Chapter 12
Talon killed Lily with his own hands. The silver blade pierced her heart, and she collapsed, disbelief etched across her face. Blood trickled from her mouth as she choked out her final words.
“W–why?” Her eyes, once so full of confidence, now held only shock and confusion as they met Talon‘ s cold, unrelenting gaze.
“You shouldn’t have hurt Sloane,” Talon said, his voice devoid of emotion. “That‘ s where I draw the line.”
Without sparing her another glance, he turned away. Lily’s body lay lifeless on the ground, the betrayal she had wrought coming full circle. I stood frozen, my mind struggling to process what had just happened. I never imagined that Talon, who had once cherished Lily, would kill her to protect me.
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It was overwhelming. I didn’t know that my blood could do such a thing. No wonder my mother wants a peaceful life away from the powerful packs in the neighborhood
My already fragile state crumbled beneath the weight of it all. The pain, the fear, and now the final act of vengeance. My vision turned and darkness swallowed me whole.
In the black void of unconsciousness, I felt something soft like a kiss pressing gently against my forehead.
A whisper echoed in the recesses of my mind. “I’m sorry, Sloane.” The words. hung in the air, and I clung to them, though they felt distant and unreal.
When I finally woke up, I was no longer in the factory. Instead, I found myself submerged in healing water; my body heavy with exhaustion but alive.
I saw my face through the mirror next to me. It was bandaged, and I felt my skin. healing. The familiar faces of the healers in
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Chapter 12
Talon’s pack came in and attended to my
every need.
“Where’s the Alpha?” I asked one day.
“The healers didn’t speak at first, I kept asking until they gave up. “He was exiled from the pack for breaking the sacred code,” one of them replied.
The sacred code applies to most packs: no wolf could kill a pack member unless they face a trial before the elders first and admit
their sins.
He had been taken away to be imprisoned. for his crime. Lily was dead, and Talon, the Nightclaw’s Alpha, was banished.
Before they took him, though, he did one last thing for me. Talon transferred his alpha powers to me. A forbidden ritual that bound our spirits together for a fleeting moment, a final act to ensure that I had the
strength to survive in his absence. The
transfer was unlike anything I‘ dever
I’d
experienced. It wasn‘ t just power; it was
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his family’s legacy mixing with mine.
The healers told me that my scars, would fade.
Physically, I recovered in time. But something deeper had changed. In the weeks that followed, strange sensations began to take root within me and my woll nature evolved. The bond Talon had given me was more than just strength; it stirred something ancient within me. My mother’s bloodline, laced with old magic, began to awaken.
I wasn‘ t the same Sloane I had been before. Talon had left me with more than just his alpha powers. His actions had ignited something that had been
slumbering deep within my soul, tied to my mother’s ancient magic.
I went back to my tribe after I healed and continued what I had started.
Many years later, while training the children of our tribe, one of them asked me
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a question that cut through the fog of my memories.
“Warrior Sloane, you‘ re so beautiful. Why haven’t you gotten married to your mate yet?”
I glanced toward the south, where Talon was imprisoned, his fate bound forever to the choice he made that day.
The bond between Talon and me could never be fully explained. The alpha powers he passed to me, and the magic in my
blood were all part of the strange new life 1 now lived.
“I was married once, but it was a wedding without a mate.”
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