Chapter Four: The Shard

(Rhett's POV cont'd)

Glowing green eyes.

Silver hair cascading like moonlight incarnate.

Tall, powerful, otherworldly, terrifying and breathtaking all at once.

The woman from my nightmare.

The woman from the den.

The woman who had growled at me beneath a full moon.

The one who wasn’t supposed to exist.

“It wasn’t hard locating you,” she said, her voice low and cold.

My throat dried instantly.

My breath stalled.

This wasn’t a dream.

This wasn’t a hallucination.

This was real.

My pulse hammered against my ribs as everything I’d tried desperately to rationalize came crashing back—those golden-eyed creatures surrounding me, the roar in my ears, the cold stone floor of that den, the green-eyed Alpha snarling at the moon goddess above her.

“It’s you,” I whispered.

Her jaw clenched. “Of course it’s me.”

Suddenly, everything in me screamed run, but my body stayed rooted to the ground. Frozen. Not from fear—something else held me there. Something I couldn’t understand.

Zyandra—though I still didn’t know her name—took a step closer.

The air around us thickened.

“Everything you saw,” she said, “everything you remember… it was real.”

There it was.

Confirmation.

The world as I knew it flipped upside down with one sentence.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

My chest tightened. I felt the bond—or whatever it was—tugging at me, insistent and unignorable. My throat went dry. I swallowed hard and forced my voice out.

“I… I don’t understand,” I said, each word strained. “Everything—the forest, the den, the… you. What is happening?”

Her gaze sharpened. Her eyes, bright and piercing, seemed to cut through me. “Silence,” she said. The word carried authority, fury, and danger. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.

I froze, my words dying in my throat. The forest seemed to hush around us, as if waiting for her next move.

“You don’t even know what you’ve done,” she continued, voice low and dangerous. “Do you realize how grave your presence is? That you’ve disrupted things that should never be disrupted? The bond, the laws of my world, the balance of the pack… it’s all in jeopardy because of you.”

I raised my hands slowly, palms outward, the universal gesture of peace. “I didn’t do anything! I… I just came to get my drone! That’s all! I didn’t know, I didn’t—”

Her glare cut me off. Sharp, unrelenting, full of fire. “Your ignorance doesn’t matter. You’ve caused chaos. You’ve made the impossible happen. I am here because of you. Everything—the pack, my world, my position—is in danger. And it’s your fault.”

I felt the weight of her words settle over me. My stomach dropped. My heart raced. I swallowed hard, trying to find words. “I… I’m not your enemy. I didn’t ask for any of this. I—please, just give me a minute to explain!”

She stepped closer. I felt the pull of the bond increase, a subtle pressure in my chest that made my chest tighten and my limbs stiffen. It wasn’t excruciating, but it was persistent, like an invisible hand pressing down on me, reminding me that I didn’t belong here.

“I am here to kill you,” she said plainly, without hesitation. “Either you die, or my pack suffers. I cannot leave them.”

Her words landed like a hammer to my chest. I staggered backward, my mind spinning, trying to understand. “Wait! Hold on! I don’t want this! I don’t want to hurt anyone! Just… wait!”

My foot caught on a root. I stumbled forward. The object in my hand slipped free, falling against the dirt with a clatter.

The shard.

Her eyes snapped to it immediately. “What’s that?” she demanded, her voice sharp as the edge of a blade.

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted, crouching slightly, staring at it. “Someone… gave it to me. I can’t remember who. I just… I know it’s important. I think it might have saved me from getting killed.”

Recognition flickered across her face, subtle but undeniable. A flash of shock, maybe fear, maybe relief—but gone in an instant. She sank to her knees, her silver hair shimmering in the moonlight, eyes fixed on the shard.

“I… I hope this thing saved me from getting killed,” I whispered again, taking a small, tentative step forward.

She didn’t move. Just stayed kneeling, claws flexed at her sides, green eyes blazing, fixed on me and the shard. I could see her controlling herself, holding back. Holding herself back from what, I wasn’t sure. But there was intensity in her gaze I couldn’t ignore.

“I… I’m not going to hurt you,” I said carefully, my voice low. “I just want to understand. I want to help if I can…”

The bond responded immediately, tugging at me again—not violently, not painfully, but enough to knock me off balance. I stumbled and fell to the ground, the shard landing softly beside me.

She didn’t approach. She just watched, standing—or rather, kneeling and tense, every muscle ready, every instinct sharp. Her green eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight.

I tried to crawl closer, to reach for the shard. “I… I don’t want to fight,” I said softly.

A small tug from the bond made me stumble again, my hands hitting the dirt. I rolled onto my side, taking a shallow breath, blinking rapidly.

Her green eyes softened—or maybe not softened, just shifted. I couldn’t read it. Recognition? Surprise? Something personal?

I tried to speak again. “I… I just want to understand.”

She remained still, silent, glowing, silver hair brushing her shoulders, watching me.

I attempted to sit up, but the pull of the bond and my exhaustion from the day—the confusion, the adrenaline—made it nearly impossible. My vision blurred slightly. My chest felt tight.

And then I saw her rise.

She stepped toward me, her figure looming, green eyes blazing brighter than ever. Silver hair framed her face like a halo, but the intensity in her gaze made it impossible to mistake her for anything human.

I swallowed hard. My hands reached out instinctively, but my body refused to move properly. I could only stare at her, the shard glowing faintly beside me, as she towered over me.

The moon hung above, silver and cold, casting light through the trees. It illuminated her presence, made her glow, and left me feeling smaller than I ever had in my life.

I tried to speak, tried to reach her, but everything felt distant—like my own body didn’t belong to me anymore. My eyes began to close, heavy, exhausted, overwhelmed.

And just before darkness claimed me, I saw her standing above me, watching, glowing, and unyielding.