Mira's POV
The gunshot exploded through the emergency room like thunder.
I didn't think. My body just moved.
One second, I was checking Tommy Martinez's stitches—the sweet six-year-old who'd crashed his bike last week and kept coming back because he said I gave the best stickers. The next second, a man in a black hoodie was screaming about his dead wife, waving a pistol at everyone in the waiting room.
"You killed her! You doctors let her DIE!"
Tommy's mom grabbed her son, trying to shield him. But the gunman saw them. His hand shook as he pointed the weapon at the little boy.
"No!" I threw myself between them.
The bang was so loud it made my ears ring. Then came the pain—hot, sharp, burning through my chest like someone had shoved a red-hot poker straight through my ribs.
I hit the floor hard. The ceiling lights looked too bright, like staring at the sun.
"Mira! MIRA!" That was Dr. Sarah Chen, my best friend and mentor. Her face appeared above me, eyes wide with terror. "Stay with me! Don't you dare die on me!"
But I could feel it. The wet warmth spreading across my scrubs. The way each breath came shorter than the last, like trying to breathe through a straw that kept getting smaller.
I'd seen enough gunshot wounds to know. This was bad. Really bad.
My hands felt cold. My vision got fuzzy at the edges.
"Tommy?" I whispered.
"He's safe. You saved him." Sarah pressed something against my chest—probably trying to stop the bleeding. "You stupid, brave idiot."
Stupid. Yeah. That was accurate.
I was twenty-six years old and I was dying on a dirty hospital floor. No husband. No kids. No great love story. Just a lonely apartment with a half-dead plant and a freezer full of microwave dinners.
My mom died when I was twelve. Cancer. I'd promised her I'd become a nurse and help people the way her nurses helped her. I kept that promise. I'd spent every day for the past four years in this ER, patching up broken people, working double shifts, giving everything I had.
And for what? To die alone?
"Stay awake!" Sarah shouted. "The surgical team is coming!"
But I was so tired. My eyes wanted to close. The pain was fading, which I knew was a terrible sign. When gunshot wounds stop hurting, it means your body is shutting down.
I heard Tommy crying. "Miss Mira! Don't die! Please don't die!"
I wanted to tell him I'd be okay. But I couldn't make my mouth work anymore.
The lights above me started to dim. Or maybe that was just my vision going dark.
I thought about all the things I'd never do. Never fall in love. Never have adventures like in the fantasy books I read during night shifts. Never feel special or wanted or treasured.
I was just... Mira. Plain, boring Mira who ate lunch alone and went home to an empty apartment and tried not to cry when she saw couples holding hands in the park.
"I don't want to die," I tried to say, but it came out as a whisper.
Sarah's voice sounded far away now. "Stay with me. Please stay with me."
But I couldn't. My body felt like it was floating, getting lighter. The pain disappeared completely. Everything went quiet—no more shouting, no more crying, no more beeping machines.
Just... silence.
Peace.
Darkness.
I died thinking that at least I'd saved someone. At least Tommy would grow up and ride bikes and get married and have babies. My life hadn't been much, but it counted for something in the end.
Right?
Time didn't exist in the darkness. Maybe I floated there for seconds. Maybe hours. Maybe forever.
Then something changed.
I felt... warm. Not the burning pain of before. Just warmth, like lying in sunshine.
My chest didn't hurt. I could breathe.
Wait. I could BREATHE?
My eyes snapped open.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
I wasn't in the hospital. I was lying on cold stone, staring up at a ceiling made of rock. Not hospital ceiling tiles. Rock. Like I was in a cave.
My heart started pounding. Where was I? How did I get here?
I sat up too fast and my head spun. I was wearing my scrubs—still bloodstained, still torn where the bullet went through. But when I touched my chest, there was no wound. No hole. Just smooth skin under the sticky fabric.
"What the hell?" My voice echoed in the cave.
That's when I heard them. Voices. Deep, rumbling, speaking words I shouldn't understand but somehow did.
"Is she waking?"
"Finally! I thought this one was dead too."
"She smells strange. Different from the Blessed One."
I scrambled backward until my back hit the cave wall. My medical training kicked in—check for threats, assess the situation, find an exit.
Three men walked into view.
Except they weren't just men.
They had EARS. Animal ears on top of their heads. The first one had wolf ears, gray and pointed. The second had bear ears, round and brown. The third had... were those leopard spots on his arms?
And TAILS. They all had tails.
My brain couldn't process it. This had to be a hallucination. Maybe I was in a coma. Maybe the blood loss had caused brain damage and I was dreaming this whole insane thing.
"Stay back!" I pressed harder against the wall.
The wolf-eared man held up his hands. "We won't hurt you, female. You're safe. You're—"
"What ARE you?" I cut him off. "What's happening? Where am I?"
"You don't know?" The bear-man looked confused. "You fell from the sky during the star-rain. Just like the Blessed One did three years ago. You're a sky-fallen female."
Sky-fallen. Star-rain. None of those words made sense.
"I want to go home," I said, hating how my voice shook. "Take me back to the hospital. Take me back to New York. I need—"
"There is no going back." The wolf-man's voice was gentle but firm. "You're in the Beastworld now. And females like you... you're very, very rare here."
The way he said "rare" made my skin crawl. Like I was something valuable. Something to be kept.
"What do you mean, rare?"
All three of them smiled. It wasn't comforting.
"There's only one female born for every hundred males," the leopard-man explained. "And human females? Even more special. You're a treasure now."
Treasure. The word echoed in my head.
I wasn't dead. I was somewhere worse.
Before I could scream, before I could run, before I could do ANYTHING—a roar split the air outside the cave. Not a human sound. An animal sound. Something massive and angry and coming closer.
The three men's faces went pale.
"Oh no," the wolf-man whispered. "He's here."
"Who's here?" I demanded.
The roar came again, louder this time, shaking dust from the cave ceiling. I heard people outside shouting, running, panicking.
Then I heard footsteps. Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.
Something was coming for me.
The three men backed away from the cave entrance, their faces full of fear.
"Who. Is. Here?" I asked again.
The wolf-man swallowed hard.
"Nightfang," he breathed. "Kael Nightfang is here. And when he wants something..."
He didn't finish. He didn't have to.
The footsteps stopped right outside the cave entrance.
A shadow fell across the opening. Huge. Impossibly huge.
And then HE walked in.
The most terrifying man I'd ever seen. Tall, muscular, with amber eyes that literally glowed in the darkness. Black hair with silver streaks. Scars crossing his bronze skin. And on top of his head—tiger ears, black and silver striped.
He looked at the three men. They practically ran out of the cave.
Then those burning amber eyes locked on me.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't think.
He stepped closer. Sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed.
When he spoke, his voice was deep and cold and absolute.
"You're coming with me."
Not a question. Not a request.
A command.
And I knew, with horrible certainty, that my life had just gotten infinitely more complicated.