The forest's stillness was all-consuming, and the air smelled of pine and dirt. Cassandra sat cross-legged, her fingertips gently resting on the chilly stone under her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and meditated once more, hoping for the unusual calm to balance the turmoil in her head—the storm of unending visions.
Then it arrived.
A sudden and unmistakable jolt broke her focus. Her body tightened as the scene unfolded before her, clear and vivid as though it were reality.
A Burning Kingdom. The roar of sizzling flames. Wolves caught in conflict scream desperately, their blood coating the ground below. The location was terrible. There was no escape or salvation from the great devastation all around.
But the figure at the center of the carnage drew her attention most: a wolf encircled by smoke and pandemonium. His eyes were bright, and his hair was black. She was familiar with him.
Damon.
Breath squeezed her throat. Though it caused a loud outcry, the very utterance of his name was as quiet as a whisper in her head. Haunting and inescapable, his presence broke her heart.
His eyes found hers through the smoke, a quiet knowledge between them, a relationship that should never have been. The heat of the flames pushed for her, but she couldn't look away, not from him.
No!
Suddenly, a searing agony ran through her. The flames seemed to have jumped from her sight and adhered to her skin. She gasped, struggling to breathe, her skin burning with the same intensity she saw before her.
Her hands shook, fighting to distance herself from the searing heat. It only became stronger, though. A roar rang out in the distance, but not from the fire.
She blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the illusion, but!
No, it's real. It is real!
Cassandra opened her eyes, but the sight remained. Instead, it turned into something sinister. A figure lunged at her too fast from the shadows, the air thick with hatred.
A rogue wolf approached them; its eyes sparkled with rage.
Focus! Focus! Cassandra yelled at herself.
She got to her feet, but the world around her kept spinning. The rogue's claws raked across her arm, bringing her attention back to reality, yet it felt as though the two worlds were mingling. Everything was a whirlwind, a haze, so she attempted to summon her power to reject it.
The rogue wolf hit again with a cry; an unarguable force yanked the wolf away before Cassandra could even scream. Breathless, wide-eyed, heart racing, the vision disappeared.
Cassandra stumbled backward, breathing in short spurts as her heart raced. She was no longer in the wooded clearing. She was in the real world, the chilly air stinging at her unprotected flesh, yet the memory of the burning Kingdom still clung to her like smoke in her lungs.
She scrambled to her feet, her vision still swimming. The rogue wolf's angry growls pierced the mists of her consciousness and dragged her into the now. Its teeth bared, and it rushed once more; the rage in its eyes was not from the vision but from something far darker.
The vision was not merely a dream. It was real.
The rogue's claws slashed the ground under her, driving her into a fight-or-flight reflex she hadn't known she still possessed, causing her heart to skip a beat. Trying to concentrate and control the wave of strength, she lifted her hands, fingers quaking. The strength, however, was disobeyed. It battled back and turned, and she found it difficult to control.
Damn it! Thoughts made her chest tighten with panic. Why now?
The rogue wolf's teeth snapped at her but didn't reach their target, not at all. Instead, she experienced a wave of warmth—an intense, clear energy. Suddenly, the rogue wolf was hurled into the trees, landing with a nauseating thud. Cassandra stumbled, her pulse pounding in disbelief.
Who is this?
A shadow glided through the trees. A towering, strong figure with the outline of a man and golden eyes, capturing the fading light, appeared. Stepping forward, the man nonchalantly stood over the rogue, his presence overpowering.
"Are you all right?" His voice was low, gravelly, and familiar enough to send shivers down her spine.
Cassandra's lips grew parched. She knew him, but she couldn't say why. What stood out was his strong jawline and the intensity of his eyes. Damon
"You, what are you?" Every nerve in her body screamed at her to leave, so her voice was harsh when she took an involuntary step back.
Damon smiled slightly, his lips curling with amusement. "Before that thing wakes up," he added, his eyes darting to the rogue, now crumpled in the soil, "I think you need to get out of here."
She was speechless. The vision still hung on her like a gloomy fog. Damon. He was genuine, but how could he be? Was this part of the vision or something outside of both?
Damon seized the rogue wolf by its scruff, raised it, and threw it deeper into the woods without waiting for a response. He looked back at her.
Then he vanished—a flurry of movement consumed by the woods.
Cassandra froze; her mind raced as her skin tingled with the vision's remains. She felt anchored in the present and lost to someplace far beyond it.
Clutching her arm, the area where the rogue had cut her still searing, her breath came in rapid, short bursts. Was he part of the curse or coming to help her?
Cassandra could not understand what had only now taken place. Her mind was a tornado of pictures of fire, Damon's face, and the rogue's attack. Her legs moved before she could stop them, carrying her back into the woods, the moonlight streaming through the branches above.
She had to go back to her pack. She had to ground herself.
Her heart raced. Every step was a fight against the storm in her chest. The vision—Damon's face—kept coming back no matter how many times she tried to throw it off, since the world she knew was coming apart in ways she couldn't understand. It seared into her consciousness like an iron brand.
When she arrived at the camp, the familiar sights of the pack members and their tents comforted her, but it didn't last. Nothing worked.
She attempted to quiet herself within the tent. The night's events were too bizarre to handle. The rogue had been real, but Damon—was he included in the vision? Or was he something quite different?
The outside fire's warmth did not touch her. Her thoughts were all over the place, too far gone. But then, the most terrifying idea crept into her head: the fire in her vision, the flames. She knew them and grasped their significance.
The night didn't bring calm as she attempted to sleep.
The dream returned.
The Kingdom is on fire.
This time, however, she saw more than the flames; she saw Damon, his eyes locking onto hers among the mayhem. Damon vanished instantly, entering the fire as he had never been there.
Her breath hitched.
There was no escaping from Damon—there was no escaping from him.