What You’re Becoming
330 Words
Chapter Nine
The pain inside me changes. It deepens. My heartbeat slows, too slow. Elias looks down at me and for the first time, he looks afraid.
“Bella… your pulse—”
“I know.”
I can hear everything now. Wolves’ hearts pounding on the cliffs. Kevin’s uneven breath. The scrape of Elias’ fangs shifting in his mouth. I can hear the tide miles away. I can hear blood moving beneath skin. Oh. That’s new. I look up at Elias and I smell him.Not metaphorically. Literally.Sweet but cold. Tempting. Raife steps back.
“She’s shifting.”
“Into what?” Kevin whispers.
Morrath answers.
“The First Tide.”
Memories crash into me. Not mine. Ancient ones. The first Warden didn’t bind the sea demon. She loved it. Merged with it. Became something between witch and abyss. Immortal. Not vampire or a werewolf. Something older.
My mother didn’t die. She became the seal. She fused herself with Morrath to hold it dormant.
And now it wants me to complete it, to become its vessel, to become its queen. Elias cups my face.
“Stay with me.”
His golden eyes are the only steady thing in the chaos.
“If you turn,” he whispers, “if you lose yourself…”
His voice breaks slightly.
“I won’t survive it.”
The confession slices through everything. The sea surges again. Morrath looms behind me.
“Choose.”
Bind it again and lose part of myself forever. Control it and become something feared or let it feed and watch the supernatural world collapse. The wolves kneel. Kevin watches like he’s witnessing prophecy. Elias presses his forehead to mine.
“I would burn the world for you,” he says softly. “But don’t become something you’ll hate.”
The ocean waits. The night holds its breath.
And Bella Rose a pub worker, a Sea Warden, Kisser of Vampire Kings, Daughter of something ancient has to decide what she becomes.
- Writer
