The Alpha’s Second Chance

Chapter 5 ‐ A New Breath

Amara's POV

I am drifting in the darkness, floating in a cold endless ocean. No sound, no light. The dark, sucking me down, quiet and all. My body is floating, part of the water, feeling myself sink lower. And everything feels so heavy, I try to move, to reach for something.

There's a distant, faint warmth which stirs against my skin. It’s like something is pulling at me, a voice deep in the back of my head. My fingers twitch, a sharp pain shooting through my arm, and I snap back into some kind of awareness. I’m not sure if it’s real, but I feel something solid against my cheek; rough, cold. Ground, maybe?

The footsteps inside the dirt nearby are slow and cautious. Low murmurs, voices, just out of the fog in my mind. My eyes feel like lead, bloodshot from exhaustion that I try to open.

“Is she alive?” A voice, not loud, not too soft, but laced with concern. It’s warm, and has a tone that cuts through the haze in my thoughts.

Another voice, this one male and unsure replies, “She’s breathing, but barely.”

Something touches my forehead, firm, but gentle, like a mother would, calm and steady. Even in my dazed state I shiver. Her hand is warm and it seeps into me and stabs me… steadies me I don’t know how.

“We need to move her. The woman’s voice suddenly more urgent: “Carefully.” She speaks with little more than a whisper but with the command of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing and I feel the grip of someone’s arms sliding beneath me and lifting me from the cold ground. I feel as limp as my body, as if it’s been drained of everything, and yet there’s still a small fire of life burning somewhere inside me.It’s faint, but I hold onto it.

Almost as though she’s speaking to herself as well as me, the woman whispers, ‘Don’t worry.’ “You’re safe now.”

I’m not really paying attention to how we move through the forest, the sound leaves make when they crunch underfoot, or the creak of branches. My head spins, every breath a fight, but I can hear my heart and it’s slow and steady. The world is figures in focus, of definition, and then figures out of focus, sliding in, slipping out. I drift, though, and feel something strange, a pull, a sense of one I've known my whole life as I saw her.

A man asks why she was out here alone, his voice cracked with worry.

The woman replies with a tone of protectiveness, a note to which she’ll find out later. "She just needs rest right now." We need to get her back.”

There is a small comfort in the warmth of her body; the warmth that clings to my skin. I don’t know who these people are, but something is telling me that I can. The woman’s voice is soft and strange, and we connect, I just can’t place it. I don’t have the energy to wonder why she feels a tingle of safety, even if she’s barely clinging to consciousness.

Their footsteps sound like a soft rhythm in my ears, as these sounds carry me through the forest almost as if lullaby. It’s a world of dimness, my steps driving shadows in and out. However the woman’s voice keeps pulling me back, anchoring me in the real world.

A flash of light, perhaps a memory, bursts through the fog in my mind then. The sound of my own voice in my head, a figure standing off of the cliffs. This is it. I hold to the memory, but it evaporates, like mist before the morning sun.

“Almost there,” the woman mutters, like she’s looking at me, and she’s studying me, looking for something. Even though I’m too weak to understand, her eyes have a thousand unspoken questions in them. Just a crack I manage to open my eyes and see her face—soft and fierce, with silver hair braided back and eyes like a forest at night.

She whispers, 'Hang on child' almost addressing something inside of me. Both her eyes narrow and her expression turns thoughtful, intrigued, and her gaze falls to my wrist.

On the inside of my wrist, a line of light catches a faint mark: an ancient crest, weird, but strangely familiar. Yet somehow I don’t remember ever seeing it before, but it seems like… no, like it’s always been a part of me. The woman’s fingers too brush against it, and I can feel a faint warmth from the mark, as if it were alive.

She murmurs almost to herself, "Only the royal bloodline has this symbol." Her words hit me deep inside, but in a bad way. A way that strikes something so deep in my mind, I may not be able to catch it.

I feel a pang of confusion in my chest. Royal bloodline? The words float through my mind: strange, foreign. Why would she say that? What does it mean? My mind is too foggy to make sense of it and exhaustion drags me back to darkness.

Her hand warms me, hovers like a weight, stuck to me long after I'm gone. I hear her in a soft soothing murmur, her voice is the last thing I hear. “Rest now, child. We’ll keep you safe.”

---

I can’t say I know how long I drift in and out of consciousness. I think it's just days, maybe only minutes. Time steels itself, rolling quickly forward, falling like water from my fingers. I hear voices, the scraps of conversation, the warmth of the woman's hand passed lightly across my forehead but all at a distance more than a thousand miles apart.

I start to wake slowly, the fog of my mind slowly lifting. I’m covered in blankets — herbs and wood smoke — and I’m lying on something soft. I breathe in, and my eyes open, blinking, at the faint glow of firelight on the walls. The room is small and cozy and filled with a gentle warmth that hurts my bones a little, if only from being chilled.

My body protests as I try to sit up, every muscle aching, as if I’ve been stretched thin and set out in the open. My lips make a soft groan and I see that the woman hears me enough to turn. She’s here, sitting by my side, a dampened, still presence.

Her voice is gentle but not soft, ‘You’re awake.’ Her eyes, soft, there’s a kindness in them, even though I know her so little.

My throat having gone dry and scratchy, I can only manage to nod weakly. “Where… am I?” I try to speak but barely a whisper, and she does just fine.

And what's more, she explains, you're in White Fur Pack territory. “I think I found you by the cliffs, barely alive.”

It harks the memory of the fall rushing back, sharp and sudden. The cold, the darkness swallowing me, slipping away. The weight of it is pressing down on me, I shiver but her hand is warm and grounding.

“I… I thought I was…” The words choke from my throat and my voice trails off.

“Gone?” Her eyes soften as she finishes, for me. Because you are stronger than you think that you are. I think there’s something about you, something different. Glancing over I felt it the moment I saw you.”

I didn't understand her words but they somehow stir something inside me, a small spark of hope. I don’t know how she could be saying these things, or looking at me like I’m something special, something to be saved. I know how or why, but I can feel it, a connection, a thread that connects us, though I do not know how.

When she glances up at my wrist, where the strange symbol still glows faintly in the firelight. “That mark… it’s rare. 'There's only one other person who has it,’ I hear it,” added Lady Caroline Godfrey.

My heart is pounding in my chest and her words send a shock. Royal blood? I don’t understand but she speaks like herself, and her gaze always heavy, gives me the sense that she is telling the truth. And even deep inside, there is a stirring something I have forgotten of a past life.

She whispers quietly, 'Rest, child.' “You’re not ready to talk. We’ll talk when you are.”

She leaves me standing alone, but their words echo, fading away up and up. Royal blood. I can’t ignore this thought, which echoes in my mind. I'm letting sleep take me for now, her presence, as a warm weight a comforting steadying as I begin to drift away again into darkness.