But darkness didn't feel like silence. It pulsed.
Something throbbed at the base of my skull, thick and molten like tar, dragging my consciousness down into something heavy and sticky and slow. My body wasn't my own. It floated and sank, jerked and twisted, even as I couldn't move.
And then I heard her voice.
"You were never supposed to survive her," the witch hissed. "And yet here you are."
My eyes snapped open.
Except, I wasn't in the circle anymore. The forest was gone. The clearing. Rowan. Aiden. Killian. All gone.
I stood in a room made entirely of mirrors, a thousand fractured versions of myself staring back. Some were familiar, me as a child, me bloodied and broken on the floor of my old pack's den, me standing over someone with claws drenched in red. Other reflections? I didn't recognize them at all.
In one, I was smiling beside a man with no face. In another, I wore a crown.
"What is this?" I rasped.
"Possibility," the witch said, appearing behind me, her voice echoing from every mirrored wall. Her face was hidden beneath a hood of midnight and stars, eyes glowing pale violet. "This is where truths are buried beneath choices not yet made."
My fists clenched. "Where am I really?"
"You're in the in-between. The space between power and ruin."
Her hand lifted, and the mirrors began to shimmer like water.
"They marked you with fire and shadow," she said, and images flickered—Aiden with blood on his hands, Killian pressing his forehead to mine in that darkened hallway, Rowan's eyes wild with something I couldn't name.
"Fate gave you to all three, but none of them were ready."
I swallowed hard. "Then why bring me here? Why now?"
"Because you are changing, Rae. And you need to see what comes next."
She waved her hand again, and the mirrors shattered, glass spinning in slow motion through the air.
I flinched. But when I looked again, the pieces weren't glass anymore. They were memories.
Not mine.
Aiden, as a boy, kneeling before a corpse, his mother's eyes vacant. A shadow looming behind him. Killian, locked in a cage, screaming, silver chains branding his skin. Rowan, being dragged away from me by soldiers in black.
I couldn't breathe.
"You see them as the ones who broke you," the witch whispered. "But the truth is, they were already broken."
Tears burned at the edges of my eyes, and I hated it. Hated that it cracked something inside me to see their pain.
"Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you need to choose what kind of Alpha you will become. The one who punishes, or the one who rebuilds."
I staggered back.
Alpha.
"I'm not—"
"You are," she said. "You just haven't claimed it yet."
Suddenly, the floor beneath me turned to ash, and I fell, spinning, screaming, tumbling into nothing.
When I slammed back into my body, it felt like every nerve had been set on fire.
I choked on a scream and sat bolt upright.
The clearing was still. Too still.
The circle had been blown apart, ash and salt scattered across the ground like bones. Rowan was nowhere to be seen.
Aiden knelt beside me, his face pale, eyes burning like twin suns. Killian stood behind him, clutching a blade I didn't recognize, his knuckles white.
"Rae," Aiden breathed. "Thank the goddess—"
"Where is she?" I rasped. "The witch. Rowan—"
"Gone," Killian said hoarsely. "The witch vanished after she touched you. And Rowan... he disappeared. Just gone."
Gone.
I tried to stand. My legs betrayed me. Aiden caught me before I fell, and for once, I didn't pull away.
Because I felt it then, something had shifted.
Inside me.
Like something ancient had cracked open.
Killian's eyes narrowed. "You're different."
I met his gaze.
"I saw her. The witch. And she showed me things, things I wasn't supposed to see."
Their faces turned grim.
"She's not just any witch," I said slowly. "She's something older. Something tied to the Moon Goddess herself."
Aiden stiffened. "Like the High Ones."
Killian hissed through his teeth. "No one's seen one of them in centuries."
I swallowed. "She said I was in the in-between. That I have to choose what kind of Alpha I'll become."
The word lingered in the air like smoke.
Alpha.
Killian blinked. "You felt it, didn't you?"
Aiden's voice dropped to a murmur. "The surge. The shift in the bond."
I pressed a hand to my chest. My mark...it ached. Burned.
"Something's not right," I said. "Rowan, he said he was my mate. But there was more. I felt something in him. Something fractured."
Aiden and Killian exchanged a long look, some silent conversation I couldn't decipher passing between them.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Aiden hesitated, but it was Killian who spoke first. "There's a prophecy."
Of course there is.
"What kind of prophecy?" I demanded.
Aiden exhaled sharply. "One that speaks of a female born of ruin, bound to three who carry death, fire, and blood in their bones. A queen with no crown. A storm wrapped in a girl."
My stomach turned to stone.
"You think that's me?"
"No," Killian said softly. "We know it's you."
The wind stirred.
And then the howl cut through the trees.
Not Rowan's.
Something colder. Lower. Ancient.
Killian's blade was instantly raised. Aiden was already shifting, his body flickering with golden light.
But I didn't move.
Because that sound, the way it vibrated against my ribs, it felt familiar.
"We're not alone," I whispered.
And that's when the trees parted.
And something stepped out that should not have still been breathing.
The color drained from Aiden's face. Killian swore.
I just stared.
Because the creature that emerged was no wolf.
It was something older than wolves.
And it had my eyes.