Chapter 231
‘Nevertheless,” I said through my teeth. “I want her gone.”
The Priestess turned.
Started to walk into the trees.
“Will you do it?” I called after her.
She stopped. Looked back over her shoulder.
“It’s too late,” she said.
My heart dropped. “What do you mean?”
“By coming here,” she said slowly, “by asking the Moon to murder the mate she gifted you… she has turned her eye from you, Logan of Blackwood.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“For you,” she finished, “the moon is in an eclipse from which it will not emerge.”
“You’re talking in riddles!” I shouted. “I don’t know what the hell that means!”
But she was already fading.
Like mist evaporating into deeper fog. One second she was there the next, the shadows swallowed her whole.
And I was alone.
The forest groaned.
A low, shuddering creak rolled through the branches above me. The sound wasn’t natural. It wasn’t the trees moving in wind-
it was more like bones shifting in their sockets. The gnarled limbs overhead began to sway, not with any breeze, but with intent.
I turned.
And the whispers started again.
Only this time, they weren’t faint. They were clear. And close. And circling.
My name.
Soft and slurred. Dozens of voices. Hundreds.
Logan… Logan… Logan…
Something brushed my shoulder.
I wheeled around, heart slamming into my ribs–but nothing was there.
Iran.
Bolted through the path, the branches lashing at my arms and snagging in my shirt. The forest that had let me in without resistance now fought me at every step.
I stumbled over roots that hadn’t been there before. Crashed through brambles that seemed to claw at my skin, Shadows darted across my pathsome long and slinking, others tall and hunched
I didn’t look closely.
Didn’t dare.
Chapter 231
I just needed to get back to the car. Back to the road. Back to anything resembling the real world.
The forest grew thicker.
The path narrowed.
And still–Iran.
But no matter how far I pushed, how hard I sprinted, the treeline never came.
There was no break in the canopy.
No familiar bend in the trail.
It was like I was running in place.
I cursed, skidded to a halt, and tried to shift.
To call my wolf.
But nothing happened.
No heat. No crackle of power beneath my skin.
Just… silence..
Like the wolf inside me was gone.
“No,” I gasped. “No, no–t
-this isn’t happening-
But I knew.
The moment the Priestess said it.
The moment she told me the Moon had turned her face from me.
I was cut off.
Forsaken.
By the Goddess herself.
I screamed. A raw, broken sound that echoed through the forest like a death cry.
And then–I tripped.
Something snared my ankle. A vine? A root?
No.
It moved.
It coiled.
I hit the ground hard, the air punched from my lungs.
The forest floor writhed beneath me,
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The leaves pulled back. Peeled away like a curtain of rot, revealing wet, pulsing soil underneath. It churned and sucked like a mouth–hungry and waiting.
My fingers clawed at the ground, trying to dig in, trying to find an hing to hold onto.
But the roots were alive.
Chapter 231
They twisted around my arms, my chest, my legs.
Dragging me down.
“No–no–NO-!”
I thrashed.
Kicked.
But the forest didn’t care.
The cold seeped into my bones. It wasn’t natural. It was the kind of cold that came from beneath.
From old places. Forgotten places.
My chest tightened. Like iron bands were locking around my ribs.
My vision blurred.
I was sinking.
The trees leaned in, whispering secrets I couldn’t understand.
The sky above dimmed, even darker than before, the clouds swallowing all light.
And then-
I was gone.
Swallowed whole by the Blightwood.
The Goddess didn’t answer.
The wolf didn’t come.
Only darkness.
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Chapter 232
