ARIA'S POV
I ran straight into hell.
The pack house was burning. Black smoke poured from windows. And in the center of the chaos stood creatures that shouldn't exist—Shadow Beasts.
They looked like wolves, but wrong. Twisted. Their bodies were made of living darkness that shifted and writhed. Empty white eyes glowed in their formless faces. And wherever they touched, plants died, wood rotted, flesh turned gray.
One had Lyra pinned against a tree, its shadow-claws inches from her throat.
My mark blazed without me even thinking about it.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Golden light exploded from my palm. The Shadow Beast shrieked—a sound like metal scraping bone—and jerked back. The light burned its darkness, leaving smoking holes in its form.
It turned those dead white eyes on me.
Then charged.
I threw my hands up instinctively. More light poured out, forming a barrier between us. The beast slammed into it and recoiled, screaming.
"Aria!" Lyra's voice was terrified. "Behind you!"
I spun. Three more Shadow Beasts were closing in, surrounding me. My heart hammered. The mark was already dimming—I'd used too much power too fast.
Then Kael was there, his white leopard form crashing into the nearest beast. He tore through its shadow-flesh with claws that glowed silver. The beast dissolved into smoke.
Thorne landed beside me in dragon form—massive, scaled, breathing actual fire. His flames engulfed two beasts at once. They burned, shrieking, and vanished.
"Your light hurts them more than our attacks," Thorne called out, shifting to human. "Use it!"
"I don't know how!" I shouted back. "It just happens!"
"Then make it happen on purpose!" He grabbed my wrist, his hand warm. "Feel the power. Don't push it away. Pull it forward. Control it."
Another beast lunged at Lyra. No time to think.
I reached for the mark's power—really reached, like I had when trying to shift. It responded instantly, flooding through me. But this time I didn't just let it explode. I shaped it. Directed it.
A beam of golden light shot from my palm, spearing through the beast's chest. It dissolved with a final shriek.
"YES!" Thorne's grin was fierce. "Again!"
More beasts poured from the shadows. Where were they all coming from?
I fired again. And again. Each blast easier than the last. My mark grew hotter, brighter. Power sang through my veins—intoxicating and terrifying.
Kael fought beside me, taking down beasts with brutal efficiency. Ryder's wolves formed defensive lines. Thorne's dragons rained fire from above.
But there were too many.
"They're not stopping!" Ryder yelled, blood streaming from a gash on his shoulder. "Someone's controlling them!"
"Find the source!" Thorne ordered. "There has to be a rift nearby!"
I reached out with my senses, letting the mark guide me. There—a cold, wrong feeling coming from the north. Like a wound in the world itself.
"I feel it!" I pointed. "That way!"
"Then we go." Thorne shifted back to dragon form. "On my back. Now."
"I can't just leave—"
"Your light is the only thing that can close a rift!" His golden eyes were fierce. "Everyone dies if you don't stop this at the source!"
He was right. I hated it, but he was right.
I climbed onto Thorne's scaled back. Kael leaped up beside me in leopard form, silver eyes determined.
"Ryder, hold the line!" Thorne roared.
Then we were airborne.
Flying on a dragon's back should have been terrifying. Instead, it felt like power. Like freedom. Wind whipped through my hair. The ground blurred below.
"There!" I pointed at a clearing where darkness pooled like liquid. A tear in reality itself, Shadow Beasts crawling through it like insects.
Thorne dove.
We landed hard. Kael shifted to human, weapons drawn. I slid off Thorne's back, my mark already glowing in response to the rift's wrongness.
The tear pulsed with sickly energy. Looking at it made my stomach turn.
"How do I close it?" I asked.
"Pour your light into it," Thorne said. "Seal the wound."
I approached the rift slowly. Shadow Beasts turned toward me, but Kael and Thorne kept them back.
I pressed my palms toward the darkness.
Golden light flowed from me into the rift. The tear began shrinking, the edges sealing. Yes—it was working!
Then something grabbed my wrist from inside the rift.
A hand. Gray, rotting, but unmistakably human.
It yanked me forward. I screamed, my feet leaving the ground, being pulled toward the darkness—
Kael caught me, arms wrapping around my waist. "Hold on!"
But the grip was too strong. We were both being dragged in.
Then Thorne's claws closed around us both, anchoring us. "Don't you dare let go!"
The thing in the rift pulled harder. My shoulder felt like it was dislocating.
"Close the rift!" Thorne roared. "Now!"
I gathered every bit of power left in me and shoved it into the tear. The light exploded outward. The hand released me with a furious shriek.
The rift sealed shut.
Silence fell.
I collapsed against Kael, gasping. My mark had gone dark. Completely drained.
"What was that?" I wheezed. "What grabbed me?"
Thorne's face was grim. "That wasn't a Shadow Beast."
"Then what—"
"That was someone who used to be a Lifebringer." His golden eyes were dark. "Someone who fell to corruption and became something worse."
My blood went cold. "That's what happens if I fail?"
"That's what happens if you use too much power without anchoring yourself to life." He looked at Kael. "That's why mate bonds exist. They keep Lifebringers tethered to this world."
Kael's arms tightened around me protectively.
"So someone out there," I said slowly, "is a corrupted Lifebringer who can open rifts to shadow dimensions and wants to... what? Kill me? Replace me?"
"Worse." Thorne's voice was soft. "They want to turn you. Make you like them. Because a corrupted Lifebringer with your power?" He paused. "Could end the entire Beastworld."
The weight of that settled over me like ice.
I'd thought the danger was possessive males and political games. But this was so much bigger. Someone out there was hunting me. Someone who knew exactly what I was and how to use me as a weapon.
"We need to find them," I said. "Before they find me."
"Too late," a voice called from the trees.
A figure stepped into the clearing. Female, beautiful, with white hair and eyes that glowed the same dead white as the Shadow Beasts.
She smiled at me—cold and empty.
"Hello, little sister," she said. "I've been waiting for you."
My mark flickered weakly. I was too drained to fight.
The woman raised her hand. Black light gathered in her palm—a twisted mirror of my golden mark.
"You can come willingly," she said, "or I can drag you screaming. Either way, you're coming with me."
Kael stepped in front of me. Thorne shifted to dragon form, snarling.
The woman laughed. "How sweet. They think they can protect you." Her eyes locked on mine. "But they can't protect you from yourself. I can feel it already—the corruption taking root inside you. Every time you heal, you take death into yourself. How long before it destroys you from within?"
"She's lying," Kael said. But his voice was uncertain.
Was she lying? The silver scars on my arms from healing Lyra. The exhaustion after every use of power. The way the darkness in the rift had felt almost... familiar.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"I'm what you'll become." She smiled wider. "My name is Moira. And I was the Lifebringer before you." She tilted her head. "Tell me, Aria—when you healed that girl, where did the Fading go? It didn't just disappear. You absorbed it. Took it into yourself."
"I destroyed it—"
"You THINK you destroyed it. But corruption doesn't die. It transforms. It waits." She took a step closer. "Check your mark. Really look at it."
I didn't want to. But I lifted my palm.
The golden lines of my mark were still there. But underneath, barely visible—thin black veins, spreading slowly from the center.
"No," I whispered.
"Yes." Moira's voice was almost kind. "You're becoming like me. The only question is: will you fight it and go mad? Or accept it and gain true power?"
She reached out her hand, black light crackling around it.
"Come with me, sister. Let me teach you what you really are."