Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,112
every time we breached the outer circle, that was how, I felt certain, Knight had helped heal his fathers, our pack. It was clear to me that he had healing gifts, but they’d been amplified by the totem, and I’d never not be grateful about that because, damn, he’d saved so many people.
Had spared so many lives.
He was a hero, and he wasn’t even six months old yet!
As pride filled me, I felt the buzz as the totem did its scanning thing, and I made my way into the inner circle.
Before my eyes, and the second I was inside, the totem morphed, the bear, tiger, wolf, and eagle separating from the stand and turning corporeal.
The bear lumbered forward, the tiger and wolf pounced down to the ground, and the eagle soared into the sky, circling where the obelisk once stood.
I staggered back at the sight. But even though there was no visible barrier between my position and where I’d originally been standing when I’d found myself here, I ran up against one as my body collided into it. The animals didn’t come closer to me though, so I watched them warily, wondering if they were going to attack as I stuck to the edge of the circle.
But they didn’t attack.
If anything, they changed once more.
The eagle flew down to my level, and the wind from his wings became a tangible thing. Pictures and colors and moving objects blurred until it was like I was seeing a kind of rudimentary cinema screen.
My mouth worked as I saw a woman drift onto the screen, followed by another and another.
I recognized them all.
My mom. Merinda. Maribel.
The sight had my brows lifting.
They were pregnant, and as the eagle carried on flapping its wings, babies appeared in front of them.
First me. Then Cyrilo, who immediately faded into the shadows. Then Jana, who suffered a similar fate, which told me they were dead in this ‘movie,’ then Lara.
In front of me, little balls of light appeared, dancing around my head like in the Tom & Jerry cartoons. When Tom had been knocked out and he’d been dazed, stars had circled him. Well, lights moved around me now.
But in my arms, Knight was there.
I counted the lights, and gasped when I counted four. Then Daniel was there, standing to the side, but a part of my unit. My family, even if it wasn’t by blood. He was different. Not as young as I knew him now, but older. A man. His eyes were tired, loaded with a sadness I wanted to cure but couldn’t.
Behind me, a shadow appeared, distracting me as it grew and grew. Not like with Cyrilo and Jana, who had faded into nothing. Mine was the shape of a wolf. It speared out of me, twenty feet into the sky, larger than me by a hundred times. Its snout was to the side. Its teeth bared.
When it froze, my role evidently played, I darted my attention to Lara.
She had morphed from a child and into a woman, the darkness behind her bloomed into a single light that was so bright, I shielded my eyes.
At her back, a massive orb appeared, and within seconds, I saw the crescent moon. It turned her skin into silver, but her eyes gleamed back at me, glinting like they were metal too. Her belly became round with child, and she patted it lovingly, before her arms were suddenly full.
When that segment froze as the baby morphed into a man I didn’t, couldn’t recognize, I turned to Merinda. In front of her, Eli, Austin, and Ethan were standing. They smiled at me, reached out for me, and I longed, with all my being, to go to them. To reach back for them, but I couldn’t. I was here to watch.
To play witness.
Knight appeared in Eli’s arms, only he changed. Dropping to the ground and growing up before my eyes. His hand reached out to the side, to where Maribel stood. Seth appeared, and he was doused in shadows. Like Cyrilo and Jana, only, he was still standing. He didn’t fade into nothing as they had.
Then another baby appeared, transforming into a woman. Only then, behind the girl, just like it had with Lara, an orb blossomed into being, but it was golden. A thousand times more powerful than what was evidently the moon behind Lara.
She stepped forward, a smile on her lips, and everything faded away into the darkness behind the sun. Everything apart from Knight, Lara’s son, and Daniel.