The Mute Luna: The Rise Of Skye

a mute burden

The lightning cracked across the sky and the land with a thunderous sound behind it, lighting the whole dark forest, drenched in a relentless storm which had blurred the boundaries between sky and earth.

Skye gasped aloud in terror, glancing at the sky peeking through the cracks of bushes over her head, but didn’t stop.

The lightning would have exposed her location if the kidnappers were somewhere near her.

She can’t stop, or else she would be dead in a few seconds.

She was drugged, and from their conversation, she learned that they wanted to have fun with her before doing anything else.

She can endure any torment, but not this humiliation.

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps; her lungs were burning hard. They were on the verge of giving up at any time, but Skye didn’t care.

She took advantage of the lightning to study the forest ahead of her. No one knew that she had a photographic memory.

Two seconds max, and she now knew the forest in front of her like the back of her hand.

She changed her path and continued running between the broken and fallen logs; thick roots popped out of the earth here and there.

Her muscles were now screaming at her to stop, but she couldn’t.

She had to escape at any cost.

“5 million for a mute? Are you crazy?”

Her father’s shock scream was still ringing in her ears. Yes, she was mute, but she was his biological daughter.

He never valued her or showed any concern all these years, but she was still his daughter.

“Kill her if this is what you're going to say next. I don’t care. Just don’t let anyone find her body.”

And just like this, Skye was discarded by her family.

With every word running in her ears, her determination to escape at any cost strengthened, but she was drugged, making her wolf weaker to come out.

“Come on, Skye. You are stronger than this.” Her wolf, Mora, continued encouraging her, feeling useless in this state.

“We are not going to die here tonight, Mora. Just trust me.” Skye comforted her, but her vision was becoming blurred, too.

She knew where she was running now.

She was barefoot and wounded. She stumbled over roots, thick creepers hiding here and there, and jagged stones, leaving her feet torn and bleeding, but she didn’t slow down.

Her breath became heavier than earlier when she heard screams behind her, hidden under the roaring sound of rain.

“Search her. Don’t let her go away at any cost.” The scream filled her heart with terror. She summoned all her last strength in her muscles and sprinted towards the roaring sound of water.

Her tongue tasted blood, but she didn’t stop.

“Do you really think that I will pay this hefty sum for a mute who is not even my fated mate? Do whatever you want to do with her. Don’t bother me again.”

The pain shot through her chest to all over her body when she remembered what her fiancée, Alpha Arthur Froste, said when the kidnapper called him.

She was bound to him through a marriage alliance between the packs. He was always cold to her, yet she had hope that he would show some concern for her.

Even if he doesn’t treat her as his fiancée, she is still his family member.

He was cold and indifferent towards her, but he never treated her badly.

So, she still had a ray of hope in her heart that he wouldn’t abandon her.

This kidnapping broke the illusions that she had towards her family and her future family.

Through another flash of lightning, she saw her destination. A bitter and broken smile crept on her lips.

“A mute daughter is nothing but a burden.”

This was what she heard before the call ended. She could recognize this voice, even in her unconscious state.

Her mother – neither her biological mother nor the adoptive mother, but her mother for the whole world.

Her words didn’t hurt her the way they should have because Skye always knew what they did to her and her biological mother back then.

They thought that I had forgotten everything, but I remembered every second of that horrible night.

“Promise me, honey, that you will survive. Promise me th…. That you will not give up.”

Those desperate eyes still haunt her in her dreams, but they were also the only feature of her mother that she remembered.

She wanted me to live, and I did.

Instead of saying a word about what happened to her and me, I chose to keep my mouth shut.

They thought that the trauma turned me into a mute, and then they became wary of me.

They treated me like trash, hurt me in every possible way whenever they felt like doing that, but I endured everything.

Because I promised her that I would survive.

“If I survive, Mora, I promise you that I will make them pay for everything. I suffered enough. I endured enough,” Skye promised to Mora in determination before sprinting towards the edge of the cliff.

The roaring sound of water mixed with the roar of the rain crushed her eardrums, but with every step in that direction, her world started to be devoid of sounds.

Her steps faltered for only a fraction of a second when Mora whimpered in pain and resignation, but they knew what could happen to her if Skye stopped now.

With one high leap in the air, Skye raised her hands high above her head, closing her eyes, letting the coldness of the air slap her face and body on her way down.

The world seemed to pause as gravity took hold of her body. The rushing wind roared in her ears, and the rain lashed against her face as she plunged toward the river below. For a fleeting instant, there was an odd sense of calm, as though everything had slowed down to a standstill.

The air…. The water…. The rain….everything stopped around her.

“If I survive this, I will make you all pay.” With this thought in her mind, she left everything to her fate before her body hit the water.

The freezing current enveloped her instantly, dragging her down into its depths with violent force. The shock stole the air from her lungs, and darkness threatened to consume her vision as the river twisted her body in every direction.

The kidnappers who came running behind her stopped in their tracks abruptly, colliding with each other, but their leader stopped breathing while looking at the girl who leaped off the cliff without showing any hesitation.

“What the f**k?”

“Is she crazy?”

“What are we going to do now, Albert?”

All of them screamed at the same time, looking at their leader, who was standing frozen in his place.

His heart was now thudding hard against his ribcage.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He was paid to rough up and scare the girl, not to kill her.

His customer explicitly instructed him not to inflict any significant harm on the girl.

What now?

The river below the cliff was swollen from the storm; its currents were wild and merciless as they surged through their path like a ravaging beast on a hunt.

Anyone falling into the river right now can never survive.

“We are doomed.” Albert gasped aloud in horror when three of his mates shook his body after grabbing his arms.

“We are doomed.” He screamed at the top of his lungs in terror.

Of course, the people who hired them were from influential families, but they weren’t the threat.

But the girl’s fiancée, Alpha Arthur Froste……

Albert trembled hard in fear as if he had just seen the Grim Reaper approaching him.

“Run….. Run now.” He screamed again, and before his mates could understand a thing, he sprinted back inside the forest, startling all of them in the process.

They exchanged terrified glances, then followed their leader into the forest.

Inside the Froste Mansion, a dark shadow of a tall man appeared on the floor-to-ceiling window when the lightning struck the area.

His crystal eyes were deadly cold. His jaw was clenched tightly, but his cold eyes were glued to a distant point somewhere in the night sky.

The study door opened with a very faint sound of a creek.

Beta William Thompson slowly entered the study and closed the door behind him, but didn’t move deeper inside.