THAT LIGHTING WAS YOU
1655 Words
CHAPTER 5: THAT LIGHTNING WAS YOU
The cabin walls groaned.
Again.
Splinters of ancient wood rained down like ash, dusting my dark hair with white. My breath left me in brittle clouds. The air was arctic, but beneath my skin, a wildfire raged.
“Stop fighting it,” the stranger commanded.
His voice was a low rumble. It vibrated through the floorboards and straight into my bones.
I couldn’t see him clearly. Not with the storm raging outside and the shadows swallowing the room. Only his eyes.
Gold.
Molten.
Like twin suns trapped in a wolf’s face.
He knelt before me, a predator forced to be gentle. One hand hovered, trembling, a mere breath above the center of my chest. The other was splayed against the floor, fingers clawed, as if he was physically holding the cabin together through sheer will.
My name was Lila Carter.
24 hours ago, I was an omega with a place.
12 hours ago, Alpha Kael rejected me before the entire Silver Moon Pack. “I, Kael Black, reject you, Lila Carter, as my mate.”
4 hours ago, rogues with blood on their teeth tore through my pack like we were paper.
And now?
Now something ancient was trying to tear its way out of my ribcage.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. My voice was ruined. Raw from screaming, from crying, from begging a man who didn’t want me. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’m not,” he countered. His jaw clenched. A muscle jumped there. “You are. You’re trying to cage a storm inside a teacup. Let. It. Go.”
Let it go.
As if I had any idea what _it_ was.
Agony lanced up my spine. It wasn’t pain. Not exactly. It was pressure. Power.
Like lightning had been chained beneath my skin for 23 years and the lock had just broken.
Pins and needles. Heat and ice.
My hands shook violently. I looked down and gasped.
My nails had lengthened. Black. Sharp. Wolf claws.
And my chest—
Through the torn, filthy fabric of my dress, light pulsed.
A crescent moon.
Not drawn. Not painted.
Burned.
Glowing with a soft, silver radiance that chased the shadows from the room.
The stranger’s breath hitched.
“Goddess,” he breathed. The word sounded like a prayer and a curse all at once.
“What?” My heart was hammering. 124 beats per minute. “What did you call me?”
He ignored me. His focus was absolute, terrifying.
“Look at me, Lila.”
How did he know my name? I’d never told him.
“Look. At. Me.”
I dragged my gaze up, and the world tilted.
Those gold eyes. They weren’t human. There was no white, no iris, no pupil. Just endless, burning gold. Ancient. Knowing.
The second our eyes met, the pressure in my chest detonated.
I screamed.
The sound was ripped from me.
Light exploded.
White-hot lightning erupted from my palms and slammed into the ceiling. For a single, blinding second, the entire cabin was illuminated.
I saw him.
Rugged jaw. A thin scar cutting through his left brow. Hair black as a raven’s wing, falling into his face.
And fear.
Real, naked fear in those divine eyes.
Then darkness crashed back down.
Outside, the storm roared in answer.
Thunder cracked the sky open. The windows bowed inward. Rain assaulted the roof like a thousand fists.
“You’re awakening,” he said, voice strained. He still hadn’t touched me, but his presence was a cage around me, keeping me from flying apart. “And if you don’t learn to control it, it will burn you from the inside out.”
“I don’t” I sobbed. “I’m nothing. I’m an omega. Omegas don’t do this. Omegas are weak. Disposable.”
A muscle in his throat worked. “Tell that to the storm, Lila.”
Another surge rolled through me. This time, it didn’t hurt.
It felt like the first breath after nearly drowning.
Like running barefoot through the forest at full moon.
Like coming home to a place I’d never been.
Power.
Mine.
In the quiet space in my head, Ember stirred.
My wolf.
But she wasn’t panicking.
She wasn’t whimpering.
She was on her knees.
Head bowed. Tail tucked.
Submitting.
To me.
My own wolf was submitting to me.
The thought stole my breath.
“What are you?” I whispered, staring at the stranger.
“Ryder,” he answered. Simple. Final. “Alpha Ryder of the North Border Pack.”
An Alpha.
A rogue Alpha.
The boogeyman mothers warned their pups about.
He should have been my enemy.
So why did the air feel safer when he was near?
Why did the lightning calm when his gaze was on me?
“Why are you helping me?” The question tore out of me. “You don’t know me.”
“Because if I don’t,” he said, and his voice dropped to something dangerous and soft, “you will die. And if you die, the world loses its last chance.”
Vague. Infuriating. Beautiful.
My mind was fracturing.
I tried to yank my hands from his orbit. I needed space.
The moment I moved, more lightning answered. It cracked out, wild and untamed, and obliterated the front door.
It flew off its hinges and into the blizzard.
Snow and wind poured in, screaming.
And with the wind came the scent.
Copper. Rot. Rage.
Rogues.
“They found us,” Ryder said instantly. He was on his feet, a blur of motion. All lethal grace. “Can you stand?”
“No,” I lied.
“Liar.”
Before I could blink, he had me.
One arm under my knees, the other around my back.
He lifted me like I weighed nothing. Like I was precious.
The thought was traitorous:
Kael never once carried me.
Kael never once looked at me like I was worth saving._
Stop.
Don’t think his name.
Ryder kicked the back door open with his boot. The blizzard hit us like a physical blow. Ice needled my skin.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered, setting me down but not letting go. His hand was a brand on my wrist. “If I tell you to run, you run, Lila. No questions.”
“How?” My teeth were chattering. “I can barely feel my legs!”
“Then you fly.”
“What—”
They emerged from the white.
Three of them.
Huge. Hulking. Fur matted with blood and snow.
Eyes glowing red.
The same rogues that laughed while my pack died.
The same rogues that watched Kael push me into the snow.
Fury.
It rose in me, hot and black and glorious.
It scorched away the fear. The cold. The weakness.
The moon on my chest flared so bright it hurt to look at.
Ryder shoved me behind him.
“Don’t,” he warned, low and urgent. “You don’t have control yet. You’ll kill yourself.”
“I’m done being controlled,” I whispered.
The first rogue charged.
Ryder met him.
It was over in seconds.
A snarl. A blur of claws. A wet, sickening sound.
The rogue dropped, throat gone.
The other two froze.
“Back,” Ryder snarled over his shoulder at me.
But I stepped forward.
Past him.
Into the snow.
The mark on my chest pulsed in time with my heart.
The storm above us mirrored it.
Lightning answered my call.
It descended from the black sky in a jagged spear.
But it didn’t strike the ground.
It struck me.
It poured into my hands.
It didn’t burn.
It sang.
A hymn of power and rage and right.
“NO! LILA!” Ryder roared.
I threw my hands forward.
I didn’t aim. I didn’t think.
I just _wanted_.
I wanted them gone.
I wanted to be strong.
I wanted to never be helpless again.
A tidal wave of gold light and raw lightning exploded from me.
It hit the two rogues and sent them flying like ragdolls, 30 feet into the trees.
It vaporized the snow in a perfect circle around us. Steam hissed.
And then it dropped me.
To my knees.
Gasping.
Shaking.
Alive.
Silence.
Only the hiss of melting snow and the frantic drum of my heart.
Ryder was there before I could fall. His hands were on my face, my shoulders, my chest, checking, frantic.
“Look at me. Lila, look at me. Are you hurt? Did it hurt you?”
“I—” My voice was ash. “Did I do that?”
He cupped my face. His thumbs brushed my cheeks. His gold eyes searched mine.
And what I saw there stole my breath.
Awe.
Terror.
And reverence.
“Yes,” he whispered. “That was you.”
In the distance, carried on the wind: a howl.
Then another.
Organized.
Pack howls.
Ryder’s entire body went rigid.
“Silver Moon,” he spat. “Kael’s scouts.”
He hauled me to my feet. My legs buckled. He caught me. “We need to move. Now.”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
He didn’t let go of my hand.
His skin against mine sent another spark through me. Smaller this time, but deliberate.
Like the universe was taking notes.
As we disappeared into the blizzard, hand in hand, a single thought echoed in my skull, louder than the storm.
The storm wasn’t outside.
The lightning was me.
Miles away, in a different part of the forest, Alpha Kael Black stopped dead in his tracks.
His wolf reared inside him, claws raking.
He turned his face to the sky, to the impossible golden light that had just split the clouds.
And he felt it.
The bond.
The one he’d cut.
The one he’d rejected.
It was flaring back to life.
And it was leading him straight to her.
TO BE CONTINUED...
- Writer
