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CHAPTER 399
~Valerie's POV~
Darkness swallowed everything surrounding me. It wasn't the empty kind, but the kind that seemed alive..
I was eight again, standing in the forest clearing of my family's mansion, the night air cold enough to burn.
My little hands trembled as I clutched the torn edge of my mother's dress. Her moonflowers and rain scent still clung to my fingers.
"Stay behind me, sweetheart," she whispered.
I remembered this night. The night everything broke.
The shadows moved first. A vicious growl shredded the silence.
My father shifted in front of us, his wolf form huge and white under the moonlight. He snarled at the figures slipping between the trees.
Dark cloaks, red eyes. Smirks that promised only one thing… Death.
My mother screamed my name. I turned too late.
A burst of unnatural flames, witch-born, hit her square in the chest. Her body arched, then collapsed into the leaves, her hair fanned like a silver halo around her.
