Chapter 40
Chapter 40: The Beast Beneath the Skin
(Continuing directly from Chapter 39 — a stranger's warning lingers in Selene's soul. The seal is weakening. And the one she loves may be the one she's fated to destroy…)
---
The moon was high and bloodred when they reached the gate.
It wasn't a door.
It was a wound in the earth, torn into the roots of an ancient mountain. Black vines slithered across its jagged entrance, pulsing like veins, as if the land itself was trying to heal a breach that could not be closed.
Selene stood still, her heart pounding like it was trying to escape her chest.
Valerian held her hand.
Cassian stood a few paces away, his sword already drawn.
"You're sure it's here?" Valerian asked, voice low, the scent of war thick in the air.
Selene nodded. "I can feel it… It's inside me now. The closer we get, the more it screams."
Valerian turned to face her. "If we step through that gate, we don't come back the same."
She looked up at him, her lips trembling. "I already haven't."
He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. "Then let us fall together. Or not at all."
They crossed the threshold.
---
Inside the gate, the world changed.
No longer forest. No longer time.
It was a void of shifting light and shadow, where the walls pulsed like lungs and the floor cracked with every step they took.
Selene clutched her chest.
> The voice again.
> "You are the last piece. Give in. Let go."
Valerian steadied her, but she barely felt his grip.
The Beast was close. Not just behind the door. It was in the air. In the silence. In her.
Her omega nature should have made her submit.
But Selene felt something far worse rising.
Rage.
The rage of being hunted.
The rage of being marked.
The rage of loving someone she knew she was fated to betray.
The cave shook beneath them.
Ahead, a pool of light flickered—blue fire circling a stone altar.
And lying across that altar…
Was her name.
Not etched.
Bleeding.
SELENE, carved in red across the stone.
Valerian stepped forward, but she grabbed his arm.
"No," she said. "This is where it starts."
Cassian muttered a curse. "What kind of magic is this?"
Selene stepped toward the altar and placed her hand on the name.
At once, the world screamed.
She fell to her knees as shadows poured from the walls, coiling around her, whispering truths too ancient to bear.
A figure emerged from the darkness.
The stranger again.
The First.
"You should have run," he said. "But love made you brave. Or stupid."
Valerian lunged at him, but the shadows threw him back, slamming him into the stone wall.
"Don't touch him!" Selene shouted, rising shakily to her feet.
The First tilted his head. "Then give me what I want."
Selene narrowed her eyes. "What is it you want?"
The First's voice was cold. "The Beast. Freed."
Valerian growled from the floor. "You'll kill her!"
"No," the First said. "She will kill you."
Selene's breath caught.
> That was the prophecy.
> "The Omega will bleed the King. And from his death, the gate shall shatter."
Valerian stood now, bleeding, teeth bared. "I won't let her."
But Selene was already walking forward.
The shadows obeyed her now. Whispering, beckoning.
And then she stopped.
She turned to him.
"I love you," she said. "I don't want to hurt you."
He reached for her hand. "Then don't."
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
> "One must fall. One must betray."
She kissed him.
It was the softest kiss they'd shared.
A goodbye without words.
Then she whispered something only he could hear.
And stabbed him.
Right through the chest.
---
The cave went silent.
The Beast inside the gate roared.
Valerian didn't fall. Not immediately.
He stared at her, stunned, betrayed, and then… something else.
Pride.
"You're… unlocking it," he whispered.
Selene sobbed. "I had to. I couldn't let him do it. I had to be the one."
He nodded weakly. "Then finish it… my mate."
And collapsed.
The ground cracked.
The altar exploded in light.
The gate burst open behind them, and the Beast—ancient and made of all things wrong—rose from the shadows.
Selene stood before it, shaking, blood on her hands.
Not just Valerian's blood.
Her own.
She'd wounded herself too. A mirror of his wound.
A balance.
The Beast growled.
She didn't run.
Instead, she raised her arms.
"I am Selene of the Moonblood. Omega of the Lost Prophecy. And I am not yours."
The Beast lunged.
And Selene screamed.
---
To be continued in Chapter 41…
Will Valerian survive? Has Selene just become the very thing she feared? What truth lies at the heart of the Beast, and what happens when betrayal is the price of fate?