ This was also the person her mate had rejected her for.

She paused, then said truthfully, ‘I don’t know…’

My hand found hers, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to join me?’

When I’d told her what I had planned for Kylie, she’d declined my invitation for her to join me in the final step, simply content with watching her suffer from the trees.

“I don’t want to waste energy on her when there’s Clark to deal with.” She’d spat, a dark look on her face.

‘I’m sure.’

‘Well, you can always let me know if you change your mind.’

‘Okay…’

I closed my eyes, feeling Candy’s presence within me. Fostering the connection, I brought myself to a partial shift, my nails lengthening to claws through the gloves I wore.

My eyes snapped open when Kylie’s swaying form emerged from the pack house. Her green eyes were blank as she placed one foot in front of the other like a fawn learning to walk. People looked on after her, but no one moved to stop or follow her.

She looked the same as I remembered, with the exception that she’d stopped dyeing her hair, so it fell in brown waves down her back.

Kirstin and I followed her deep into the woods. Suddenly, she jerked to a halt in the middle of a clearing, out of sight and earshot and off the territory.

Away from anyone that could help her.

Kirstin took that moment to scruffle up a tree, out of the way.

Kylie’s mouth opened in a confession, “The thing I’m most afraid of… is being seen as useless prey.”

Oh, how ironic.

Kylie’s P. O. V

I jerked, blinking away the thick haze in my head. The first thing to rush at me were the sounds. The forest around me thrummed with the rustling leaves and scampering critters and I was struck with the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be here.

The last thing I remembered was walking down the hallway on my way out of the pack house to see Harry. When I’d broken the news of my pregnancy after morning sex today, he’d said nothing, planted like a statue as he’d stared at me with empty, shocked eyes. It had taken me actually snapping my fingers in his face to get him to blink.

“Well…?” I trailed off, looking at him with hopeful eyes.

His silence unsettled me. With Kirstin gone and Brittany not around to remind him of my slip up with Callum, I thought we’d finally gotten back on track. He was the Alpha and a child meant a legacy, strength to his position.

Strength to our position.

‘Strength to your position, you mean.’ Heather muttered.

I paid her no mind. This was good news and I wanted to celebrate with my mate.

“We should celebrate.” I reached to take his arm, “Let’s think of how to tell-”

He jerked out of my grasp.

I looked up at him, my brows furrowed, “Harry?”

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He simply shook his head, wordlessly throwing his clothes on and near-running out of the room. I stared after the door he’d slammed on his way out, a bad feeling twisting my stomach.

I’d tried to catch up with him, but he’d been on his way to the work house before I could even get dressed, leaving me to stew in panic and unease at his reaction. And now I was here, in the middle of the forest, beyond our territory and any point I’d ever reached before.

I looked around at the surrounding trees, trying to find some familiarity, “How did I get here…?” I wondered out loud.

The last time I’d felt this disoriented had been from an aconine-induced trip.

I hated forests. They crawled with things that I didn’t want anywhere near me and were full of creatures hunting each other down in games of kill or be killed.

Finally, I gained my orientation enough to tell which way the territory was. I turned to walk in that direction, only to fly backwards, landing on my ass.

It felt like I’d been shoved, but I hadn’t seen anything or anyone move and the wind wasn’t strong enough to send me to the ground like that. I didn’t know what was out there, but I knew that I wasn’t alone in this forest.

And I didn’t like it one bit.

“Who’s there?” I demanded, scrambling to my feet. Staying down was dangerous.

“I’m the Luna of the Lightwood Pack!” I warned, my eyes running over every inch of space I could see as I rotated, “If you hurt me, my whole pack will hunt you down!”

My warning was answered with unsettling silence, the prior critter sounds having either ceased their songs or retreated altogether. Whatever was with me scared them enough to quiet the forest around us, leaving every hair on my body at attention and my gut screaming at me to bolt.

I needed to get back to the territory.

Carefully, I took another step, ready to break into a run if it meant getting to safety.

My foot hadn’t even touched the grass before slicing pain ran across my arm. Hot blood flowed from the slashes and I yelped, taking a step back as my hand went up to hold the bleeding arm.

My eyes were darting around again as I circled this way and that. Fear’s icy talons squeezed my heart, making the thing’s beat as erratic as my search for my assailant.

“Who are you?! What do you want from me?!” I shrieked, cursing the tremble of my voice.

My question was answered with pain raging across my back as claws I couldn’t see sliced at me. Startled and scared, I fell forward on my hands and knees, screaming at the new pain.

Tears bloomed in my eyes and my heart beat a mile a minute. My legs itched to carry me back to safety, but fear of another attack kept me planted to the ground. Whoever I was with obviously wanted me to stay off the territory and any move I made to get there put me at risk.

I was trapped.

A sob bubbled in my throat, infusing my words with desperation, “I’m a Luna! You can’t hurt me!”

“Can’t I?”

My head whipped to the direction the voice had come from, but again, I saw nothing but trees and shrubbery. I inspected the scent, finding something that smelled both Werewolf and not.

My attacker sounded like a girl. A girl that was toying with me. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The air near me moved and the voice whispered, close enough that her breath grazed my ear, “I want your fear.”

My heart stopped.

I lashed out, flailing about where the voice had been, my hands catching nothing but wind instead.

This couldn’t be happening, not after everything. I was a Luna, the mate of the Alpha and mother of the future of our pack. That had to mean something.

“Please let me go!” I sobbed, my hand hovering over my belly, “Please, you can’t do this, I’m pregnant.”

The voice laughed, her cackle echoing through the trees and sending shivers up my spine. She laughed long and hard, and with every passing second, fear, unadulterated and shrieking, made me shrink back.

“I can do this,” Her voice was full of glee, “I just have to avoid your stomach.”

Luna or not, pregnant or not, out here, beyond the reach of anything and anyone that I could possibly hope to protect me, I was powerless. I was vulnerable. I was in danger.

A sob ripped out of me.

She moved in on me, attacking me from every which way. Try as I might, I could never avoid her slashes or blows or scalding hot jabs. Every time I thought I knew where she was or where she was going to be, she caught me from an entirely different position. I might have had a chance as a wolf, but shifting would cost me my baby and we both knew it.

So, over and over again, she picked away at me till I was nothing but a battered, bleeding ball on the forest floor, with only enough strength to hiccup and weep from the pain and fear.

“You’re taking all the fun out of this, Kylie.”

My swollen eyes cracked open at my name, though one was nearly sealed shut from the bruise.

She knew my name.

I’d thought she was some malevolent spirit feeding off the fear of a lost girl in the woods, or an exceptionally strong rogue, but her knowing my name meant she knew me. Slowly, I braced against the pain and lifted my head.

“Who… are you?” I asked, my voice barely coming out in rasps.

At first, I saw more of nothing. Then a form suddenly materialised, crouching before me.

That face… The same face that I’d instinctively pulled Harry back from dancing with at the Mate Ball for fear that she would whisk him away, “You’re that Alpha…”

She smiled down at me, a dazzling thing that left me quaking, “Well, yes. But that’s not what’s important here.”

I racked my brain, searching for any instance where I may have seen her before. Coming up short, I shook my head.

“Are you sure you don’t remember, Kylie?” She grabbed my chin, her glowing eyes boring into me with a cold, hateful stare, “Take a good look.”

I was looking into the eyes of a predator.

I tried to shake my head, barely moving with her grip on my chin, “I’m sorry but I can’t- I don’t know…”

“So, this is how you sleep at night.” Her voice was bright with mock epiphany, “This is how you live with yourself after everything you’ve done, after sleeping with that mated man, after killing his mate, after having your daddy cover it up… You just forget.”

The world went still.

I hadn’t thought of the incident in years, scrubbed as it was from my memory like a bad stain. I’d been young and impulsive.

It wasn’t my fault, she’d confronted me!

Her words blended with the echoes of that woman’s pleas and screams in my head, slowly overpowered by the trill ring in my ears.

“No!” I wrenched herself from her grip, falling back and crawling backwards, away from her, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t!”

“So you didn’t kill her to keep your mom from finding out and drag her to the forest then lie about being attacked by rogues?” She taunted, stalking towards me with every inch I retreated.

How did she know? How did she know?

I shook my head viciously, eyes wild, not even registering the pain the movement caused, “No, I didn’t! I swear!”

“Yes, you did, Kylie.” She stated, inclining her head conspiratorially, “We both know the truth. You killed her just because you could.”

I snapped, “I had no choice!”

All I’d wanted was to pass the year, but she just had to go and find out about what I’d done. She would have told my mom, and who knows who else. She would have cost me everything.

She had to go.

After her mate and son had left the pack, I’d thought my secret was safe and my future secure. But someway, somehow, here it was, ready to punish me years later.

“I’m sorry.” I whimpered, tears and snot pouring in rivulets down my face anew, stinging my wounds, “I’m sorry for sleeping with a mated man, I’m sorry for killing his mate, I’m sorry for covering it up. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m doing this to you, Kylie.” She said, prowling closer and closer.

“Then why?” I wailed, my voice hoarse, “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I promised I’d destroy you, Kylie. I can’t break a promise to my bestie, can I?” She cocked her head, “Well, ex-bestie anyway, before you joined everyone else to make my life hell.”

No.

I shook my head.

She should be dead.

I needed to run. I couldn’t move an inch without pain and my head was light from blood loss and paralyzing fright, but I knew in my bones that I needed to put as much distance as physically possible between me and her.

She must have seen my thoughts written on my face because she smirked.

“Yes, Luna.” She said, practically purring, “You should run.”