Chapter 5 Pain of Betrayal

I couldn't breathe. My chest was tight, like a heavy weight pressed down on it. My head spun, the world around me an indistinguishable blur of colour and shape.

I tried to call out, but nothing came out. I couldn't move my body; I could hardly feel it. It was as if I had slipped out of myself, leaving nothing but a hollowness that only echoed the emptiness inside.

Why was I so cold? Why couldn't I see anything distinctly? I could hear voices shouting, calling my name. But they sounded far away they came from a place beyond me, beyond my grasp.

Niki! Niki, stay with me!" Cassian's voice was desperate, panicked-cut through the chaos and yet somehow only made the weight on my chest grow worse. It sounded so far away, almost like his voice was being swallowed by something dark and suffocating.

The farther I seemed to slip away from him, from everything. I wanted to reach for him, to let him know I was still here, still holding on. But it hurt too much, and my body betrayed me. I couldn't even move my fingers enough to grasp his.

Everything hurt, not just physical but deeper inside, in the core of me. It wasn't only the poison that coursed my veins, taking my strength with it. It was something more. A deep, cutting pain that seemed to come from somewhere beyond the body, beyond my consciousness.

It was a betrayal.

The word echoed through my mind clear and sharp. Betrayal.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to lash out, to demand answers. Why was this happening? Why was I being taken from the life I had fought so hard for? Why was I being ripped away from Cassian, from my pack, from everything that I had worked for?

It was as if the darkness closed in a little tighter, wrapping around me like a suffocating fog. I tried fighting it, trying to claw my way back, but the weight was just too much. The silence in the air was deafening.

And then the pain was gone.

Then, suddenly, there was no noise. I was floating in a huge open space, my thoughts the only ones remaining, and these swirled around me in smoke. The feeling of betrayal still lingered on; it clung to me like an invisible wound. Raw, it was bitter in my mouth.

I had been betrayed by someone whom I would never have thought that I couldn't trust a person whom I had considered my friend. It was Minaj.

Her face flickered in my mind's eye, a perfect picture of false innocence. Never once had I seen it like that; now, in this hush of mine, I saw the jealousness there, saw the hunger, the tangle of lies so finely interwoven within the tapestry of our lives. I had never seen it at all.

And now... now, I was here. Dead. Gone. And for what?

I had been a Luna, a leader, a wife-somebody strong, somebody who had cared for her pack and her mate. And now, here I was, thrown away like I never mattered in the first place.

I felt the coldness of the darkness wrapped around me, pulling me deeper into its clutches. Was this what death a place where everything I'd known, everything I'd fought for, counted for nothing?

Then it was like I was weightless, floating on some great sea without a thing to anchor to. My body wasn't held by anything anymore, wasn't weighted down by agony or terror. But it didn't feel like peace. It didn't feel like rest.

It felt like... loss.

Cassian's face flickered again, and my heart twisted in my chest-or at least, I thought it did. I could still remember the way he'd looked at me, the way his eyes softened when he smiled. I could still hear his voice soothing me in the quietest of moments as if nothing else in the world mattered except the two of us.

But I couldn't stay there. I couldn't stay in that memory. Not when the betrayal burned so hot inside me. I had to let go. I had to accept that the life I had known was gone, and I was no longer part of it. I was nothing more than a spirit adrift in this endless void, slipping further away from the warmth I once knew.

But then... something changed.

A flicker. A light, distant but growing brighter, beckoning me. I had no idea of its origin, and still cannot, yet knew that it was not the darkness which had consumed me. It was something else. Something so far beyond what had been my life.

I tried to reach for it, extending the last of my fading strength, and my body, or what was left of it, moved toward the light because of the warmth and the pull of something greater than my pain.

And then, just as the void threatened to take me, a voice whispered in my mind.

"Niki..."

It was the voice of a being I had only ever heard in my sleep being of authority and affection, the one and only Moon Goddess.

I had listened to countless stories about her protective nature over all werewolves and guidance our spirits took to the next life. But I never knew this day would find me being touched by her presence, let alone called by her.

Come unto me, child," the voice whispered soft and soothing- but undeniable command. "You have been wronged, but your story is not over."

My heart I still had one one-lifted in a surge of hope, a light in that darkness. Was there more? Was there a chance for me to have something beyond this hollow void?

The light strengthened and brightened, and the darkness started to dissipate. I felt the tug, the warmth of the Moon Goddess's presence, drawing me toward something I still couldn't see.

I was not ready to let go. I had too much left undone. I had been taken too soon.

I would not rest in peace just yet.

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END

The darkness which had once threatened to consume me was now distant, and I felt myself being pulled toward the light the promise of something more. Something that would give the pain of betrayal and death a reason to have endured.

I would return.

But how? And in what form?

I didn't know. Not yet.

But as I moved toward the light, I knew one thing for certain.

I wasn't going to let this be the final page in this story. Not for Minaj. Not for Cassian. And not for me.

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And in that light, I felt the Moon Goddess watching over me, steeling me for what was to come.