Chapter 106
🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
No.
No p>
No—
I failed.
After all the training, the emotional tangle that I had to work through, the hurt, the promise to myself—to mom.
I had faltered and let myself be caught.
If it had been Vernoique, I would have been dead, my gaping hole where my jugular should have been.
The realization hollowed me out faster than fear ever could.
This wasn’t just a mistake.
This was failure with a face.
My mother had bled out on cold asphalt while I learned how to survive. While I learned how to run. While I learned how to be strong enough to kill the man who had broken her life and left me as evidence of his cruelty.
And here I was.
Pinned to the forest floor by another Alpha, lungs still burning from a chase I had lost, my body trembling not from pain but from the sickening understanding that if I could not evade this—if I could not survive a controlled hunt meant to sharpen me—then I had no right to think myself capable of vengeance.
I couldn’t even do this right.
The guilt hit then, full-bodied and merciless, crashing through me with enough force to make my throat tighten. My mother had endured worse. She had survived longer. She had carried the weight of him alone and still loved me fiercely enough to die searching for me.
And I couldn’t stay on my feet.
Couldn’t keep running.
Couldn’t protect my own throat.
What kind of daughter failed like that?
Kaia stirred uneasily beneath my skin, sensing the fracture, but there was no comfort to be had. This wasn’t fear speaking. This was truth, sharp and unforgiving.
If it had been Kustav hunting me—
if it had been his teeth at my neck instead of Vladimir’s weight anchoring me to the earth—
I would already be dead.
And my mother would still be waiting for justice I wasn’t strong enough to deliver.
I had made a deal to survive the Luna duel, marry, ascend so I would get to my goal, get close enough to end an Alpha but I could even outrun an one in a mock chase.
Regret and guilt needled me, pain searing more than my defeat at Vladimir’s jaw.
He would replace me when I inevitably lost the duel. I would be another failed project in a long list of others. And what made it worse was that I couldn’t even blame him. I was the only one to blame here.
Aunty Agnes had been right.
From the very beginning.
I had wanted revenge to absolve myself of the sin of what I was. But I was sure now that I would die the curse she had always accused me of being.
Your mother would be disgusted.
The dissociation shattered.
Violently.
Guilt did not fade—it ignited.
It burned through me in a sudden, spiraling rush, shame collapsing inward until it struck something feral and volatile at my core. My blood spiked, heat surging through veins that moments ago had felt hollow and cold, and light bled from beneath my skin without permission or restraint.
Gold.
It was neither soft, nor warm.
It licked along my arms, threaded through my chest, crawled up my throat until my breath hitched with it. The forest seemed to recoil, shadows bending away as if the glow offended them, as if it dared the dark to swallow me again.
I sucked in a breath that scraped my lungs raw.
And Kaia finally spoke.
This is not an exercise, she said, her voice cutting through the wreckage of my thoughts with jarring clarity.
There are no rules here. No concessions. No moment where you bow because you are supposed to lose.
My fingers twitched beneath Vladimir’s weight, claws flexing as sensation returned all at once—too sharp, too fast.
In a real battle, Kaia continued, you do not stop when the lesson is learned. You fight when you are cornered. You fight when you are breaking. You fight when you are a breath away from death.
The glow intensified, heat roaring through me as adrenaline finally drowned guilt instead of feeding it.
You do not survive by yielding, she growled. You survive by refusing.
Something snapped into place.
I planted my palms against the earth and shoved.
Not to escape.
To rise.
The movement caught him off guard—not enough to unbalance him, but enough. Enough to remind both of us that I was not prey waiting to be finished. Power surged through my limbs as I twisted, knee driving up, shoulder slamming into his chest with everything I had left and everything I had just found.
The impact rattled my bones.
I welcomed it.
I rolled, momentum ripping me free as I surged to my feet in one fluid motion, glow flaring brighter with the motion, Kaia howling triumph through my veins. My heart thundered, blood roaring so loud it drowned out fear entirely.
I did not run.
I turned.
Faced him.
“If this were real,” I breathed, voice rough and burning, “I wouldn’t be alive p>
Gold fire coiled tighter around me as I dropped into a fighting stance, claws extended, spine straight, gaze locked on him with something sharp, letting guilt and life long learned trepidation fall away.
I would not let myself be replaced.
“So don’t hold back,” I said, daring him. “Neither will I p>
And this time—
I struck first.
I moved before thought could catch up.
Before doubt could wedge itself back into my bones.
He shifted to counter, weight redistributing with the languid confidence of someone who expected strength, claws, teeth—anything but what I did next.
I ducked.
And drove my head forward.
Hard.
The impact cracked through the clearing like a struck bell.
Bone met bone, my forehead slamming into his jaw at an angle brutal enough to snap his head sideways, the shock shuddering up my spine and ringing through my skull—but I did not black out. I did not falter. Pain flared, sharp and bright, familiar in a way that steadied me rather than stole my balance.
I had fallen ten thousand times on polished basketball courts.
I had learned how to hit the ground.
How to take impact.
How to keep moving when everything rattled.
He hadn’t.
Surprise widened his eyes for a fraction of a second—pure, unguarded disbelief—as his grip loosened and his balance broke just enough.
That was all I needed.
I twisted out of his reach and ran.
Not blindly.
Not panicked.
I bolted past him, gold light smearing through the trees as I pushed my legs to burn, ears flattened, breath ripping in and out of my chest. Behind me, the forest erupted with his movement, but I didn’t go straight. I never went straight.
At the treeline, I cut sharply, veering left, then doubled back in a tight arc, circling hard enough that my muscles screamed in protest. Dirt sprayed under my paws as I changed direction again, letting my scent scatter, letting momentum lie.
Then I broke cover.
The mansion loomed ahead—vast, the lights within gleamed against unforgiving against the dark of the woods—and I surged toward it with everything I had left, claws skidding briefly on stone as I hit the grounds at speed.
I tore up the steps and through the open doors, the world shifting abruptly from forest chaos to echoing marble and shadowed halls. My paws struck polished floors, the sound sharp and ringing, my glow reflecting back at me in fractured gold from glass and metal and impossible wealth.
I ran anyway.
Because this wasn’t about escape.
It was about choice.
And for the first time since the hunt began, the direction I took was mine.