Beta Jake's POV
"Stop!" I screamed as our Alpha and Luna's magic poured into Morgana like water into a drain. "You're making her stronger!"
But Zander and Kira couldn't hear me over the roar of power moving between them. Their combined magic - life and death swirling together - was creating a tornado of energy that Morgana took with obvious pleasure.
"Magnificent," the ancient witch breathed, getting taller and more terrible with each passing second. "I haven't felt this strong in centuries."
I had to do something. As Beta, it was my job to protect my pack, even when my Alpha was making dangerous mistakes.
"Derek!" I shouted to the other wolves. "Marcus! Help me break their connection!"
"How?" Derek yelled back, avoiding flying debris as the dimensional space around us became unstable.
"Physical touch! If we can touch them, maybe we can stop the flow!"
It was a desperate plan, but it was all I had. I lunged toward Zander, fighting against the strange wind that tried to push me back.
But just as my fingers brushed his arm, everything changed.
The moment I made contact with Zander, visions burst through my mind like lightning. Not my memories - his memories, flowing through our pack link.
I saw a five-year-old Zander hiding under his bed while monsters with bright red eyes tore his family apart. But they weren't rogues like he'd always believed.
They were shadow monsters.
"No," I gasped, understanding hitting me like a truck. "His family wasn't killed by rogues. They were killed by Morgana's monsters."
More memories flooded through me. Ten-year-old Zander being found by hunters and taken to a shelter. Fifteen-year-old Zander manifesting Alpha powers and taking over his first pack through pure rage. Twenty-year-old Zander meeting a strange old woman who offered to help him bring back his dead family.
Morgana had been controlling him since he was a child.
"She planned everything," I whispered in horror.
But the dreams weren't stopping. I saw deeper, darker memories that made my stomach turn. Zander performing death magic in secret caves. Making deals with creatures from other worlds. Slowly losing pieces of his soul with every spell he cast.
And then I saw something that made my blood freeze.
The night Zander first met the fake Morgana, she hadn't just offered to revive his family. She'd planted something inside his head. A magical seed that had been growing for years, eating off his grief and rage.
"He's not just being manipulated," I realized with fear. "He's been partially possessed."
That explained everything. Why Zander had been acting weirder over the months. Why he'd killed those pack members in fits of rage. Why he seemed to have two different personalities - the Alpha we loved and admired, and the cold stranger who practiced forbidden magic.
The Zander we knew was fighting a war inside his own head, and he was losing.
But there was more. The memories showed me that the ownership wasn't complete yet. Morgana needed one final rush of power to take full control of his mind and body.
The power she was taking from his mate bond with Kira right now.
"ZANDER!" I screamed, pouring all my Beta power into my voice. "FIGHT IT! SHE'S IN YOUR HEAD!"
For just a moment, Zander's eyes flickered with recognition. The magic flow stuttered as his focus broke.
"Jake?" His voice sounded confused, lost. "What's happening to me?"
"You're being possessed!" I yelled. "The magic she planted is trying to take over!"
Morgana growled in frustration. "Interfering little bug! You don't understand what you're dealing with!"
She raised her hand to strike me down, but Marcus Blackthorne suddenly appeared at my side.
"Actually, I think we understand perfectly," he said grimly. "Jake, show them what you saw."
"How?"
"Through the pack bonds," Elder Seraphine called out, her voice weak but determined. "Connect to everyone at once. Share the memories."
I'd never tried to use pack ties that way before, but desperation gave me strength. I reached out with my mind, linking to every wolf in the dimensional space.
Suddenly, everyone could see what I'd seen. Zander's true childhood. The shadow monsters. The manipulation. The possession.
"You sick witch," Derek growled at Morgana. "You've been torturing him his whole life."
"I made him strong!" Morgana complained. "Without my guidance, he would have died as a weak child!"
"You made him a weapon," Kira said, her healing magic now fighting against the death magic instead of joining with it. "You turned his love for his family into a tool to control him."
The magical tornado began to weaken as Zander fought back against the control. But Morgana wasn't giving up that quickly.
"If I can't have willing cooperation," she hissed, "I'll take what I need by force."
She gestured sharply, and every prisoner in the void began screaming in pain. The shadow monsters were draining their life force directly.
"Stop!" Kira cried out. "You're killing them!"
"That's the idea," Morgana said coldly. "Every death gives me more power. Soon I'll have enough to finish the possession and open the dimensional door whether you help me or not."
I watched in horror as pack members I'd known my whole life began to wither and age quickly. We had minutes before they'd all be dead.
"There has to be something we can do," I said desperately.
"There is," a small voice said behind us.
We all turned to see a figure stepping out of the whirling void. At first I thought it was another shadow monster, but then I realized what I was really seeing.
It was Mira. Not the resurrected version Morgana had made, but a ghost - translucent and glowing with soft silver light.
"Sister," she said to Kira, "I couldn't stay in heaven knowing you needed help."
"Mira?" Kira's voice broke. "But you chose to go back. You picked peace."
"I chose to protect you," Mira corrected softly. "And I'm not alone."
More ghostly forms began emerging from the void. Hundreds of them. All the supernatural creatures Morgana had killed to fuel her magic were returning as ghosts.
"She made one mistake," Mira explained, her child's voice carrying impossible knowledge. "Death magic can bring back the dead, but it can also set them free. And we're all very angry about being killed."
Morgana's face went white with fear. "Impossible. The dead can't return without my approval!"
"Your permission?" An ancient dragon spirit appeared, his ghostly form still massive and terrifying. "You think death magic belongs to you alone, little witch?"
"We gave our lives unwillingly," a vampire ghost hissed. "That causes a debt. A debt we're here to collect."
The ghost army began surrounding Morgana, their combined spiritual force pushing back against her darkness.
But just as hope began to grow in my chest, Morgana played her final card.
"If I'm going down," she snarled, "I'm taking this entire dimension with me!"
She raised both hands and began singing in a language that hurt to hear. The void around us started falling inward like a black hole.
"She's trying to implode the dimensional space!" Elder Seraphine screamed. "If she succeeds, it will create a tear in reality that destroys both our world and hers!"
I looked around desperately, trying to find an answer. We had ghosts, we had magic, we had the power of life and death itself.
But as the collapsing reality pulled us all toward certain doom, I realized there was only one way to stop Morgana's final revenge.
Someone would have to take her place as the anchor keeping the dimensions apart.
Someone would have to sacrifice themselves to save both worlds.
And looking at Zander's tortured face as he fought the possession, at Kira's desperate love as she tried to fix everyone at once, at all the innocent prisoners about to die... I knew it had to be me.