Darrian's POV
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The world around me dissolved into stillness.
Not silence. Not emptiness. Just… stillness. A hush that pressed against my ears like wool. The light from the clearing behind me had vanished. The ground beneath my feet was no longer soft with grass but hard, unyielding. Stone, maybe. Or something colder.
I took a breath—and regretted it.
The air here was thick. Heavy with something more than just weight. It carried the sharp scent of memory. Of regret.
Of truth.
This was the third veil.
The final trial.
I moved forward, boots echoing on the invisible surface, and the darkness stirred around me. It wasn't just night. It was reflection—mirrored shadows dancing with my thoughts. And the veil didn't hesitate to strike.
The world shimmered.
Then broke.
I stood at the center of a long corridor of glass. A thousand reflections of myself stared back at me, each one fractured slightly—like different versions of me. Some bloodied. Some snarling. Some ashamed.
"What is this?" I muttered.
The walls answered.
They shifted, peeled back—and revealed my past.
The first vision slammed into me like a fist to the chest.
I was eighteen again.
The night I rejected my first chosen mate. Not because I didn't want her. But because she wasn't strong enough. I remembered the look in her eyes—how she begged me, how she tried to prove herself. But I'd been cruel. Cold. Calculated.
"Strength over sentiment," I muttered the old mantra.
And yet it echoed now like a curse.
The scene changed.
I saw my father's death.
Not the battle itself—but what came after.
I'd taken control of the pack before his blood had cooled, hadn't even shed a tear. I'd called it efficiency. Leadership.
But the truth was, I was afraid.
Afraid to feel, because feeling made me weak. Vulnerable. Just like Heather had seemed at first.
My knees buckled, but I didn't fall.
I kept walking.
Every few steps, a new memory burst into life. Each one sharper than the last.
The time I'd turned my back on a pack member who cried out for help because helping would have meant revealing emotion.
The way I dismissed Heather when she first arrived. Her fear. Her trembling. The way she flinched from my voice. I hadn't cared—not really. I saw her wounds and marked her as broken.
But she'd still looked at me like I was worth something.
And I—gods forgive me—I used her.
The corridor narrowed. I came to a doorway at the end. Carved with words not in any language I knew, but I understood them.
Face Yourself.
I stepped through.
And met the monster.
Not metaphor.
Not illusion.
A creature stood in the space beyond, tall and shadowed, but with my face.
My eyes.
My scars.
He looked like me… if every ounce of restraint, compassion, and humanity had been ripped away.
He smiled.
"Hello, Darrian."
The monster that looked like me stepped forward, and the ground trembled beneath his feet.
He was everything I feared. Taller. Broader. Radiating power like a furnace. His black eyes gleamed with cruelty, not from darkness born—but from truth revealed. He was the version of me that embraced all the worst parts. The parts I'd buried. The parts I'd used to survive.
The parts that had nearly killed Heather.
"You can't win," he said, voice low, mocking. "You've lived your whole life suppressing weakness. Now you're here, dragging it like a chain. You want to be more? Then why are you still crawling through grief like a dog?"
My fists clenched.
"I'm not here to argue with a shadow," I growled. "I'm here to finish this."
He laughed, a low sound that chilled me to the bone.
"You really think you can defeat me? You?" He stepped closer, arms wide. "You're weak. We both know it. Your power is fractured. You gave it to her. You let yourself feel. You let yourself fall. And now, look where it got you."
I wanted to deny it.
But gods… he was right.
I had never felt more powerless than I did when Heather died in my arms. All the strength I had meant nothing then. All my war plans, all my training, my walls—it had all crumbled the moment her heart stopped beating.
My knees hit the floor.
Not because he struck me.
But because the truth did.
How was I supposed to fight this? How could I fight myself—a version of me built from everything I had relied on to survive, now weaponized into a beast I didn't recognize?
I didn't have an answer.
But I had something else.
I had her.
I remembered Heather's smile. The way her fingers had brushed mine even when she could barely lift her hand. The way she believed in me, even when I didn't deserve it.
Even when I was at my worst—she saw something worth loving.
"I don't need to be stronger than you," I said through clenched teeth. "I just need to be stronger than I was."
My darker self raised a brow.
"For her," I whispered, dragging myself to my feet. "For Heather, I'll find a way."
He roared then—no laughter now, just fury. He came at me with the force of a storm, and I barely dodged the first strike. It split the floor behind me, sent shards of stone flying. My ribs cracked from the second blow, and my vision spun. Pain danced through my spine, but I stayed upright.
He grabbed my throat.
Lifted me off the ground.
"You've always been a coward," he hissed. "Hiding behind logic. Behind strength. You don't even know how to feel without falling apart."
My vision dimmed.
My lungs screamed.
But I gritted my teeth and said the words that terrified me most.
"I do now."
With the last of my strength, I slammed my forehead into his. He stumbled back—and I dropped to the floor, gasping. He recovered too fast. But something had changed.
The room shifted.
And suddenly, he looked uncertain.
"You're starting to understand," he growled. "But it's too late. You're already broken."
"No," I said, standing taller, even if my body wanted to collapse. "I'm finally whole."
And I charged.