Dark Woods

Chapter 15

The training session was going better than expected. I was taking on grown men who were twice my size, and I was actually holding my own. The beta's blood that flowed through me was finally showing—I was just as strong and tough as my father. But more than that, Gabriel's betrayal had turned all my pain into this burning rage that made me fight harder than I ever had before.

Every punch I threw carried months of heartbreak. Every block contained all the nights I'd woken up screaming from nightmares. Every move was fueled by the constant ache in my chest that never went away, the physical reminder that my mate was out there destroying us both—the same mate who'd been so gentle with me that night, who'd made me feel like I was everything to him before throwing me away like I was nothing.

I'd given him my virginity, and he'd repaid me by f*****g half the supernatural community.

I was mid-strike, my fist connecting with my opponent's ribs, when suddenly everything around me turned dark. One moment I was fighting on the training mats, and the next, deathly silence surrounded me.

But my body didn't stop fighting. Even as my mind was pulled into the vision, I could distantly hear shouting, panic, the sound of someone hitting the mats hard. My physical form kept moving, my movements becoming vicious and uncontrolled, like I was fighting ghosts.

I stumbled backward and fell to the ground as cold wind sent shivers through my body. I looked around the dark forest, confused and terrified. One minute I was at the Winter Moon training grounds, and now I was back in the Everdeen Woods—the same f*****g forest that haunted my dreams every night.

But this felt different from my nightmares. More real. More immediate. And somewhere, in the back of my consciousness, I could hear voices calling my name with urgent desperation.

"What do we have here," said a gravelly voice.

I jumped to my feet instinctively, my body still coiled for the fight I'd been pulled away from. A streak of fear ran down my spine as I turned around, trying to see through the darkness to find the source of that voice. I scanned the tree line, my warrior training warring with the supernatural terror that clawed at my chest.

This can't be happening, I thought desperately. I'm still sparring. I'm still at the training grounds. This isn't real.

But the forest felt more solid than anything I'd ever experienced, more real than the mats beneath my feet moments ago.

The forest loomed around me like a living nightmare, ancient oaks towering overhead with branches that seemed to reach down like skeletal fingers. Even in this twisted reality, I knew this place—knew it with a bone-deep recognition that made my skin crawl.

The air hung thick and wrong, heavy with the metallic scent of blood and something else... something wild and predatory that made every instinct scream at me to run. But where could I go? The darkness pressed in from all sides, and I could feel eyes watching me from the shadows.

A low chuckle echoed from the darkness, and more voices joined in—whispers that seemed to come from the trees themselves. My training kicked in harder, my stance shifting into a fighting position, but something was wrong. My body felt sluggish, disconnected, as if the very air was working against me.

"Lost little wolf," another voice hissed from my left. "So far from home."

I spun toward the sound but saw only shifting shadows and mist that coiled around the massive tree trunks like living things. The scent of blood grew stronger, and I realized with dawning horror that it was coming from me. When I looked down, crimson was seeping through my training clothes, spreading across the fabric in widening stains.

My throat felt raw, torn, as if I'd been screaming for hours. When I raised my hand to touch it, my fingers came away slick with blood.

"The beta's little princess," the gravelly voice spoke again, closer now. "Such pretty blood you have."

The voices multiplied, creating a chorus of malice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I tried to focus, tried to use my training to identify threats, but the wounds were multiplying—gashes along my arms, my ribs, wounds that shifted and deepened even as I watched. My strength was bleeding away with each heartbeat.

This isn't real, I told myself desperately. This is just another nightmare. But the pain felt real, the terror felt real, and the presence stalking me through the mist felt more real than anything I'd ever experienced.

I stumbled forward, my warrior's instincts driving me to move, to fight, to survive. But my legs felt wrong, too weak, like moving through quicksand. Every step sent fresh waves of agony through my body, and I could feel myself leaving a trail—a breadcrumb path of crimson that anything could follow.

They're coming. The knowledge hit me like a physical blow. They're coming and I'm going to die here.

The mist began to pulse with an otherworldly light, casting twisted shadows that moved independently of their sources. And that's when I heard it—the voice that had haunted my dreams for months.

"Jasmine!" Raw. Desperate. Closer than the hunting sounds but somehow more distant, as if he were calling to me across an impossible chasm. "Jasmine, where are you?!"

I tried to answer, tried to scream that I was here, that I was dying, but the blood in my throat choked off any sound. I pressed my hands against the wounds, trying to stop the flow, but there were too many. My vision began to blur at the edges.

"Please," the voice broke, and with it, something inside my chest shattered. "Please don't leave me. Not like this."

Heavy footsteps crashed through the underbrush, and I caught a glimpse of a figure in the mist—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with inhuman speed. But even as relief flooded through me, the hunting sounds exploded into a cacophony of snarls and howls that made the very air vibrate with malice.

I was falling now, my legs finally giving out completely. The forest floor rushed up to meet me, soft with decades of decomposed leaves that should have cushioned my fall but instead felt like broken glass against my skin. I landed hard, my breath leaving me in a rush that brought more blood with it.

The figure dropped to his knees beside me with an impact that shook the ground, and I caught a flash of eyes—not quite human, burning with an inner light that seemed to pulse with my failing heartbeat. His hands hovered over my wounds, shaking, as if he were afraid his touch might cause more damage.

"No, no, no," he whispered, and the anguish in his voice was so raw it made my chest ache in ways that had nothing to do with my injuries. "You can't... I can't lose you. Not when I just found you."

Found me? I wanted to ask what he meant, wanted to tell him I didn't understand, but darkness was creeping in from all sides. The hunting sounds were getting closer, and I could see shapes moving in the mist—things that weren't quite wolf, weren't quite human, but something far worse than either.

His hands finally touched my face, warm and solid and somehow familiar, and I felt a jolt of recognition so strong it momentarily cleared the fog of pain. I knew those hands. Knew this touch. But from where?

"Stay with me," he pleaded, his voice breaking completely now. "Please, just stay with me."

But I was already fading, the forest and his desperate voice and the approaching danger all dissolving into the same crimson haze that had started this nightmare. The last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me was a sound that would echo in my bones long after I woke—a howl of such profound loss and rage that it seemed to split the very fabric of the dream world apart.

"Jasmine! JASMINE!"

The voice cut through the supernatural haze like a blade. Keaton. My future Alpha's voice, raw with panic and authority. The Everdeen Woods shattered around me like broken glass, and suddenly I was back—back on the training mats, back in the fluorescent-lit gym, back in my own body.

But something was seriously f****d up.

My sparring partner was on the ground, blood streaming from his nose, his eyes wide with shock and fear. Other pack members had formed a circle around us, their faces pale as hell. Nick was there too, his beta instincts making him position himself between me and the crowd, his expression a mixture of concern and barely contained alarm.

"Jasmine," Keaton's voice was steady now but edged with something I'd never heard from him before—wariness. His hands were still on my shoulders, but his grip was firm, restraining. "You need to tell me what just happened. Right now."

I looked down at my hands and saw my knuckles were split and bloody. My opponent—Marcus, I remembered now—was being helped to his feet by two other wolves, his face a mess of bruises that looked way worse than anything a sparring match should have produced.

"I... I don't know," I whispered, my voice hoarse as if I'd been screaming. The words got stuck in my throat. How could I explain something I'd never told anyone? Something I'd convinced myself was just stress, just my mind breaking down after everything that had happened with Sarah.

"I was there. I was in the woods, and there were voices, and I couldn't..." My voice cracked as the full horror of what had just happened crashed over me. I'd nearly killed Marcus. Could have killed him. And I hadn't even been there.

Nick stepped closer, his familiar presence both comforting and worried, but there was something else in his eyes now—confusion, worry I'd never seen before. "Jas, you've been standing there for three minutes, but you were fighting like..." He paused, glancing at Keaton before continuing carefully. "Like you were fighting for your life. Marcus couldn't get through to you. None of us could."

Keaton's grip on my shoulders stayed firm, his future Alpha authority bleeding through his concern. "What woods, Jasmine? You said you were 'in the woods.' What the hell are you talking about?"

I looked around at all the faces watching me—pack members I'd grown up with, people who trusted me, who were now looking at me like I was something dangerous and unpredictable. Which, apparently, I was. How could I tell them about months of nightmares I'd hidden? About the bleeding, the voices, the man who called my name with such desperate anguish.

"I..." I started, then stopped. They'd think I was losing my s**t. They'd think I was broken, dangerous. Maybe I was.

The weight of everyone's stares, the blood on my knuckles, Marcus groaning as he was helped away—it all crashed over me at once. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't stand there another second with all those eyes on me, waiting for an explanation I couldn't give.

"I need... I can't..." Without finishing the sentence, I broke free from Keaton's grip and ran.

But as I ran toward the exit, I could hear Nick and Keaton talking in low, worried voices behind me. And I knew that whatever was happening to me—the nightmares, the visions, the way my body seemed to be falling apart—it was getting worse.

Way worse.