I watched her intently, assuming it was some kind of chant when suddenly, her grip tightened.
Her eyes snapped open, now completely white.
Tension crackled through the room, the air shifting as if something unseen had awoken.
Panic flared in my chest as I tried to yank my hand away, but her grip was unrelenting, far stronger than it should have been.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, my voice rising as I struggled against her hold. “Nymera, what the hell are you doing to me? Stop it!”
She didn’t.
Her grip was firm, her body rigid. I thrashed harder, my heart pounding. And then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended.
With one final desperate yank, I tore my arm free. The moment our connection broke, Nymera’s eyes flickered back to normal, and the pressure in the room vanished.
She exhaled sharply, blinking as though coming out of a trance. When she finally lifted her head to look at me, her expression was one of awe. She stared, unblinking, as if seeing me for the first time.
“It can’t be…” she murmured, but I heard it.
My chest tightened. “What? What can’t be? What did you do to me?” The questions tumbled out all at once, my voice filled with panic.
Nymera took a step back, the shock still etched on her face. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she whispered like the weight of those words had stolen the air from her lungs. “He was supposed to kill you.”
A chill ran through me. My confusion must have been plain on my face, but she just kept staring at me like she was looking at a ghost.
I swallowed hard. “Who? Who tried to kill me?”
Nymera rose to her feet, pressing her fingers against her chin as she paced back and forth. “How did I not find you?” she muttered, almost to herself. “My powers have never failed me. I have never been wrong before.”
I watched her, my confusion deepening with every word. She spoke so clearly, yet none of it made any sense.
“Look,” I said, my patience was wearing thin. “I came here for answers, not for you to complicate and add to the things I didn’t understand. Just tell me what’s going on.”
She stopped pacing and looked me dead in the eye like she couldn’t believe I was really sitting here in front of her and as though my very existence defied everything she thought she knew. After a long pause, she lowered herself back to the ground, her expression grim.
“Twenty years ago, I did something terrible,” she started, her voice quiet and hollow. “Alpha Thorne paid me a visit. He wanted answers about an old prophecy, one that had been passed down for generations. It foretold the return of the Lunaris Custodes, the ones who would rise again and restore balance to the pack. But Thorne didn’t want balance. He wanted control.” She exhaled sharply, her gaze darkening. “He asked me to find them, to see if their bloodline still existed. And I did. I saw them, a group of children no older than three to six. I knew one of them carried the bloodline of the Lunaris Custodes, but there were too many to be certain. I couldn’t pinpoint who exactly. But I knew what would happen if I told him. I knew what he would do.” Her voice cracked, and she met my gaze, raw with guilt. “But I told him, anyway. I gave him the only answer I had, knowing he wouldn’t stop until they were all dead.”
A lump formed in my throat.
“Alpha Thorne didn’t hesitate. That very night, he stormed the slums, slaughtering any child who could be the one I had seen. Anyone who stood in their way was cut down. The Omegas fought back, but they were no match for the Beta soldiers.”
“The Beta-Omega war,” I murmured to myself.
I lost my parents and my brother in that war. The night the Betas stormed the slums, they cut down anyone who stood in their way: men, women, and even children. There was no mercy, no hesitation. Some hid, some ran, and some were saved.
I was one of the lucky ones.
My brother, Ryker, had saved me. I remember waking up to the sound of screaming and the acrid smell of smoke in the air. Then, hestormed into my room, took my hands, and carried me away. I didn’t understand what was happening. I only knew that the world outside was chaos.
He took me to the edge of the woods, and he hid me beneath the roots of an old oak. “Stay quiet. Don’t move until it’s safe.” Those were his last words to me. He’d gone back to help out our parents, and I never saw him again. Gina’s mother had found me crying behind the tree and tried to carry me away, but the soldiers caught us. She put up a fierce fight, managing to kill one of them while shielding me from their wrath. Despite her injuries, she got me to safety, where she’d hidden Gina, but she didn’t last long. The wounds she sustained were too severe.
“After his rampage,” Nymera continued, “he came back. And he asked me to search for you again.”
She paused, her sharp eyes sweeping over me as if trying to unravel a puzzle that had been left unsolved for decades.
“But I didn’t find you,” she admitted. “It was like you didn’t exist. No trace, no sign, nothing.” She exhaled, shaking her head. “So, I concluded that you were dead, that he had done what he set out to do. But seeing you here, now…” Her voice trailed off, a flicker of something, wonder, maybe even fear, crossing her face.
“I was wrong,” she murmured, almost to herself. Then her gaze met mine again, piercing. “Something protected you.”