Chapter 20 - Poppy
A Few Moments Before
“I love you, Poppy… I always have… I always will…”
Those words in Damian’s voice ring out through the expanse of my mind, and my lips tingle as if I can taste his scent. Warm citrus and musk envelop the air around me, distant but distinct against the sweet florals wrapped around the woman’s aura.
I’m staring at her, unable to tear my eyes from her stunning, ethereal face, her skin warm and glowing like pure honey, her eyes radiantly gold as she saunters forward, draped in robes a shade of white that doesn’t belong to my world.
Her presence isn’t threatening, but rather familiar, and I can’t find an ounce of fear in my being.
I’m only mildly aware that I’m still in the witches’ ritual, in a trance, and hallucinating the maternal figure in front of me.
She doesn’t look like she’s my mother—I’ve seen pictures of her that my father kept. But she feels as gentle as I imagined my mother would be.
“Who are you…?” I ask, whispering and lowering my face as it feels like I’m unworthy of gazing at her.
That’s when she steps closer, hitching a soft, delicate finger beneath my chin, her eyes sparkling as she meets mine.
“I am your creator,” she says, and I freeze, only my jaw dropping.
Blinking at her, the woman giggles with a heavenly sound as she cups my cheek, then, still staring into my eyes with a mischievous humor that’s void of malice.
“M-Moon Goddess…?” I whisper in surprise, and the divine being nods gracefully.
“Yes, child,” she returns with a smile. “I am your creator, and you have entered a sacred space in which I exist.”
“Aoife did that?” I frown.
The Moon Goddess tilts her head to one side. “In some ways, the Golden Raven Sisters assisted your ascent into this place. But the real reason you are here is that your soul called out to me. I brought you here myself because you asked for help.”
“I did? I don’t remember…”
She giggles again. “Of course, you will not remember. Certain esoteric tricks cannot be explained by logic. You are a gifted soul, and there will be much more that will not make sense.”
“I’m a wolf,” I say in confusion.
“Is that all you are?”
The Moon Goddess places her hands on my shoulders and gently guides me to turn around, where a mirror that has no edges, no borders, suspended in the air as if it’s made from the air itself, reflects my face to me.
I gasp when I meet golden hazel eyes, recognizing myself even though I look nothing like I’m used to. My face is smoother, almost creamier, but with a golden hue, my lips plump and full of color.
Behind me, the Moon Goddess smiles.
“Do you see what I mean?”
“I—”
My attention is zapped to the left, where the sound of screeching and wailing filters through a very narrow, very dark alleyway.
“You know what you need to do, Poppy Barnes,” the Moon Goddess whispers in my ear. “Remember who you are…”
In a blink of an eye, the Moon Goddess disappears, and the white light around me fades into grayish darkness that adds to the terror of the sounds ripping out from the side.
I gulp hard, closing my eyes and willing my wolf forward, but I still can’t seem to find her. The disconnect from my inner wolf remains despite meeting the Moon Goddess, and I have no idea what she meant when—
The screeching is louder, as if it’s right in front of my face, cutting through my thoughts and compelling me to open my eyes just in time to feel warmth spread across my fingers. I lift my hand, shocked to find ribbons of white gold light dancing on my palms.
Turning them outward feels instinctive, and a burst of energy as hot as scorching sunlight erupts from my hands, blasting the dark clouds that crawl toward me.
In seconds, the darkness recedes, disappearing into a puff of smoke that’s carried away by the slightest wind. I’ve hardly broken a sweat defeating the darkness, and that’s when I realize I wasn’t disconnected from my inner wolf.
I am my inner wolf, but I am also something more powerful.
I don’t need to meet the Moon Goddess again for her to spell it out for me.
I know what I am, and after just wiping out the dark, corrupted magic I’d been poisoned with, I’m able to open my eyes for the stars in the sky to greet me where I’m lying on the ground.
“Poppy?!” Sister Aoife’s voice comes before her face appears above me.
I sit upright without needing her help, breaking through the chains that have kept me bound using my newly discovered powers.
Aoife stares at me with wide eyes as I rise to my feet, the hospital gown burning into a white robe that wraps around my body.
The sisters stop their chanting around the fire, each equally shocked and mystified by what I just did, Aoife’s hand flying to her chest.
“You are…” she begins, pausing to gulp as she meets my eyes. “You are a white witch…”
I nod to confirm this, feeling stronger than ever, an air of authority in every breath I take.
The mate bond tugs on my heartstrings, and my eyes narrow. “Where is Damian?” I ask Aoife, and she glances over her shoulder.
“He was called to answer the siren,” she reveals. “The dark witches have come for you, Poppy.”
My eye twitches as I nod, letting the last bits of silver that kept my inner wolf away slip to the ground before stepping forward.
“I am going to him,” I tell Aoife. “He needs my help.”
Sister Aoife takes the hand I offer out to her to help her to her feet, but she holds me for a heartbeat longer.
“If you really are a white witch, then you are the only thing that can stop the war out there.”
“I know,” I breathe with certainty in my voice.
Aoife nods once, though she still looks as though she’s struggling to comprehend what she’s seeing, or what she’s hearing from the certainty and conviction in my voice.
“The prophecy…” she breathes, almost to herself. “After all these centuries…”
Her words barely register in my head when something twists violently inside my chest. It isn’t pain. It’s urgency.
My gaze snaps toward the forest beyond the clearing just as another explosion rocks the earth beneath our feet. Dark smoke rises above the trees, followed by terrified howls and the unmistakable clash of battle.
My stomach drops, and I flinch as if I’m the one being struck, pain slicing through my ribs and keeping me momentarily frozen.
Aoife blinks, as if only now remembering the world beyond this ritual.
“Go, Poppy…” she whispers, looking toward the forest. “May the Moon Goddess walk with you.”
My heart stops, but it’s from the sense of purpose rather than fear.
Heat surges beneath my skin, beginning in the center of my chest before racing through every vein in my body. The sensation is nothing like the poison that burned through me before.
This warmth is alive. Pure. It feels like sunlight pouring through my bones.
I instinctively look down.
My hands are glowing, streams of white-gold light weaving between my fingers like ribbons spun from liquid sunlight, spiraling around my wrists before disappearing beneath the sleeves of my robes.
The ground beneath my bare feet begins to shimmer, tiny flowers blooming through the scorched earth surrounding the ritual circle.
Aoife gasps as the other sisters slowly fall to their knees.
I stare at my hands, yet nothing about this feels unfamiliar.
It feels…natural, as though I’ve spent my entire life forgetting something that has finally returned to me.
The Moon Goddess’s words echo through my mind.
“Remember who you are.”
“The Moon Goddess walks with me,” I declare before marching forward.
Another explosion shakes the clearing, followed by screams and howling.
My heart clenches.
“Damian…” I whisper as I trek further toward the tree line, not running, but walking with purpose, while all I can think about is reaching Damian and protecting Daniel from whatever is on those borders.
The world around me erupts into white-gold light, the clearing disappearing the way my surroundings disappeared in the trance, in the Moon Goddess’s plane of existence.
The forest blurs into ribbons of green. Wind rushes past my face before everything settles again, and I find myself standing in the middle of absolute chaos.
Smoke fills the air. Trees burn. The scent of blood is everywhere.
Nightclaw, other wolves, and some of the Golden Raven Sisters fight side by side against hooded figures whose corrupted magic tears through the battlefield in violent streaks of black and crimson.
Then I see him, and my heart nearly stops with sheer dread this time.
Damian.
He’s on his knees, phasing between werewolf and the human who’s trying to come forward, blood soaking the side of his shoulder where corrupted magic has carved deep into his flesh.
Another witch lifts both hands toward him, black energy gathering into a spear sharp enough to finish what she’d started.
“No!”
The word tears from somewhere deep inside me, but doesn’t leave my lips. Instead, it pours out of me in thick ropes of white-gold magic that slow the dark witches down.
Every head on the battlefield turns, but another treacherous roar leaves my lips.
“You have trespassed long enough!”
Another powerful surge of magic explodes outwards, the white-gold light surging from my palm like a tidal wave.
It collides with the corrupted spell midair, and instead of exploding, the darkness simply dissolves. Erased. As though it never existed.
I push forward, spurred on by seeing Damian writhing in torment, giving it my all until the battlefield falls silent. The dark witches are gone, crawling into the shadows and disappearing until there is no threat left.
Even the poisoned air begins to clear, but one thing remains that sets panic rolling through my spine as the magic in my hands curls inward and pools in my chest.
Our eyes meet, and recognition flashes in his awed gaze. His human form finally takes over, and that’s when I hear him whisper my name in disbelief through the mind link.
He’s worse for wear in human form, his shirt drenched in blood, and he rolls over onto his side.
“Damian!” I yell out as I’m ripped from the depths of this new power and sprung into the present moment, my legs moving of their own accord to carry me forward.
I run faster when his head lolls back, his eyes drifting closed, and panic erupts inside me like an earthquake.
I’m too late!
I’m too damn late!
I land on my knees and skid the few feet between us, sliding one hand behind Damian’s head as the other cradles his cheek.
“Damian! No! Stay with me, please!” I cry out urgently, just as the silence around us fills with movement, murmurs, and a group of onlookers gathering around us.
Wolves and witches come forward to witness Damian taking his final breaths, and my heart lurches, my chest tightening from watching the man in my arms, incapable of breathing.
His eyes can’t even stay open long enough to see me.
“Please, Damian…” I beg, my hand sliding to his chest where his shirt is soaked with oozing warmth still gushing out in splatters from underneath the torn fabric.
Squeezing my tear-stricken eyes shut, I press my forehead to his, the silence nearly deafening save for the gentle wisp of the ground as my mere presence undoes the dark magic that corrupted the earth.
I don’t care to watch as the ground is restored and life is breathed back into the greenery. All I care about is Damian, wheezing languidly, painfully, struggling to breathe.
The mate bond barely stirs between us, and something critical in my heart breaks.
Ten years without him means nothing if I lose him now.
And I’m losing him.
Every second that ticks by is another strangled breath from his lips, and I can’t bear it. He’d given me the strength to fight the darkness inside me. His love for me. My love for him.
I can’t lose that.
Someone places a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t even care who it is, shaking it off vigorously and then snarling against the touch.
“Leave me alone!” I growl, my inner wolf ready to come out and use these newfound powers if anyone dares to tear me away from the man I love.
When they let go, a sob escapes my chest, and I can’t even find the strength to lift my eyes to Damian’s face, his body too limp in my arms, too weak, too wrong.
“Please, Damian! Please! I love you, too, dammit! I love you!”
Someone speaks, but I’m not listening, only hearing my own cries as I’m about to lose the father of my child, the love of my life.
“Poppy!” the voice yells out louder this time, and I faintly recognize Ingrid’s voice.
“He’s healing! You’re healing him!”
That’s when I look up to find white-gold wisps of magic pouring from my hand and into his chest wound.
A gasp escapes my lips, but I’m not fearful of what I’m able to do, sending healing magic into the heart of the man I love, willing him to survive.
His fingers twitch, his eyeballs moving from side to side behind his eyelids, and hope blooms in my chest.
Something inside me shifts, and I’m no longer afraid or hesitant to be what I was always meant to be.
Not just a powerful witch, but the luna of Valley Walker—Damian’s fated mate.
I turn around slowly, lifting my chin as I look back at all the devastation left behind by the dark witches. One of the wolves catches my eye with her russet-red fur, and standing beside her is one of Damian’s oldest friends, Killian.
Damian wasn’t lying when he told me I had nothing to worry about. It’s true—Roxanne and Killian are mates, and that’s why they don’t leave each other’s sides as they approach us.
My authority begins with them—Valley Walker werewolves from Cedar Valley—and that’s why they don’t hesitate when I give them instructions.
“Take your alpha to the Nightclaw clinic. He needs to rest.”
The two wolves nod their furry heads before stepping on either side of me, no questions asked, and I turn back to Damian to find that the torn skin from his wound has already begun to knit together, his breathing no longer labored.
Even then, his eyes remain closed, but relief washes over me because he’s alive.
The alpha of Valley Walker is alive.
My fated mate, the man I love, is still alive.
And even if I don’t know what these newfound powers mean, or why I was chosen to have them, I am just content with having Damian around to help me through this new phase in my life.
If there was one thing I can trust, it’s that I don’t have to do it alone anymore. I did for ten long years, but it’s time I trusted him and let him in.