CHAPTER 26: IN THE DARK

I am not the carefree woman I used to be.

This new life wakes every raw thing inside me. Every feeling, every smell, every sharp need. After months of numbness, the flood comes all at once. It hits like a storm. My chest thunders. My wolf stirs.

The wind hushes. Voices blur. I barely hear Camilla step out of the car. Her words are thin paper to me. I am pulled forward instead.

A huge sculpture stands before me. Tall. Still. Cold as bone. It draws me like tide pulls a small boat. Snow clings to its skin. My feet take me closer without asking.

I did not mean to cry. The tears fall and melt holes in the snow. My hands tremble. I reach out and brush the frost away.

To anyone watching I must look strange. My face far away. My hands touching stone like it is a person. It is supposed to be a statue of me. My body. But it feels like a stranger I once loved.

Sadness sits on me like thick fog. It smells of iron and old rain.

"Riley, what are you doing?" Camilla calls. Her voice is sharp now. She grabs my arm. Her touch is distant, like trying to wake from a dream.

A thought loops in my head. She’s cold.

I am Elena...and not Elena.

My fingers are red from the cold, but I keep wiping the snow away. I try to make it warm. I try to make her breathe.

Lewis’s voice comes then, flat and sharp. "You’re hurt. Do you want to be dead again?"

Riley’s wounds are healing. Sudden movements could break them open. Lewis is right. The truth lands like ice.

I do not want to die. Not again. Death was an empty dark. A long, lonely silence. I will not go back.

Tears blur my sight. I am pale, aching, barely on my feet.

"Aunt Riley, you look awful. Let’s get you inside." Julian’s voice is soft. Pack instincts move before thought. He steps close.

Camilla hooks her arm under mine. "Do you need a healer?" she asks, pretending to worry.

I do not answer. My eyes find Lewis across the yard. He sits in his chair and stares at the sculpture. Snow falls on his shoulders. He doesn’t seem to notice. His face is closed, but the look in his eyes is wrong open and full of grief.

Then the ground tilts and my knees give. Black edges the world.

A hand reaches for me.

"Elena." Julian’s voice calls my true name.

All the years we shared leap up. His body moves like reflex. He catches me as I fall and carries me inside.

Camilla follows, whispering sharp words while he lays me on a guest bed. "What are you doing? She’s Riley, not Elena!"

Julian looks down at me. His face twists with something fierce and raw. "I know... but from this angle she looks like Elena. If I don’t see that red mark I forget." He sounds small and unsure.

Maybe anger made him believe Camilla. But anger fades. What stays is the ache. The space she left. Twenty years do not vanish with a lie. Pack bonds do not break that easily.

Julian teeters between hate and something else. He may have wanted to hate me. But when the fever cools, the want is just there sharp and hungry.

Camilla’s voice cuts like a knife. "Have you forgotten? Elena betrayed you. She slept with another to hurt you. She got what she deserved."

Julian’s face hardens. He snaps back. "Don’t say that. I spoke to Harris. There’s still no body. Maybe she’s alive."

Camilla throws her hands up. "Even if she’s alive, she hates you. She hurt you on purpose."

Julian’s jaw sets. His fists tighten. "I’m not going mad," he says low. "Yes, she hurt me. But I hurt her too. When I look at Riley, I see Elena. I see what I lost."

His voice thins with guilt. He runs his hands over his face and lets tears leak through his fingers. "She built us. She kept my life in order. I never asked what she needed. I took her for granted. I was wrong."

Smack!

The sharp sound of the slap cut through the air like thunder.

Camilla had struck Julian across the face hard.

It was the first time I had ever seen her lose control. Her wolf eyes glowed a fierce crimson, shimmering with heartbreak rather than rage.

"What about me?" she cried out, her voice trembling. "What do I mean to you, Julian?"

The perfect Luna mask she always wore cracked, and raw emotion poured out like blood.

But I didn’t see any of it.

Because I wasn’t really there.

I was somewhere else somewhere between worlds.

In that dark, cold void, a familiar voice reached me.

Soft. Echoing.

Riley.

"How does my body feel?"

Her voice was hauntingly clear, curling through the fog in my mind.

When I looked up, I saw her standing right in front of me.

She wore a long, flowing black dress, stitched with velvet roses along the hem. A faint red mark glowed on her forehead a mark of bloodline and magic. She was pale, ethereal, her aura pulsing with the scent of wolf energy old, powerful, broken.

She didn’t look exactly like me, yet something in her face mirrored mine. The way our eyes caught light, the curve of our jaw. It was unsettling like seeing another version of my soul.

"I’m sorry," I whispered, guilt heavy in my chest. "I didn’t mean to take what was yours. I wanted to live... and you didn’t. Somehow, we met in between."

Riley’s cold gaze held mine. "Why do we look alike? Who are you really?"

"Elena Morrigan," I said quietly.

Then, taking a breath, I added, "Can I tell you my story?"

She said nothing, so I told her everything. My death, my pain, my betrayal. How I woke up in her body.

When I finished, silence wrapped around us.

Finally, she said softly, "I was ready to die. I’ve been ready for a long time. The only one I still love is my mother. If you can take care of her, I’ll let you stay."

Her voice dropped, almost to a growl. "But..."

"But what?" I asked quickly.

Her brows furrowed. "Something pulled me back here. Like my body’s calling me. Dragging me home. I can’t control it."

A cold dread clawed through me.

I’d felt it too the strange pull, the energy shifting since I touched that cursed sculpture.

Was her soul trying to reclaim the body?

Was I running out of time?

Panic filled me. My wolf instincts roared to fight it to cling to life. I hadn’t gotten my revenge yet. I couldn’t let go now.

My eyes flew open. I gasped for air, chest heaving.

I was back. Alive.

Camilla and Julian’s voices echoed nearby sharp, angry, useless noise. I didn’t care what they were fighting about. I had to move. I had to see him.

I jumped out of bed and ran. Barefoot. The cold snow burned my soles, but I didn’t stop until I saw Lewis.

He stood alone in the courtyard, surrounded by the scent of pine and frost. Snowflakes drifted around him like ash. His hand was raised toward the sculpture my sculpture the one that called to me.

Just before his fingers brushed the stone, he turned. Our eyes met. His expression froze shock, confusion, something deeper, primal.

"Lewis!" My voice broke as I ran to him. I didn’t think I just threw myself into his arms.

He caught me out of instinct, steadying me. His scent earth, iron, wild cedar filled my lungs, grounding me for the first time in hours.

"What’s wrong?" he asked, his deep voice calm but wary.

I pulled back, trembling. "I saw her," I whispered. "The real Riley. She spoke to me."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

I turned toward the sculpture, pointing with a shaking hand. "She’s in there. She said... she’s trapped."

For a moment, the world went still.

Lewis’s expression changed. The calm mask slipped.