Page 21 of The Fate of Eternity

Shaking my head, my vision blurs as noise tingles in my ears.

“Alpha?”

I shiver at his nickname for me as I try to piece together what feels different. Something does, I just can’t process it.

Swiping a hand over my face when shaking my head doesn’t work, I manage to focus on the present, but I’m still left empty-handed about what I’m feeling. Cassian takes a step toward me, but I wave him off, opting to fixate on the woman seated beside my father again.

As I watch them together, I try to remember a time when my father smiled so wide or laughed so naturally, but I fall flat. Whatever my father says has the woman giggling once more, only this time she looks our way and I catch a shift in her eyes. It’s only for a split second, but it was there.

“She’s a dragon,” I breathe, familiar with the movement in her eyes, having seen it in Kryll’s before.

“She’s beautiful,” Nora adds, and I nod in agreement.

“It seems the rest of our guests have arrived. Come on now, I’m famished,” the queen orders and we all shuffle toward the table with the same hunger vibrating through us, too.

“I’ll move,” the woman murmurs as we approach. Nora takes the seat on the other side of my father, and when the woman smiles nervously at me, I know she’s moving for my benefit.

“Oh, no, please, stay where you are. I’m good over here,” I insist, pausing her before she stands completely. A wide smile blossoms across her face as she murmurs her appreciation while my father’s megawatt smile turns my way.

Joining my guys on the other side of the table, Kryll sits the farthest away, closest to his mother, and Brody takes the spot beside him. Raiden leaves a spot, pulling the seat out and waving for me to take it as Cassian grumbles from his spot at the end.

I’m just about to mutter my thanks when my legs give out and I fall to the ground. Agony echoes in the cry that parts my lips as pain takes over my body. Every bone, every muscle, it’s all throbbing with an unbearable ache.

“What’s going on?” My father shouts from across the table, panic in his voice as the sound of chairs dragging across the floor echoes around me. I should be embarrassed, but the pain makes it impossible for me to worry about anything else but the torment rippling through my body.

“I don’t know, I—” My words cut off as another groan bursts from my lungs. My head dips, my chin pressing against my chest as my teeth grind together. Attempting to try to breathe through it does nothing, but after a few moments, it feels as though the pain is subsiding.

“Did we break her?” Brody whisper-shouts, earning a scoff from my left, but I can’t be sure if it’s Cassian or Raiden.

“Don’t be dumb, asshole,” Raiden bites when the woman’s voice cuts through the air.

“Could it be her wolf?”

My wolf? How does she know about my wolf?

Biting through the remnant ache that latches onto me like a second skin, I manage to maneuver myself so my arms are braced on my seat as I remain on my knees. I lift my head in time to see a look passing between Cassian and my father before the latter curses under his breath.

“Shit. The blood moon.” He swipes a hand through his hair, frustration pouring from him as a cold cloth is suddenly placed on my neck.

I startle when I look up to see my father’s ‘lady friend’ is the one pressing it against me. “Hi, I’m Julietta. I just want to… I don’t know what I’m doing. Helping, I think, but if I’m overstepping, just?—”

I shake my head, cutting her rambling off as I take a deep breath. “Hi, Julietta. Thank you,” I breathe, wincing as pain floods my bones again. “I’m sorry to be rude. I’m sure there’s a good conversation waiting for us, I just… what about the bloodmoon?” I ask, offering Julietta a tight smile before turning to look at Cassian.

“You’ve heard of a?—”

“Of course, I’ve heard of a blood moon,” I interrupt, irritated with my own tone and lack of composure in front of the queen, but hot damn, everything hurts. “But what does that have to do with me?”

Cassian drops to his knees, a half smile shifting on his face. “You’re a wolf, remember?”

I groan again, breathing through clenched teeth as I try to suffer through it until it once again subsides enough for me to speak. “Why does it hurt?”

“The blood moon forces wolves to shift. It reminds those who don’t always believe in their inner wolf that there’s no escaping it.”

“Are these warning pains as if I’m about to shift?” I rasp, one step away from pleading with fuck knows who to end me now and put me out of my misery.

“Basically,” Julietta murmurs, a pinched smile on her lips as I sigh.

“Great.”

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