CHAPTER 6: LET GO OF THE MOON

MENODORA'S POV

“No… that's impossible,” one of the council members says, but right before their very eyes, it is already happening.

The first sight that catches my attention is the sight of my fingers, because extending from where my nails should be are now lethal-looking claws, long and sleek.

“Beautiful…so beautiful” I think, turning my paws to admire them. My fur is stark white, almost silver under the glint of the moon. My senses are now almost four times the regular intensity for an average wolf, the sound of every heartbeat comes to me with clarity, so does the smell of the flicker of fear…it's almost too much for me, all at once.

“Stop her! You can't let her shift!” The Alpha roars, rage pouring from him in waves, his voice a deafening inhuman cry shattering the silence of the night. It is too late to stop though, the change in me is happening even faster than I can control.

My head jolts backwards, reeled in by an invisible violent force of the moon, my eyes…silver and red… burn with the intensity of something unnatural, not belonging to the Moon.

“I…,” my voice echoes with strange layering, like two different voices are speaking through me. “I…,” I try again, but it's still the same so I give up, continuing what I mean to say. “I did not do any of this.” But no one is listening enough to give me an answer, their gaze shifting to the ground beneath the execution circle.

The symbols under my feet, believed to be sacred and unbreakable, are now cracking open like fragile glass. A faint spark of molten lightening starts at the edge of what should be my fingertips, traveling inward and turning into an uncontrolled wildfire in my blood.

Above us, the moon trembles again, a shimmering reflection on the black velvet canvas of the night. A ripple moves through the sky causing a distortion in the crimson light, touched by an unseen hand.

“END IT NOW!” The council leader shrieks, losing his composure completely. The executioner takes a swing at me, his silver blade rising to make true his aim, but somehow I am already anticipating his moves.

Without thinking too much, I pivot from the left side where he aims for, moving to the right instead. This throws the executioner off, his body slamming into a tree at the edge of the clearing with a sickening crack.

I'm too stunned for words, my eyes traveling to my hands in awe.

“How…?” I whisper under my breathe. “How did that happen?”

Just then, hot needle like pain pierces through the back of my right eye, shattering into a thousand shards of blinding white agony, turning the crowd into a chaotic blur of faces, before I am pulled into another vision.

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The scene is almost similar to the previous vision, the screams of women ringing clear in my ears, the fury overwhelming my senses.

One voice in particular stands out to me, sharp and desperate.

“They plan to erase us…”

Another voice rises to answer, as strong as the first one.

“Then we will burn before we bow!”

Power explodes and I am pulled out of the vision immediately.

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My breath hitches and catches in my throat like a snagged thread, the vision snapping and and the world around me spinning, my knees finding the ground again.

“No…” I try to call out, but the air in my throat feels shafty like sand, reducing my voice to a frantic and dry hiss.

“No…make it stop…please…” I beg, but the memories keep clawing at the inside of my head. I know they're not my memories but they live inside of me.

"Contain her!” The council leader growls, the panic in his voice is very evident now. “She must not be allowed to get out of the circle."

“Contain her?" The words sound like shafts against my ears, and my whole system stills.

“No," just one word, but it carries so much power and depth that even I don't understand just yet. Slowly, the air stops moving, turning thick and heavy-laden like the breath of an ancient tomb. The wind howling through the trees dies down and the little droplets of snow stop with a suffocating stillness that whispers of eerie things to come.

“I will not be put to death…executed wrongfully…for something I have no hand in.”

The Alpha steps into the circle, his aura flaring with dominance that should have crushed me under the weight of it, but in my present form, it is barely a whisper against my fur.

“That is not your choice to make"

For the first time in my life, I smile. A cold creeping smile stretches slowly across my face like a droplets of ink spreading in fine fabric.

“I may not have had a choice before, but I do now."

With those words, I turn in the direction of the woods and take to my heels. I run like my life depends on it…I mean, frankly speaking, my life does depends on how fast I get away from them.

The forest completely swallows me, bfancdhes tearing at my skin as I sprint blindly through the canopy of trees, my body finds it difficult to keep up with the electric surge of energy coursing through my bloodstream.

Behind me, howls tear through the quiet of the night, the pack closing in on me.

“She's just within reach, chase harder!" I hear someone say

“Don't let her get past the border," another is yelling.

My breath comes out in ragged staccato bursts, each inhale ignites a slow-spreading wildfire between my ribs, burning in my lungs even as I push further and further for the edge of the border.

“Just a little more, please," I plead with my legs even as they threaten to give out from beneath me. I keep running until I feel it, a barely visible line that indicates the border is closer than ever. If I cross that line, I become a rogue, never to be accepted by any pack again…but isn't that the life I have always lived?

“Stop her!" The Alpha's voice thunders behind me, my steps are slowing and they're finally gaining grounds on me.

“One more step," I think, but my foot catches in the loose root trendils of a fallen tree and I fall flat on my face.