Chapter 47: The Rise of Nara 2

SELENE’S POV

Hatred consumed me whole.

Every dark, ugly, worst feeling a person could carry ... I felt all of it at once as I ran. I was heading straight for Tessa, and it felt like I wouldn’t rest until she was dead. Nara was driving me, pulling my body like a puppet, making me do things I never would have done on my own.

The guards saw me coming.

"She has escaped!" one of them yelled, and the rest fell in line, boots pounding the ground as they gave chase.

Good luck chasing a mad person. Especially one who isn’t in her right state of mind and can fling a grown man into the air without breaking a sweat.

They rushed at me when I reached the hospital entrance, throwing themselves in my path to stop me. I hit them with every ounce of force I had. They dropped like flies ... one after another, falling into darkness before they even hit the ground.

I couldn’t hold myself back. It felt like I had taken something ... a drug, a poison, something that stripped away every rational thought and replaced it with pure, blinding rage.

In my mind, I was fighting her.

Nara, let me go. I am not your vessel.

But the words meant nothing. She had already overwhelmed me completely.

I picked up speed, moving faster than my own body should have been able to. Even Beta Kael joined the chase ... and when he got close enough to grab me, I cleared him just like the rest. One hit and he was out of the way.

I entered the hospital and stormed straight into her ward.

The nurses and doctors scrambled. They took one look at me ... this metamorphosed beast they couldn’t recognise or comprehend ... and they ran. They cleared the path themselves. Smart of them.

When I reached Tessa’s bed, my claws were already halfway formed. I wrapped them around her throat and started squeezing.

"Please ... please, don’t kill me ..." she struggled to push the words out. "I beg you ... we can work this out..."

She was running out of air fast. Her voice was barely a whisper.

And I could do nothing. The compulsion inside me was absolute.

I looked around, eyes scanning wildly through the haze. I had not come all the way to Winterwood just to get destroyed by something living inside my own skin.

Then I saw it. Anaesthesia.

I grabbed the injection with shaking hands and drove it into myself.

I remember the room going blurry. I remember Tessa coughing ... gasping ... desperately trying to pull air back into her lungs.

And then everything went black.

The light that flashed in my face nearly blinded me.

For a few seconds I couldn’t see anything clearly. Then the blur faded, and the faces in front of me came into focus.

Lucian. Kael. Ms. Ashlyn.

My goddess ... Ms. Ashlyn was standing right there in front of me.

I felt sick with shame. Being seen like this, in a state like this, by her of all people.

I tried to sit up.

That was when I felt it ... the heavy chains locked around my wrists and ankles. My hands. My legs. Both bound tight.

I had been chained like a wild animal.

I supposed I should have seen this coming the day I realised a parasite had taken up residence inside of me.

A drip had been set up beside me, liquid flowing steadily into my veins. Probably something to keep me stable and sedated.

The doctor standing nearby was speaking to Lucian and Kael in a low voice.

"This will keep her safe for now. We’ll double the dose as soon as this one expires."

Kael turned to look at me. "Selene, you’ve caused a lot of damage."

The guilt hit me like a wall.

Awful. That was the only word for what I felt. Just days ago, Lucian had confessed that he loved me. And now the beast living inside of me wanted to tear everything he had built to the ground.

Damn it all.

Lucian hadn’t said a word yet. He walked over to me slowly and pressed his hand against my cheek, then found my pulse with his fingers.

"It’s so unfortunate ... what’s happening to you," he said quietly.

I tried to speak. Nothing came out. I couldn’t even part my lips. Whatever they had put in that drip had taken my voice completely. But my hearing was sharp and clear ... I caught every word said in that room.

"This is an ancient war Selene is caught in the middle of," Ms. Ashlyn said, addressing both Lucian and Kael.

Lucian turned to face her.

"What do you mean?"

"The entity inside her is seeking revenge for something done to her centuries ago."

"How many centuries?" Kael asked.

"Two hundred years," she replied.

Lucian’s jaw tightened. "So Selene has a two-hundred-year-old wolf possessing her body? How did it even get there?"

"It chose her," Ms. Ashlyn said. "Chose her to carry out its revenge. The entity was supposed to be Luna ... but she was killed to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. Someone made sure she never got the chance."

Both Lucian and Kael went very still. Their full attention was locked on Ms. Ashlyn now.

"I don’t know exactly why Selene was the one selected," she continued, "and I don’t yet know why she attacked Tessa specifically ... that’s a question for another day. What matters now is finding a way to remove that entity from Selene’s body before it does more damage."

They both nodded.

I lay there and listened, my mind turning over every word. A question burned in the back of my thoughts ... why hadn’t Ms. Ashlyn told me any of this when we were in the library together? I had gone to her with questions. I had asked.

But I hadn’t been fully honest with her either. I hadn’t told her that Nara ... the falsely accused, dead-and-bitter wolf ... was inside of me. Maybe Ms. Ashlyn had thought I was too young, too unready to be trusted with the full truth. Whatever the reason, it was clear she knew far more than she had shared. Her voice carried the weight of someone holding something back.

"Selene doesn’t deserve to go through any of this," Lucian said.

"Alpha." Kael’s voice cut through gently. "Tessa is still critical."

"Tell the doctors to use anything and everything available to treat her," Lucian replied without hesitation. "Whatever it takes."

He turned back to Ms. Ashlyn. "How do we start looking for a solution? Where do we even begin?"

"We need the answers that were buried with the books lost years ago," she said. "We have to recover them."

Lucian didn’t waste a second. "Kael. Get a recovery team assembled. Find those books. Now."

Kael stood there a beat too long.

"What are you still doing here?" Lucian’s voice snapped like a whip. "Get moving ... mobilise the team!"

"Sorry, Alpha. I was already calling them." Kael turned and walked out with his phone pressed to his ear.

Ms. Ashlyn followed close behind, murmuring something about what she could do on her end.

The room went quiet.

Just Lucian and me.

He came and sat beside me, his hand moving gently through my hair. He pressed a kiss to my cheek ... soft, careful, like I was something breakable. I wasn’t the least convinced that Lucian loved me. Guess I was lucky to have such a person by my side.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell him everything. Every single thing that had happened to me from the very beginning. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him, how desperately I wanted to fight this ... fight Nara ... and come back to him whole.

But I couldn’t say a word.

Then I felt it again.

Something that had briefly gone quiet inside of me. Something I thought the injection had suppressed.

It stirred.

And then Nara spoke ... through my mouth, in my voice, but not me.

"Lucian." The sound that came out was wrong. Too low. Too cold. "You can’t stop me."

Lucian shot to his feet.

"That’s right. You." The voice that poured out of me was hers ... ancient and hollow with fury. "Your bloodline betrayed me. Your bloodline killed me. You cannot escape what was set in motion. You will face judgment. You will suffer every bit of what I suffered."

"Who are you?" Lucian stepped back, his eyes locked on my face with a mix of rage and horror. "Why do you want to destroy everything I have? Leave us alone."

"The war will not leave Winterwood until blood has been paid for blood," Nara hissed through me. "The sceptre of battle will remain planted in this territory ... passed down through generations ... because of the innocent blood spilled in my name."

Lucian grabbed the anaesthesia off the side table.

He drove the needle into me without flinching.

"You can’t do a damn thing, you dead bitch."

And the darkness swallowed me whole again.