Chapter 8 – The Price of Healing

[Selene's POV]

The words, "I am the darkness," had ripped from a place deep within her, echoing not in the air, but inside Damien's very skull. It was a raw, undeniable truth, a power that coiled and surged, threatening to consume everything. 

The forest, once a mere hunting ground, now thrummed with her raw, terrifying might. Then, as swiftly as it had come, the immense, terrifying aura flickered.

A raw gasp tore from Selene's lips, a sound of profound shock and burgeoning terror. Her eyes, moments before burning with an otherworldly silver, widened with an intense, agonizing fear.

The shadows that had coiled around her like loyal servants now recoiled, dissipating as if struck by an invisible, searing flame. She stumbled, clutching her head, as the very power that had just consumed her seemed to turn inward, a hungry beast devouring its host. It was too much. Far too much.

Her knees buckled beneath her, the strength abandoning her limbs. She felt strong hands catch her just before she fell completely, her body surprisingly light, devoid of the volatile energy that had just surged through her.

A chilling coldness had replaced the inferno, seeping into her skin, leaving her clammy and weak. She was unconscious, a terrifying stillness replacing the storm she had just been in. Her mind spiraled into a vortex of disjointed images and overwhelming sensations.

Memories flashed through her mind, vivid and brutal: Elias’s agonizing scream, the larger male vanishing into nothingness. Her hand extended, commanding the very fabric of reality. The intoxicating, absolute rush of power that had made her feel like a goddess. Then, the sickening horror that crashed over her. 

The visceral realization of what she had done, the lives she had snuffed out with a mere thought. Her hands, even in this unconscious state, felt stained, irrevocably tainted by the darkness she had wielded.

"Monster," a whisper hissed in the farthest reaches of her mind.

It was a cruel, haunting sound. Was it her own deepest fear, finally given a voice? Or was it the lingering essence of the shadows she’d commanded, the echoes of their ancient, bloodthirsty demands? She didn’t know. 

The power was now an undeniable, terrifying part of her, yet it felt alien, like a monstrous parasite taking root within her very soul, constantly pulling her deeper into its hungry, insatiable grasp.

She felt distant presences around her, the distinct, powerful scents of Alphas. Their fear, their anger, their desperate confusion, all washed over her like physical blows. 

Though they were worried, her wild power obscured their concern. It vibrated through every cell, every nerve ending. She pulled away, instinctively, recoiling from their attempts to define her, to categorize what she had become. They couldn’t understand. No one could.

[Alpha Damien's POV]

He laid her gently on the damp earth, his own hands shaking. 

Selene lay utterly still, save for the shallow, erratic breaths that barely stirred her chest. The residual magic around her pulsed, a constant, low hum that vibrated in his very bones, unsettling him to his core. 

He scanned the clearing, the gruesome tableau of his fallen squad stark against the trampled leaves and broken branches. Selene had done this. Her. The banished omega, the one he was supposed to confirm dead. 

The thought chilled him more than any frost, solidifying into a profound, terrifying certainty. She was terrifyingly, undeniably alive. And something entirely new.

His mission to verify her death was a cruel, twisted joke. She was far from dead; she was a force of nature he barely understood, barely survived. 

His wolf instincts screamed danger, primal fear urging him to flee, to put as much distance between himself and this unknown entity as possible. Yet, a strange, dark fascination held him captive. A part of him, the Alpha who sought to understand, to control, refused to abandon her. He couldn't leave her, not like this.

He pulled out his comm unit, his hands steadying with forced will. "This is Alpha Graves," he rasped, his voice tight, barely more than a whisper, but carrying the unmistakable weight of command. "Code Red. Catastrophic event in the Blood Forest. Requesting immediate, discreet backup. Extreme power anomaly detected. Casualties... severe." 

He didn't wait for a response, just cut the line. He needed help, and he needed it now. No matter the cost, no matter the questions that would follow, he couldn't face this alone.

The wait was agonizing. Hours crawled by, each minute stretching into an eternity of tense silence. 

Damien knelt beside Selene, his eyes fixed on her pale, still face, watching for any flicker of movement, any sign of return. He was hyper-aware of the dead around them, of the unnerving quiet that had settled over the forest. 

The air still felt thick, heavy with the stench of blood and an unidentifiable, ozone-like magical residue. He paced the small area around her, his wolf restless beneath his skin, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.

As the first hint of dawn, a faint, bruised light, touched the horizon, two powerful presences cut through the dense magic of the forest. 

Two scents he knew intimately: Orion and Draven. They moved with the speed and precision of seasoned Alphas, their faces grim, hardened by the grim discovery of the massacred trackers. Their eyes immediately locked onto the carnage, then on Selene, lying terrifyingly still, and finally on a grim-faced Damien, who stood as if guarding a volatile bomb.

Orion knelt beside a fallen tracker, his jaw tight, a muscle clenching rhythmically. "What in the blazes happened here, Damien?" His voice was a low growl, laced with horror and disbelief, barely contained. "We felt a spike of power… monstrous. Unprecedented. What did this?" His gaze swept the devastation.

Draven, his wolf closer to the surface than Damien had ever seen it, snarled, a raw sound of anger and fear. His gaze moved from the mangled forms to Selene, then back to Damien, filled with accusation. "This is her, isn't it?" he demanded, his voice thick with a mixture of dread and rage. "The omega you were sent to confirm dead. The one banished to this cursed place. What in the hell is going on, Damien?"

Damien stood, his expression weary but defiant, his shoulders squared. "She lost control," he explained, running a hand through his hair, attempting to rationalize the impossible. "It's… unlike anything I've ever seen. Her power erupted. She dispatched my squad, yes. Then she collapsed. Unconscious." He gestured to Selene. "This is Selene. But she's changed. Profoundly."

"Changed?" Draven scoffed, taking a menacing step towards the unconscious omega, his posture radiating suspicion and aggression. 

"She's a rogue force of nature! A weapon! This must be the Council's doing, somehow. What else could cause such an abomination?" He kicked a loose rock, frustration boiling over.

Orion placed a hand on Draven's shoulder, stopping him from approaching Selene further. "Hold, Draven. This is bigger than the Council, I fear. That power signature… it felt primordial. Ancient. It dwarfed anything they could conjure." He turned his gaze to Damien, his dark eyes probing. "You said she lost control. Can she regain it? Can we help her regain it?"

"We have to try," Damien insisted, a desperate edge to his voice, his gaze fixed on Selene's still form. "She's not a monster. Not yet. We have to bring her back to herself. For her sake, before she becomes completely lost."

Draven paced, his frustration a palpable aura, radiating off him in hot waves. "Bring her back? Damien, look around you! She massacred your men! Our men! This isn't just about 'bringing her back.' It's about containing a catastrophic threat before it destroys us all, before it draws every power-hungry faction to our doorstep!"

"Containment? You mean execution, don't you, Draven?" Orion's voice was sharp, cutting through the tense air. "You think killing her will solve this? That power… it's too volatile. It could tear this forest apart, or worse, if we force it. It could trigger something far more devastating."

The arguments continued, their voices low but charged with fury, echoing among the silent, unmoving trees. Each word was like a prod, a reminder of the danger Selene posed, the potential monster she feared becoming. The power inside her rippled in response to their fear, lashing out in unseen waves, causing the trees around them to sway subtly, responding to her inner turmoil.

Damien, ever the pragmatist, was already seeking solutions amidst the escalating arguments. He dismissed his comm unit, turning his attention to a small, hidden satchel he carried for emergencies. 

He pulled out a leather-bound book, its pages brittle with age, filled with forbidden lore and arcane symbols. Days blurred into a frantic search as he poured over the texts, his mind racing to find an answer, any answer. He needed to understand. He needed to fix her.

He emerged from his solitary research, his face etched with exhaustion but alight with desperate hope. 

He held the ancient book open, pointing to a fading inscription. "There's an old ritual," he announced, his voice strained but firm. "To cleanse the spirit. To sever dark bonds, to purge corrupted power. It's dangerous, but it might work."

Orion and Draven exchanged worried glances, their expressions etched with doubt. "A ritual? Damien, you don't know what you're dealing with," Orion warned, his voice low and cautious. "This is her essence. This isn't some rogue spirit you can just banish. This could make it worse. It could kill her."

"Do you have a better idea?" Damien snapped, his patience worn thin, his voice raw with desperation. 

He gestured to the unconscious Selene. "She's suffering. We're losing her to this… this thing. What other choice do we have? Let her become a mindless, destructive force?" His eyes, normally so clear and logical, held a frantic flicker of fear, a desperate need for a solution.

Selene, deep in the throes of her semi-conscious state, watched them. A profound sense of isolation settled over her, a cold, bitter certainty that she was utterly alone in this. 

She heard their words, felt their fear, their desperation. It only amplified her own, a suffocating weight on her chest. The power pulsed within her, a constant, insistent thrum, urging her to escape, to be free of their attempts to shackle her, to define her, to fix her.

Damien began to prepare the ritual. He gathered specific ancient herbs from his satchel, their dried leaves crumbling to a fragrant dust. He poured moonlit water into a shallow silver bowl, its surface shimmering eerily. With precise, deliberate movements, he drew intricate symbols on the forest floor with a stick, each line an arcane sigil. 

The air grew thick with anticipation, heavy with the earthy scent of the forest, the fragrant herbs, and a subtle, metallic tang of arcane magic. Selene felt a cold dread in her stomach, a deep premonition of disaster, a primal warning she couldn't ignore.

He approached her, his gaze firm but kind, a flicker of the Alpha she knew, the one who tried to project control. "This will help, Selene," he promised, his voice low and soothing. "We'll bring you back. You'll be whole again. The darkness will be gone." 

His hand brushed her forehead, and for a fleeting moment, a familiar warmth spread, a brief, fragile spark of peace before the dread returned, stronger than before, suffocating all else.

As Damien began chanting, his voice low and resonant, the power within Selene roared in protest. It resisted the foreign magic with a primal, furious energy that seemed to claw its way out of her very soul. 

The herbs in the silver bowl shriveled and smoked, turning instantly to brittle ash. The moonlit water in the bowl boiled violently, then turned black and viscous, frothing with an unnatural heat. 

Her body seized, wracked with an unseen struggle, every muscle spasming, every nerve ending screaming in agony. It felt like being ripped apart from the inside, her essence torn between two opposing forces.

She screamed a sound that was less human, more primal, a raw cry of anguish and fury. The symbols on the ground, drawn with such care, exploded into black ash, consumed by an invisible, destructive force that radiated from Selene herself. 

Damien was thrown back with brutal force, landing hard on his back, gasping, his face pale, blood trickling from his nose and ears. The ritual had not cleansed her. It had done the opposite. It had agitated the darkness, feeding its monstrous hunger.

[Alpha Orion's POV]

Orion rushed to Damien's side, helping him up, his face contorted with anger and fear. "No!" he roared, his voice echoing through the silent trees. "I told you, Damien! You can't force this! You're making it worse! You're breaking her!"

Draven stared at Selene, his eyes wide with dawning horror, his wolf whimpering low in his chest. 

Her body writhed, muscles spasming violently beneath her skin. Her bones seemed to shift and crack, her skin stretching taut, threatening to tear. The silver fire in her eyes, once merely mystical, now blazed with a raw, uncontrollable fury, utterly wild and terrifying.

A low, guttural growl rumbled deep in Selene's chest, a sound that was alien and utterly terrifying. It wasn't the guttural snarl of a wolf, nor the controlled roar of an Alpha. It was something else entirely. Something ancient, something untamed, a beast breaking free from the deepest, darkest parts of the world.

Her vision blurred, then sharpened with terrifying clarity, cutting through the agony. The world around her became a kaleidoscope of primal scents and raw, unrestrained energy. 

The Alphas stood before her, their fear a potent aroma that filled her senses, intoxicating and infuriating all at once. But she no longer saw them as protectors, or even as captors. She saw them as threats, as cages, as obstacles to her unleashed power.

The fur rippled and tore beneath her skin, splitting the fabric of her tattered clothes. Her fangs elongated, scraping painfully against her tongue, growing sharper with every passing second. Her nails sharpened into obsidian claws, glistening faintly in the dim forest light. 

This wasn't a partial shift or a controlled transformation. It was a chaotic, violent awakening, twisting her very form, reshaping her into something monstrous and beautiful all at once. Her old self screamed, a faint, desperate wail trapped beneath a rising tide of savagery.

Her wolf rose, tearing through the last vestiges of her human control. It was not the noble, loyal companion of the Alphas. 

It was something born of pure shadow, of ancient rage and untamed power. Something wilder. Darker. And utterly unbound. The Blood Forest itself seemed to hold its breath, witnessing the birth of its new, terrifying apex predator.