KIARRA
Darkness surrounds me as I look around for a way out of its vast blackness. I know I’m alone this time, the hollow cold etched into my skin like a sharp breeze.
I’m alone, but not for long. This is just another stupid game someone in the Underworld is playing. One I will figure a way out of and then I’ll find my mates.
They would never abandon me.
“Are you sure about that?”
I freeze as the strange male voice echoes around me. “Who’s there?”
I whip around, trying to find the source of the voice, but it’s so dark I can barely see my hand in front of my face.
Reaching out in front of me, I take a hesitant step forward. I keep moving until the voice speaks again.
“Your mates have left you here to rot.”
I don’t recognize the voice. It’s toneless, almost robotic. But it’s obviously part of this illusion. One I won’t be given in to anytime soon.
“They would never leave me.”
“Are you sure?” The voice changes, becoming more human-like, a self-assured tone layered underneath it. But no matter what way he speaks, I don’t ever need to question if my mates will leave me.
“Positive.”
His dark chuckle slithers down my back like an icy finger.
“Liar…”
I glance around looking for a flicker of light but there’s nothing but darkness. I center myself to focus on my powers, trying to pull up anything but I feel nothing. No power, no energy, just… nothing. Like my powers never existed in the first place.
“You’re never going to get out of here, and your mates will move on without you.” The voice changes again, becoming smoother, his confident tone only growing.
I freeze as a seed of doubt creeps in. I know my mates would never leave me, but what happens if I can’t get out of here. What if they’re left to wander the Underworld looking for me for the rest of their lives?
I didn’t want to be stuck here, but I didn’t want them to waste their lives looking for me either.
As soon as the thought forms, I shake it off. No, none of that will happen because I’m not going to let it. I’m not going to be stuck in this place, so worrying about it is pointless.
It’s all just a game. One I have to figure out how to play.
Before I can figure out where to start, my surroundings slightly shift, and the vast darkness lights to deep shades of gray. It’s enough to make out what’s around me. A long room that opens up in every direction with no end in sight.
Where am I?
“Someplace you’ll never escape.”
“Stop trying to get in my head. It won’t work.” Clenching my fists, I whip around trying to find the source of the voice again, but he’s not here. I look up and around before moving forward. But the layout never changes no matter how far I walk.
His dark chuckle grows louder, before his voice slides across my ear in a whisper.
“It’s already started…”
An icy chill runs down my spine at the complete surety in his tone.
But he’s wrong. He’s just trying to mess with me. Once I stay focused—
“Kiarra.”
My heart stutters to a stop, my entire body turning stiff at the sound of my mother’s voice.
I shake my head, my chest growing tight. This is just a trick. None of it is real. Stay focused. Stay—
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be alive.”
I take a shaky step back, glancing around. It’s not her. It’s not her.
“I died to protect you.” My mother’s voice breaks, and the last memory of her flashes across my mind. The sound of her screams. Her body as it lies on the floor, unmoving. Her eyes as they stare blankly ahead.
The memory plays on repeat as my mother’s voice continues to talk and shout at me. I cover my ears trying to drown out the sound, but it’s like she’s inside my head and no matter how hard I squeeze, it doesn’t stop.
Please, stop.
My mother loved me; I know she did. She gave up everything for me. This isn’t her. This is jus—
“I never really loved you.”
No. Please…
It’s not real. She’s not real. None of this is.
I repeat the words over and over until my mother’s voice disappears. Until the only sound I can hear is my racing heart and the rattle of my ragged breaths. I swallow the hard lump in my throat and push back the burn of tears threatening to spill.
Just when I think they’ve given up, another familiar voice speaks.
Alana’s.
“You were always a goal and nothing more.”
I squeeze my hands tighter over my ears, dropping to my knees as the voice changes to Kai and then Luka and Rion. To Jax and then Axel. All telling me horrible things I never thought I would hear from them.
“You will always be alone.”
“I don’t love you… I never have.”
“You’re too broken for me.”
“We’re better off without you.”
“All you bring is pain. Why don’t you just leave?”
It goes on and on until I feel each word slice through my heart, shredding it and leaving it raw.
“Stop. Stop!” I beg the voices as more and more deep-seated doubts come alive. Doubts that I thought were long gone.
But they don’t stop. They get worse and louder until their harsh words are all I can hear. All I can see and feel.
A storm of emotions swirl around me, threatening to break me from the inside out. It keeps circling me like the tail of a whirlwind, building speed and gathering more and more strength before striking me down.
Until finally it reaches its peak.
Just like the eye of a storm, everything around me stops and turns silent. So silent that I can hear the loud thump of my racing heart and the rattle of my chest as I fight in vain to calm down and take a deep breath.
But just like every storm, there’s always an aftermath of chaos in its wake.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bend my head and try to calm my turbulent thoughts. I don’t get time to push down my doubts when I hear footsteps draw closer to me.
Opening my eyes, I find a pair of black men’s shoes in front of me. I follow the line of gray trousers up to a familiar black buckle. My heart doubles in speed as my eyes move up and up to eyes so dark, they still haunt my dreams, turning them to nightmares.
Just when I think the mind games can’t get any worse, I find myself staring up at King. The chaos of my storm revealed.
LUKA
It’s dark. So dark that I’m starting to question if my eyes are even open.
“Kiarra?”
No one replies, making my heart drop. I clench my fists as they shake.
I’m sure she’s fine. She has to be.
Figure out where you are and then go find her.
I nod to myself, a plan now in my mind and away from visualizing everything bad that could have happened to her.
Moving aimlessly through the dark, I finally see a dim light and hurry toward it. The closer I get, the more I can make out a room.
It’s not until I’m only a few feet away do I recognize what room it is, stopping dead in my tracks.
It’s the room where Cillian performed all his spells on me. The place he nearly achieved splitting my soul in half, separating my shadow wolf and me forever, where torture and pain were branded across my skin. The room where my nightmares still come alive, and my shadow wolf cries out in pain.
I never thought I’d see it again, thinking that if I did, I’d burn it, leaving no trace behind.
But seeing it now, fear grips me by the throat like icy claws, making my whole body turn to stone.
The fear drags on, making my chest tighten the more I stare at the table in the middle of the room.
Not only because of how real it all feels as it drags up every sick and twisted memory like it was yesterday. But because the room isn’t vacant.
Cillian is right there with a younger me strapped to the table, tears trailing down his face, begging him to stop.
But I know he won’t. No matter how much younger me cries or screams or begs. He never stops. I try to take a step back, to get away from the nightmare in front of me when my world tilts and shifts. I blacken out for a moment and when my eyes open, I’m the one strapped down on the table, my top half bare.
No… No. No. No.
The tight rope burns against my skin as I pull against it. But just like when I was younger, it doesn’t budge. I could never escape with the spelled binds he placed on them. All I could ever do was prepare myself and try to go somewhere else in my mind.
My breathing becomes shallow as I try to make myself realize that this isn’t real. It can’t be.
This is a dream… an illusion…
But my mind doesn’t want to listen anymore. It’s gone into full panic mode as I start yanking against the burning ropes, making my skin raw in seconds.
“Don’t waste your energy. This will all be over in a minute.”
I freeze hearing his voice.
“You’re not… you’re not real.”
Cillian turns to me with a blade in his hand, a cruel smirk on his face. The same smirk he wore every time he came up with something new to strip my shadow wolf from me, finding joy in every minute of my pain.
“I’m as real as you are, boy. Don’t worry, though, I’m going to take that evil from you, even if I have to rip it out with my bare hands.”
My eyes widen in horror as he bends over me and places the blunt of the cold steel to my stomach. Once it touches my skin, a blaze of heat scorches the spot traveling inward, making it feel like my organs are fucking melting.
The agony only grows, the longer the blade touches my skin, spreading to every part of my body. I try arching away from the pain, but the binds hold me in place. Cillian pushes the blade further into my stomach, and that’s when the pain grows tenfold.
There’s no outlet for the overwhelming pain I feel, so I do the only thing I can.
I scream.
I scream so loud; my voice turns raw within minutes. I scream until my lungs burn and I can no longer grasp the air around me long enough to whisper a single plea.
I scream until my tears run dry and my eyes are as raw as my throat.
The pain drags on, just like every time before this. Hours pass, or what feels like it, until finally he pulls the blade away and steps back.
My body turns limp, weak as the aftermath of agony sticks to me like a second skin. I’m finally able to take a deep breath when I blink and I’m on my stomach, the blade carving into my back.
The pain this time is so intense, so real that it only takes seconds before I black out for a moment.
I come to, only to find myself standing on the other side of the room, finally free of the binds. I rub a hand down my stomach and around to my back, but there’s nothing there, just the old, scarred skin from long ago.
I’m about to make a run for it when my eye catches on something on the table.
No, not something… someone.
Jax.
