Page 15 of Moon Guardian
I looked up, my motion mirrored by everyone in the stone meadow, only to watch in awe as a crescent-shaped orb drifted from the sky.
By the momentary shock that rippled through the air, this was not typically part of their ceremony, but I had heard of the Crescent before.
Crazy Aunt Daliah was right,I thought, marveling at the scene unfolding before me.
She had told me that only in moments of highest sacred communing, did the wolves make contact with their goddess.
She’s almost here.
The alpha’s words made sense to me now.
Their goddess, the divine being who had created them, wasn’t an arrogant figment of their imagination.
She was real.
Which meant she was responsible for all of the suffering in my world.
Pain wouldn’t release me from my captor, but I didn’t need for him to let go. I only required that I reach that orb, that I crush it under my foot and destroy the heart of their goddess so that she could never come back.
Releasing a scream, I gathered all of the foreign magic inside of me, all of the power I’d gained from the storms combined with my mounting rage. Then I pushed off the ground, dragging my captor with me.
Everything moved in slow motion as the alphas all reacted at once.
They grabbed me, each placing a rough hand on me. One on my hip. Another grabbing my wrist. A third taking me by the throat, leaving my captor holding strong against one arm.
Sheer will kept driving me forward as I closed my fingers around the orb.
And squeezed.
Dash
I shouldn’t have brought her with me.
But I’d stupidly listened to my wolf. Something we would both pay the consequences for.
Assuming we survived the Goddess’s wrath for failing her so utterly and completely, especially after she had marked me and begun the courtship process.
I should have guessed what would happen, but it hadn’t occurred to me that her bite could claim me, and consequentially all of the alphas connected through the mating ritual, especially since we all made physical contact when she’d shattered the heart of our goddess.
Helplessness was not an emotion I was accustomed to, but that was the only emotion left when the human somehow took hold of the Crescent, an object only heard about in legend, and crushed it between her fingers.
The blast sent us all flying, leaving the female the only one standing in the center of the moondial.
The shockwave swept out through the city, leaving a ripple in the sky that went on all the way to the horizon.
Ryker was the first to struggle to his feet. His eyes blazed with murderous rage. From what I knew of the Mystic Pack alpha, he was the most loyal among us to our goddess.
“What have you—” His words cut off into a snarl as an impossible, sharp pain struck me right in my chest.
It wasn’t the arrow the female had lodged against my rib, but something that went straight to my heart, gripping me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Then I inhaled, her scent of jasmine and moonlight overpowering me as my body constricted with need. My bones fractured, the shift coming on when I hadn’t called it. Something that hadn’t happened since I’d been a pup.
The female clenched her fists, her chest heaving as rain dripped from her golden hair.
I’d thought she was beautiful before, but now an undeniable need twisted my core.
Chase.
