Chapter 339

[ 1,068 words ]

Talia’s POV

Walden met us at the gate as the car was being loaded.

“You have been home for only two days,” he said. “I started to think you might unpack.”

“I know. I’m sorry. This must be hard on you,” I said. Walden had been taking care of Bloodmoon alone for a long time. He really deserved a break.

“I’m teasing, mostly.” He stepped back and let the warriors finish with the last of the bags. “Go on. Just come back in one piece, both of you. The pack would rather have you slow than not at all.”

“We will. Hold the borders. We won’t be gone any longer than we have to be,” Nolan stated.

Marco drove. Nolan sat up front with him, and Della and I climbed into the back. The gate disappeared behind us, then Bloodmoon, and the road opened up to the west.

About an hour into the drive, Della turned to me and smiled.

“Well,” she said. “Someone had a good night.”

“What?”

She tapped her neck. “The hickies on your neck.”

I blushed and reached for my neck before I was able to stop myself, and Della’s grin got even bigger.

“Don’t bother covering it. There are at least three. You two went to bed tense and clearly worked it out.” She sat back, pleased with herself. “I’m calling it now. Between the two of us, you’ll be the first one pregnant. Mark my words.”

I blushed. I looked at Nolan in the mirror. He didn’t look embarrassed at all. If anything, he seemed pleased, like he’d just been given a compliment.

“Don’t encourage her,” I said to him.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said.

Della kept going. “And you,” she said, pointing at the back of Nolan’s head. “You’ve had Marco running drills and everything else you can think of for weeks now. You haven’t given him a single evening off. I want my mate back.”

“Once this is settled,” Nolan said, “he’s all yours, for as long as you want. I won’t even contact him.”

“As long as I want?”

“As long as you want.”

“Good. Because I have plans. I bought a few things in Fangvale I want to try, and Marco still hasn’t seen the box.”

I giggled. “You haven’t shown him the box yet? Wasn’t the whole purpose of it to use it on your mate once you had one?”

“It’s not like I had time. Remember that toy we saw with the-“

“We’re not doing this in the car.” Marco interrupted as his hands tightened on the wheel.

“Doing what? I haven’t said anything yet. What has you all tense? I have the perfect toy for you. You won’t care about anything for at least a week,” Della responded.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Marco answered quickly, blushing.

We all laughed. He let us laugh for a bit, then cleared his throat and looked for a new topic.

“Tell us more about the Lost Woods. What are we walking into, Della?” Marco asked.

“Alright,” Della’s smile faded. “They belong to the coven, and they have for longer than anyone’s written down. They’re not normal woods. Every story says the same thing: the forest will test your heart. There’s an old legend about an Alpha who marched in with fifty warriors, planning to burn the witches’ home. They say the trees swallowed his warriors one by one, leaving nothing but blood on the roots.Intruders will be tested and threats will be vanquished.”

“And us?” Marco asked. “How does the forest tell us apart from someone there to do harm?”

“Did you not hear what I said? We’re not there to do harm,” Della said.

“We’re going to ask for help. That’s all we want. If the stories are right, the woods will not become volatile toward us,” I added.

“If the stories are right,” Marco muttered.

Nolan turned in his seat to look at all of us. “Once we’re inside, the only thing that keeps us safe is each other. We stay together. No splitting off, no following a sound, no taking a path because it looks faster. We walked out the same way we walked in, all four of us. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” we said in unison.

The drive seemed endless. As we went, the land around us slowly changed. Farms and towns faded away until only trees lined the rough, narrowing road. After another hour, the road was gone, so we parked the car and started walking.

The Lost Woods began where the mist did.

It hung over the tree line like a wall, white, low, and still. Unlike normal fog, it didn’t drift. It just stayed where it was. We stood at the edge and looked in, quiet for a moment.

“This is it,” I said. “Are we ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Marco sighed.

“Remember what I said. We stick together,” Nolan said, and then we went in.

The mist drew tightly around us, closing off the world until only our small circle remained. The trees here were enormous, older than anything in Bloodmoon woods, their bark faded to gray, and their tops vanished into the white shroud overhead. Years ago, someone had cut a trail of pale notches at eye level, leading west, and we kept to their path.

After a few minutes of walking, Nolan’s voice broke the quiet. “That split tree on the left…we’ve already marked it.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

“I’m sure of it. We passed that trunk before we reached the burnt tree, and now the burnt tree’s behind us again.” He halted, brow furrowed. “The woods are shifting. The coven is playing tricks, trying to make us lose our way.”

We stood together, peering into the mist for another notch, but the ancient woods gave us nothing in return.

Then my wolf surged forward without warning. For a moment, her instincts took over, and the world appeared to tilt.

‘Not that way,’ she warned. ‘That way is wrong. There. Go the other way.’ She pulled me toward a gap in the trees to our right, away from the marked path entirely. ‘There. Now.’

I walked toward the gap she picked. The ground opened under my foot, with no edge, no warning, and no time to grab anything. I yelped in surprise as I fell straight into darkness, and then I was no longer falling but standing in it.

“Nolan,” I called. My voice did not echo. It seemed as though the darkness swallowed it.

My voice did not echo. It went out into the dark and stopped, as if the dark had taken it.

“Nolan! Marco! Della!” I cried out again. “Where are you?”

No one answered.

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