Chapter 53: On My Way

Selene’s POV

Faint sounds of someone shouting my name pulled me back. It felt like my chest was being hit by a hammer until I finally broke through the surface and vomited every drop of water from my system.

"Oh, thank the goddess." Lucian said it loudly and pulled me into a tight hug.

Almost the entire Winterwood had gathered to watch me wake. Some of them had wanted me to die, and I knew that without anyone having to say it.

I couldn’t look at their faces. Not after everything I had done ... everything Nara had done through me. But she was gone now. I felt it. I knew it the way you know when something that once lived inside you has finally died.

The rushing sound of water made it nearly impossible to hear what anyone was saying around me.

I was still wrapped in Lucian’s arms when the doctor came to check my pulse and heart rate.

"She’s still in a panic state, but there’s no sign of any parasite in her anymore," the doctor said.

I saw the smile break across Lucian’s face immediately.

I was taken home. Home ... the word I now used for the king’s chambers. I hadn’t fully gotten myself back, but I could see and understand clearly enough.

"Rest well. We’ll talk later," Lucian said before leaving me to sleep.

I tried. I couldn’t. I lay there staring at the ceiling, carrying the weight of what I had been used for. A weapon of mass destruction. That was what I had become.

An hour later, the maids came to help me bathe and change into a fresh set of clothes. Then Lucian came to officially introduce me to the whole territory.

The cheers and shouting hit me before I even stepped fully outside. Some of them started chanting.

"Selene is back! Selene is back!"

It put a smile on my face ... a real one. The first real smile in what felt like a lifetime. I held it in my chest as I turned and went back inside.

"Lucian, I want to ask you for a favour."

"Yes. What is it?"

"I want to go outside and see how much damage was caused."

He looked at me for a moment, then waved his hand. "It’s not necessary. It’s all in the past now. You’re alive."

"I still want to see it."

He had no choice. Lucian took me around Winterwood in a vehicle, two guards flanking us the entire drive.

We moved through the territory slowly. When we reached the place where I had been used to kill people, I asked them to stop. I got out and laid down against the ground, pressing myself close to the earth like I could somehow reach the souls buried beneath it and ask for their mercy.

I had done a terrible thing. Their blood was still stained into the dirt. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

They were innocent people. They were killed for nothing. It was such a senseless, careless thing, and I wished with everything in me that it hadn’t happened.

We went to the hospital next. The sight of the dead soldiers lying along the hallway floor made my stomach turn.

"I want to apologize for everything that happened here," I said to the doctors and nurses who stood before me. "It’s settled now ... it has left me ... but the guilt hasn’t. So I had to come."

"We did our job. But we appreciate you coming, Selene. Thank you," the doctor said.

When we’d seen enough, we drove back to the king’s chambers.

The last person I went to see was Tessa. She was in her room, and when the staff told her it was me who wanted to visit, she hesitated. She probably didn’t believe I was truly myself again. They had to do some convincing before she finally agreed to let me in.

I entered her room and found her still recovering.

"Tessa, I’m really sorry for everything," I said.

Even though she had been responsible for the death of my child, I hadn’t wanted her to die ... not like that. Not by my hands.

"Thank you, Selene. I didn’t expect this," she said quietly.

I smiled and left.

The reconciliation with Lucian happened inside the room, just the two of us.

We hugged the way people do when they’ve come back from something that nearly took everything.

"Selene, you’re alive and I’m so grateful. Thank you for fighting. Thank you for not giving up. I love you."

The words ran deep into my soul and soothed something I didn’t even know was still bleeding.

"I love you too, Lucian."

We kissed, and the press of his lips against mine said everything our words couldn’t. Whatever storm had tried to drown us only made whatever this was between us grow stronger.

I thought about the people of Winterwood ... how they’d feel about me going forward. Especially those whose families had been directly hurt. I didn’t walk around expecting automatic forgiveness. I knew it wasn’t that simple, and I wasn’t going to pretend it was. I could only hope to earn their trust back the same way I had earned it the first time ... slowly, honestly, through action.

The battle against Nara was over. Now came whatever the goddess had waiting for me next.

Ms. Ashlyn was still in the king’s chambers and had been asking to see me.

"Let her in," I told them.

She came in practically bursting with relief, and I cried on her shoulder the moment she wrapped her arms around me.

"I’m so happy to see you alive," she said.

"I wasn’t going anywhere," I said through the tears, voice going dry with sarcasm. "I hadn’t finished my research."

We both laughed. It felt good ... laughing like that, like I was just a person again and not a vessel for something ancient and destructive.

"I’m sorry for not telling you everything I knew," Ms. Ashlyn said when the laughter settled. "It was classified, and at the time, I had no idea Nara was inside you."

"I’m sorry too. I wasn’t a hundred percent open with you either."

"You can come to the library anytime," she said as she prepared to leave.

I couldn’t wait. I genuinely couldn’t wait to walk those aisles again and lose myself in books like none of this had ever happened.

I saw Kael last. The honourable man who never left his post ... not beside the king, and not beside me when it counted most.

"Thank you, Kael. You didn’t have to do what you did, but you did it anyway. Because of you, what Nara intended for evil was overturned."

He smiled at me. "If you had died, Winterwood would never have been the same. I’m glad you’re alive."

We embraced, and I felt it ... the genuine warmth in it. The love and care from every person I’d seen that day had filled something back up inside me that Nara had hollowed out.

Maybe that was what had given me the strength to fight her even when I’d already died and nearly didn’t come back. Because in the water, in that dark place between me and her ... the thing that finally separated us was Lucian. His love was the only light strong enough to cut through that darkness. Nara was no match for what I carried in my chest.

One full day without her in my body. I was so damn glad.

I was settling into the evening when a maid knocked and entered. "The king demands your presence in his courts."

I changed into my favourite blue gown and made my way to him.

The moment I stepped through the doors, I stopped.

Everywhere had been decorated ... flowers, blue ornaments, the entire space transformed into something that took my breath away.

What’s going on?

I moved toward Lucian, and when I reached him, he was already smiling at me in that way that made me forget how to think clearly.

He held out a flower. I took it without understanding yet. Then he went down on one knee.

I went down with him instinctively, like my body didn’t know what else to do. What is he doing? Is he begging me for something?

"I have to get straight to it," he said. "You are a special kind of light to me. Will you continue to be that light? Will you be my Luna?" He brought out a ring. "Marry me, Selene."

I felt overwhelmed.

"But you have ... Tessa is..."

"I choose you, Selene. I choose you. You made me break every rule I had built around myself when it came to love. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. What do you say?"

My heart was so full it almost hurt.

The breeder wolf. Being proposed to.

"Yes." I laughed through the emotion climbing up my throat. "Yes, I’ll marry you."

He stood and slid the ring onto my finger.

We held each other, and I let myself stay there for a long moment, just breathing him in.

"I’m going to announce this tonight," he said against my hair. "My soon-to-be Luna."

I let myself imagine it ... the battle that was still ahead of me. A breeder wolf on her way to becoming Luna. There would be people who couldn’t stomach it. There would be fights I hadn’t even begun to prepare for.

But I loved Lucian. And I had always believed that love conquers all.

I still did.