CHAPTER 41

Helena’s POV

The beeping of the machine filled my ears as I tried to open my eyes but couldn't. My eyes were closed, but I wasn’t asleep—not really.

The fever was back. I could feel it crawling under my skin, hot and cold at the same time. Jarett kept brushing my hair back like that would help. Like his hand could hold me here.

“Helena,” he whispered. “Stay with me.”

I tried to answer but my mouth was dry and the words got stuck. The hum around me got louder and louder.

It started in my chest like someone had tied a string around my ribs and was tugging me gently, gently, out of my body.

I gasped.

“Jarett?” But my voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded far away.

His hand tightened around mine. “Helena? What’s wrong? Nurse!”

I wanted to tell him it was okay. That I wasn’t scared.

But the pull was stronger now and the room fell away.

***********

I felt a cold air wash over my face first before I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn’t in the hospital anymore.

I was standing in a forest. There was snow under my bare feet. The trees around me was black and tall, stretching up into a sky with no stars. Just a pale, thin moon hanging there like a scar.

The air smelled like pine and blood and something metallic.

This wasn’t real. I tried to convince myself that it was just a fever and this was just a dream but if all felt too real.

“Helena.”

I turned around at the sound of my name.

A woman was standing in the clearing. She looked like me but she looked older and tired. Her dress was torn and stained, and there was a cut across her throat that hadn’t healed.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Who are you?” I whispered. My voice made clouds in the cold air.

The woman tilted her head. “I am what comes next,” she said. Her voice sounded like mine, but it layered, like three people were speaking at once. “I am what they tried to bury.”

My heart was pounding. “What do you want?”

She stepped closer. I could see now that her feet didn’t quite touch the snow. She was floating.

“I want you to remember,” she said. “Before they take it from you again.”

“Remember what?”

The woman lifted her hand. The cut on her throat opened wider. Black liquid ran down, but it wasn’t blood, it was smoke.

My stomach dropped. “No. I don’t—”

“You already know,” the woman cut me off. “You felt it when you touched him.”

The snow around us started to melt. The trees bent inward, like they were listening.

“Helena,” Jarett’s voice called, distant and muffled like he was shouting through water. “Helena, come back!”

The woman smiled, sadly. “He can’t follow you here, no one can. This is your line and your blood.”

“What blood?” I asked. My hands were shaking. “What are you talking about?”

She reached out and pressed two cold fingers to my forehead.

Pain shot through me. Images filled my mind quickly

I saw a room made of stone with people chanting in it. I saw wolves in chains, I saw a baby with gold in its eyes and me crying.

I saw men in dark jackets standing in front of me and the woman in front of me, with the cut in her throat, being dragged away.

“It was supposed to be me,” the woman whispered. “The first vessel. But I fought. So they made another.”

Me?!

I staggered back. “No. That’s not— I’m not—”

“You are,” she said. “And the north wolves know it. That’s why they’re here. That’s why Brent brought them. They’re not here for Jarett. They’re here for you.”

The forest shook. The moon cracked down the middle.

“Wake up,” the woman said. “Before they bind you again. Before the trance becomes a cage.”

She reached for me, touching me with a hand that was as cold as ice. I screamed and jolted back into my body so hard I thought my ribs would crack.

“Helena! Helena, breathe! Look at me!”

I was gasping. Sweat poured down my back. The IV line was tugged and the nurse was rushing in with the doctor behind her.

“She’s seizing,” someone said. “Her BP’s spiking.”

Jarett didn’t let go of my hand. “I’m here. I’m here. Stay with me. Don’t you go back there.”

Back there. He didn’t know where “there” was. But I did.

I tried to speak but my throat was raw. All I managed was, “Water.”

The nurse held a cup to my lips, helping me drink it. The water was cold and it hurt as it went down my throat.

“Her vitals are stabilizing,” the doctor muttered. “It seems like a trance episode. We’ve seen this in high-fever werewolf patients. The mind tries to leave to escape the pain.”

Trance episode. That’s what they were calling it.

But it wasn’t the fever. It was her. The other me.

Jarett was still holding my hand like if he let go I’d disappear again.

“Did you see anything?” he asked quietly, when the doctor and nurse stepped out.

I looked at him. His eyes were red-rimmed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

I should have lied. I should have said no.

But the image of those two men in dark jackets was still burning behind my eyes.

“North wolves,” I whispered. “They’re here for me.”

Jarett went still.

“What did you see, Helena?”

I told him everything I saw, in pieces.

With every word, Jarett’s jaw got tighter.

When I finished, he stood up.

“Please don’t,” I said, grabbing his sleeve. “Don’t leave me and go down there.”

“I have to,” he said, his voice dropping dangerously low.