Chapter 9 Where Am I?

Liora

I wasn’t going to make it in time.

A whine tore from my throat as I collided with the ground, the impact sending shockwaves of agony through what remained of my frame. Even with half of me already gone, the pain still found every nerve, every hollow space, to carve itself into.

I needed to move. But half the body didn’t listen to commands. Was this it, then? My one shot at seeing Kael again snuffed out before I could reach him. Just like that. I’d fade with nothing but his face burned into my skull.

A brother-killing bastard.

I meowed again as Alpha Zane started his speech, thanking his brothers Cassius in particular. If only he knew what that trusted brother was pouring into his drink. If only Dax had listened. If only I could still move. 

But the full moon overhead just mocked me. Too late. Too late to warn Zane. Too late to salvage whatever was left of my own existence.

I narrowed my eyes, letting my whiskers droop, pressing my lips into a thin, hard line. The closest I could get to a frown. And yet, beneath the anger, an ache bloomed in my chest one that had nothing to do with Kael this time.

“I guess this is the end,” I muttered, letting my eyes fall shut. “You can’t say I didn’t try.”

I lay there half corporeal, half void watching a room full of oblivious strangers laugh and drink, while a man who wore my best friend’s face poisoned the one wolf who trusted him most.

My legs refused to budge. My lungs refused to fill. Somewhere, miles away, Echo called my name. I didn’t answer. I had nothing left to give.

My mind drifted back to the accident. The one that had ended my first life. I remembered the exact moment the warmth bled out of me, the way memories flickered past like dying embers. Even at the very end, all I saw was Kael. But now, there was only darkness. 

And yet that same strange peace returned, settling into my marrow, bracing me for whatever came next. Which.

“You’re not dying, girl,” Echo said dryly, her voice slicing through the darkness like a blade.

Annoyance crackled under my skin. My ears flattened further, and I let out a grumpy meow.

“Seriously?” I snapped. “Can’t a girl afford the luxury of dying in peace these days?”

I swear, I felt her rolling her eyes.

“I said you aren’t dying. Open your eyes. You just missed the show.”

Sighing – if a cat could do that, I cracked one eye open, then the other. And my mouth fell open.

Echo had been wrong. Or she was lying. Right then, neither of those things mattered, because I hadn’t missed the show after all. Right in front of me, a drama was playing out.

Dax! Dax had saved Alpha Zane at the last possible moment.

The entire hall was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Even the heavenly choir-band had stopped playing, and everyone was looking toward the dais where all three friends stood. Dax looked uncertain as he held Alpha Zane’s cup in his hand. But he’d done it. He’d saved me saved his Alpha.

“What’s going on?” I whispered in my head. Thankfully, Echo answered anyway.

“What Dax did was very disrespectful,” she explained. “They might be friends, but Alpha Zane is still his superior. He might get punished later.”

My cat face pulled into a frown. “Even if he’s just trying to save his life?”

“Rules are rules. But I guess they won’t punish him if somehow he’s able to convince Zane that Cassius indeed tried to poison him. Quickly they’re moving.”

My legs, blessedly solid again, moved even before my brain registered Echo’s words. Ignoring the whispers and murmurs that arose the moment Zane turned his back, I began hopping, jumping, and running under gowns, tables, and whatever else I could squeeze beneath even through a narrow door until I was in the same room as the three friends.

The tension between them when the door clicked shut was electrifying. Every hair on my body stood on end. Yes, that was how bad it was. A pathetic, stupid meow escaped my lips which somehow they didn’t notice. Thank God.

The room was a study, I realized a private chamber for the Alpha to conduct business away from prying ears. Dark wood paneling lined the walls. A massive desk dominated one corner. The wine cellar I was hiding behind smelled of oak and old money.

Floor-to-ceiling windows gave way to a stunning view of a sprawling city outside. I realized then that I had no idea what this world looked like. Since I appeared here, I’d never found the time to tour. 

Like the halls outside, the roof here was glass, and from my spot, the moon peeked from behind a dark cloud.

There were four comfortable-looking couches arranged around the room with a wine cellar which I was currently using as my hideout but the guys didn’t sit. Instead, they all stood staring at each other until Alpha Zane broke the silence.

“What was the meaning of that stunt you pulled in front of half the territory’s nobility?” His voice was sharp enough to cut glass, and it wasn’t hard to deduce who that question was directed at.

From my place behind the wine cellar, I couldn’t see Dax’s face since his back was to me, but I could see Alpha Zane and Cassius quite well. Alpha Zane looked like he was about to pop a vein in his head. But Cassius, on the other hand, was a picture of calm and collected.

My heart skipped a beat.

Could he really not. I was sure I’d heard correctly. It was without a doubt that Cassius had planned with someone to kill his friend. But if Dax couldn’t prove it, he’d be in very big trouble. Plus, no one would believe him when he said he’d gotten the information from a talking cat.

“Drink it,” Dax’s voice cut through my thoughts, pulling me back to the present. “If you don’t, I will.”

What?! No!

I watched in horror as Dax brought the cup to his lips. But just as his mouth was about to make contact, Cassius slapped his hand away, spilling the drink and shattering the glass on the floor between them.

“Well, I guess that clears all doubts,” Echo said helplessly.

My heart thundered in my chest. If the tension before was electrifying, now it was suffocating. I could barely breathe with how choked the room had become.

Cassius fell to his knees almost immediately, although he looked anything but repentant even as he held his arms out in front of him as though begging for handcuffs. Which I would freely have put around his wrists had I had one.

His voice was too low for me to catch the words, but I saw Dax’s face crumble. Saw Zane’s hands clench into fists at his sides. Whatever Cassius had said, it was enough to drive Dax – the peacemaker – crazy.

I’d never thought I’d actually see a human shift into a wolf. But I saw it in real time. I swear, my eyes almost tore out of their sockets. 

One minute, Dax was standing fully clothed, fully human in front of me. The next, he was tearing out of his own skin. His flesh seemed to expand and melt all at once. His bones broke and reconstructed themselves in the blink of an eye. His spine arched, his jaw elongated, and in the span of a single breath, the man was gone. In his place stood a hungry, snarling beast with eyes that held no semblance of humanity.

I scrambled backward until my spine hit the wall.

His movements were lightning-fast. I had no idea when he moved from where he’d been standing, but the next thing I saw was his long claws buried inside Cassius’s stomach.

My stomach churned and I retched, but nothing came up – thankfully. The last thing I needed was to vomit on this pristine floor.

Cassius! Oh my God! Did he kill him? Kael?

“He is not Kael,” Echo reminded me promptly, but her voice didn’t help this time. I shot forward, completely forgetting I was nothing but a useless cat.

“Enough!” Zane’s voice shook the room. He’d managed to pry Dax off Cassius, who still wore a smug smile on his face.

How could I mistake someone as heartless as that for Kael? How far was he going to taint my friend’s memory?

I stayed frozen against the wall long after Cassius was dragged away, long after Dax stumbled out to clean himself up, long after Zane stood alone in that bloodstained room – his jaw ticking, his knuckles white, his eyes flickering between amber and crimson as he fought a war inside himself that no one else could see.

I didn’t move until his breathing evened out. Until the trembling stopped.

When I finally slipped through the door and padded into the hallway, my paw hit the floor – and the world dissolved.

One second, I was standing on warm wood. Next, I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere that couldn’t exist.

Spires of crystalline rock stretched toward a sky that wasn’t a sky more like a swirling void of violet and silver, dotted with constellations I’d never seen. Waterfalls of liquid light cascaded down the walls, defying gravity, flowing… upward? Everything glowed. Everything breathed.

And yet it felt familiar. Like a dream I’d once had and forgotten. Like a place I’d visited in another life, when I was someone else entirely.

“No.” My voice came out trembling. “No, no, no.”

I spun in a circle. There was no door. No hallway. No pack house. Just endless, impossible beauty stretching in every direction.

“Echo?” I called out, but her voice inside me was… gone. Her presence had been snuffed out. There was an emptiness where her presence used to be and all that was left now was nothing. 

“What is this place?” I shouted, as panic clawed up my chest. “What the fuck happening to me? Did I die after all? Did I fail the mission?”