The Lost Luna’s second chance

LUNA VIOLET JAMES. My head thudded painfully with every shovelful of dirt that landed on me. It was aching from where I had been hit from behind. My thoughts were fuzzy, and I couldn’t remember much. My stomach was warm and wet with the blood that was seeping from a knife wound. I tried, but I could barely even make out the faces above me; my vision was so clouded by dirt and tears. I should be trying to find a way out of this, but my brain wasn’t cooperating. Instead of solutions, the lyrics of a song that I had always loved just kept playing in my mind, feeling like a cruel joke. “I lay dying, and I'm pouring crimson regret, and betrayal.” Of course, that song is about suicide, and that wasn’t what had happened here tonight, but the words just seemed so apt right now. My blood was seeping into the ground around me while I got to spend my last moments thinking about how I had been betrayed and murdered. Regretting the decisions that had led me here. I thought of my family, would they ever know what had happened to me? Would they live the rest of their lives with my disappearance haunting them? What would happen to my pack? I tried to reach out for my wolf Torrie, not really expecting to find her, but still hoping. I couldn’t feel her anymore. The space in my soul that she had occupied throughout my life was empty now. I didn’t even have the energy left to cry. I could feel myself fading fast. “Can’t you go any faster?” I heard a voice ask impatiently. Even with it being muffled by the dirt, I recognised that whiny tone. “You could always help!” I heard another voice reply, and the recognition of that one felt as though I was being stabbed all over again. I wanted to scream, to call for help, but I couldn’t make a sound. My lips wouldn’t even move. “Please!” I begged silently, praying to the Goddess that I had worshipped my entire life. “Please! I’m not ready to die.” The dirt on top of me was thick and heavy now; my lungs were burning. I couldn’t breathe. “Are you sure that you want to live?” I heard a voice ask softly in the darkness, making me jump internally. “Torrie?” I asked instinctively, though I knew that it wasn’t. “No, my child. I am afraid that Torrie is gone. Let me ask again, as you don’t have long left. “Are you sure that you want to live? Even though your wolf is no longer with you?” she asked. I paused for a split second before answering. “Yes! Even if it has to be without Torrie. I want to live,” I said firmly. The idea of not having Torrie with me hurt, but the idea of leaving my parents like this was worse. “Okay,” she answered simply. I wanted to ask more. Who was she? How could she save me? My body was too weak, though, and I felt myself slipping into nothingness. My chest grew still, and my heart stopped beating. Had her voice simply been my dying brain going mad, or trying to cling to some ember of hope? It didn’t really matter anymore; death had come to claim me. LYCAN PRINCE LEO GOULD. I was out for a midnight run in the forest when I smelt it. The metallic tang of blood, and a lot of it. I followed the smell, trying to find its source. It definitely didn’t belong to any animal that I had ever encountered before. It smelled like a human, but not exactly. I took a deep breath. It had a similar scent to werewolves, but somehow lacked something. Could it be something that existed somewhere between a human and a werewolf? Whatever it was, it was clearly hurt. Maybe I could help. I heard voices in the distance and moved towards them, trying not to make my presence known just yet. I had no idea exactly what I would be walking into. The voices seemed to be moving away from me. I waited a moment before heading in the direction of the blood again. It wasn’t long before I found a mound of freshly dug dirt under a huge tree. It looked like a grave, but had none of the care that burying a loved one should have. I knelt down and sniffed gingerly. This was definitely the source of the blood I was smelling. I began to dig in the soft ground, tearing the dirt away as quickly as I could. I couldn’t hear a heartbeat. I was probably too late to be of any help; after all, a burial usually means a corpse. But whatever or whoever was buried in that hole deserved to be treated with more dignity than that. I dug furiously, mud flying through the air as I tried to find a body. My hand touched the cool, soft flesh of a human leg. I kept digging until I had uncovered the body as much as possible. It was a woman. Then I gently lifted her out of the grave and laid her on the grass. She wasn’t breathing. I saw the wound on her stomach, bloody and fresh. I removed my t-shirt and ripped it so that I could tie it around her waist, putting some pressure on the wound. She still had a little warmth and colour to her cheeks, and the stench that accompanied death hadn’t arrived yet; perhaps she wasn’t beyond saving. I administered CPR, pleading with her to breathe. I felt her rib crack beneath my huge hands. I felt terrible about that, but I kept on trying to bring her back. It seemed hopeless, I was about to give up when I heard her gasp and splutter, coughing up dirt and heaving. I thanked the Goddess out loud. The woman looked up at me, her eyes wide. She looked startled and confused. Before I could ask who she was or what had happened to her, she passed out. I was just relieved that she was alive. I lifted her off the ground and held her in my arms, even covered in blood and dirt, and I noticed that it was really quite beautiful. I shook my head. That should be the furthest thing from my mind right now. I needed to get her help. I decided that the best option would be to take her home with me. I was sure that my father would know what to do.