Rejected And Reborn As The Alpha King's Luna

Chapter 44: The Alpha Who Fought the Shadow

POV: Theo

She moved quickly, cutting her own palm first. Blood welled up, dark and thick. She pressed her hand to Xavier's chest, right over his heart.

"Luna, you next."

Luna cut her palm without hesitation and placed it on Xavier's forehead.

"Theo."

I took the knife. The blade was cold against my skin. I pressed it into my palm, felt the sting and the hot rush of blood. Then I placed my hand over Xavier's, linking us together.

"Everyone hold tight," Elena said. "Once this starts, you can't let go. No matter what you feel."

She began to chant in a language I didn't recognize. Old words, heavy with power and darkness. The air around us grew cold, and the blood from our wounds began to glow with sickly green light.

Then the pain hit.

It slammed into me like a physical blow. Suddenly I was feeling what Xavier felt, experiencing what Thelma experienced through their bond. Dark magic, cold and oily, sliding through my veins. Voices screaming in my head. The sensation of being torn apart and remade.

I heard Luna scream. Elena's chanting stuttered but continued.

Through the shared pain, I caught glimpses of what Thelma was enduring. The Oracle's cave. Dark magic flooding into her. Morgana's consciousness trying to take control. The sheer overwhelming agony of absorbing centuries of corruption.

My sister. My twin. Enduring hell so we could have a chance to stop the witch.

"Hold on!" Elena's voice cut through the chaos. "The spell is stabilizing!"

The pain didn't stop, but it became bearable. Distributed between four of us instead of Xavier alone, we could survive it. Barely.

Xavier's convulsions slowed. His breathing, while still ragged, steadied. The blood flow from his nose and ears reduced to a trickle.

"It's working," Luna gasped. "But I don't know how long we can maintain this."

"As long as we have to," I gritted out.

Through the mate bond Xavier shared with Thelma, through the connection we'd created, I felt my sister. Really felt her for the first time since her heart turned to stone. She was terrified, in pain, struggling to maintain herself against Morgana's assault.

But she was also determined. Strong. Fighting with everything she had.

"Hang on, Thel," I whispered. "We've got him. We've got you. Just hang on."

A roar shattered the night.

The shadow guardian from the cave entrance had moved, drawn by the dark magic we were channeling. It loomed over us, massive and terrible, its form shifting and reforming.

"We can't fight it," Luna said through gritted teeth. "Not while maintaining the spell."

"You don't have to." I carefully extracted my hand from the circle. The moment I broke contact, some of Xavier's pain returned to him, but Luna and Elena held firm. "I'll handle it."

"Theo, you can't fight that thing alone!"

"Watch me."

My wolf surged forward, and I let the transformation take me. Bones shifted, reformed. Power flooded through me, the Alpha power I'd been denying my entire life.

The shadow creature lunged. I met it head on.

We collided in a tangle of claws and darkness. The creature was strong, its form difficult to damage. But I was an Alpha, with my sister's blood in my veins, and I was furious.

Furious at Morgana for causing this. Furious at Marcus and Elena for their betrayal. Furious at myself for wasting so many years hating Thelma when I should have been protecting her.

I channeled all that fury into my claws and tore into the shadow creature. It shrieked, reforming, attacking again. We fought in brutal silence, broken only by snarls and the sound of claws on shadow.

I took hits. Deep gouges in my side, across my back. But I gave as good as I got, pouring my Alpha power into each strike until the creature began to dissolve.

With a final, echoing wail, it collapsed into mist and disappeared.

I shifted back to human form, bleeding and exhausted, and stumbled back to the others.

"Is he—"

"Alive," Luna confirmed. "Stable, for now. But Theo, we can't maintain this forever. We need Thelma to finish whatever she's doing in there."

As if in response, the cave entrance blazed with light. Dark light, wrong light, the color of bruises and decay.

A figure emerged from the darkness.

Thelma.

But changed.

Her eyes glowed with dark energy, swirling purple and black. Veins visible beneath her skin pulsed with the same dark light, creating a spiderweb pattern across her face, her arms, everywhere. Her hair moved as if underwater, lifted by invisible currents of power.

When she walked, the ground beneath her feet blackened and died.

"Is my mate alive?" Her voice echoed, doubled, as if two people spoke at once. Her own voice, and underneath it, something older, crueler. Morgana's voice.

I helped Luna and Elena break the spell. Xavier gasped, his eyes opening.

"Thelma?" he croaked.

She turned to look at him, and the expression on her face was terrifying. Love and hunger, tenderness and cruelty, all mixed together.

Behind her, the Oracle emerged from the cave. Cassandra's blind eyes were grave as she looked at my sister.

"You have two days before the darkness consumes you completely," she said, her voice carrying clearly in the cold air. "Find the witch. End this."

Thelma's dark eyes fixed on me, and I saw my sister in there, buried under layers of corruption. But I also saw Morgana, watching, waiting, ready to take control.

"Then we'd better hurry," Thelma said, and her smile was full of shadows. "I can feel her, you know. Morgana. She's in Yvonne's body, preparing the ritual. And she's terrified of what I've become."

She looked at her hands, watching the dark veins pulse. "She should be. Because

I'm coming for her."

The dual voice faded slightly, leaving more of my sister and less of the witch. But the darkness remained, coiled inside her like a snake.

"And when I find her," Thelma said, her glowing eyes finding each of us in turn, "I'm going to make her regret everything she's ever done."