Chapter Seventeen: Clash Of Powers
The tension between Kiadaria, Joshua, Akira, and the entity electrifies the air around them. The final battle has begun, and the fate of all wolfkind hangs in the balance. Kiadaria and Joshua recognize this fight as so much more than their union, realizing that if they walk away in triumph, this battle will be the beginning of their reign. They will be the beginning of a monarchy for the wolf world in modern times. This battle proves their worthiness.
Kiadaria chants in her mind. "We have to win. We can't fail our pack, all of the packs. We are their King and Queen. The same way we would give our lives for Rising Moon, we must give for all."
There is an arctic chill that runs through their blood, cold as the entity chuckles at the looks of awe on their faces at its form. "Luna, you will submit. You will consummate the mate bond, or I will kill you all and rule from the burning ashes of your ruin-filled world!"
Kiadaria and Joshua stare at the entity with determination. They can not fail their destiny. Joshua barks out. "She is Queen Luna to you, and I, King Alpha...I won't let you win."
With shrieks of battle cries. The three shift into wolves. They lunge at the entity, swallowing fear and pushing away any thoughts that they can fail. They must win. Joshua's claws swipe through the thick, dark shadow form of the entity, viciously hoping to rend it to shreds. Akira's teeth snap, and with damaging precision, she begins attacking, gouging the shadowy mentions of the Shadowlands.
The more they fight, Kiadaria senses something unlocking within. Her power surge and a knowing direct her to release powerful bursts of energy, pure light, that sends the entity stumbling back.
But as they fight, the trio focuses on the physical wins, forgetting that they fight a supernatural being. The entity swirls its dark power and magically creates a deception to target the strongest member. A shadowy figure emerges from the darkness. Darius.
When his eyes lock with her own, a lifetime passes, and it feels like she is in the presence of the man she once knew. A man she indulged in a fantasy of change and hope. A man she'd believed she could love. Then, his voice calls to her, and the tone is chilling, sending shivers down her spine. "My luna, I've been waiting for you."
He looks like himself. His piercing dark chocolate eyes have a way of recalling the effect of the mate bond in a way that makes her feel vulnerable. Everything within Kiadaria supernaturally calls out to submit to her mate, her alpha. The mate bond feels unescapable, too powerful, naturally the thing that every fiber of her being wants, but something is off.
"Darius?" His name tumbles from her lips, her heart racing. She tries to fight the allure of the false matebond.
The fake Darius smiles, but his eyes gleam with the shadowy nature of the entity. "Kiadaria, my luna, my mate..." He whispers. "I've come for you."
Only Kiadaria sees him, the dark magic of the entity targeting her as it looks to recover from the powerful blasts of her light. Joshua and Akira fight with their heart and souls, oblivious to the illusion. Kiadaria's mind screams that she should be cautious, that she needs to reject Darius. She knows that the entity shifted to Darius before their eyes, but a part of her questions what is real and what is not. What if the entity had pretended to be her mate the entire time? What if this is truly Darius, her true mate? A part of her heart, a part that the Shadowlands reveals from her darkest desires: wishes that Darius had returned to her.
The entity still uses its dark magic to make the image of Darius, which now circles Kiadaria, the spell strengthening in the power of its weaving spell of confusion and doubt; all crafted from Kiadaria's darkest desires and self-deceits. The more she hesitates to call upon truth and act, the more Kiadaria's power wavers. leaving her focus split between the man she thought she had been falling in love with, fated for, and the battle that all of the wolf kind depends on her to win.
Everything about her world needs Kiadaria to step into her power as Queen Luna.
Her eyes are locked on the fake Darius falling into the deceit through the weaponization of the mate bond mixed with targeted dark art magic, and the effects of the Shadowlands itself. She took a step forward, her powers waning. Joshua and Akira fight on, but the movement is distant, the weaving magic pushing it away as though it's another world, as her focus becomes consumed by the intensifying of her darker desires and the mate bond.
"Kiadaria! Don't!" Joshua cries out as he realizes the entity has deceived her, but she doesn't hear him, too far gone into the magic.
The illusioned Darius reaches out a hand, and Kiadaria places her own in it, feeling jolts of perverted dark electricity flickering over her skin. Her vision blurs, and for a moment she is in the forest, running, with Darius by her side.
But the beauty and allure of the illusion shatters when the entity speaks. "You're mine this time, this lifetime...we become eternal, my luna."
Her eyes snap to focus. She sees the truth- the spell of the dark entity and the manipulation she has succumbed to. With a fierce cry, she summons all her strength to fight the effect of the spell that weighs down even her physical and breaks free of the entity's grasp.
"No!" Her powers are surging back to life, and her eyes are glowing brighter with the effect of them. "I am not your luna! I never will be!"
The entity's smile becomes contorted and strange as its shadows intensify, the blue flames of its eyes growing. Kiadaria stumbles back, her vision fading, and then finally all is black.
"When darkness falls, the heart is the greatest enemy."
YOU ARE READING
The Luna's Fated Choice
Werewolf"Trapped between two alphas... Kaidaira has been tormented by Joshua, her pack's ruthless alpha, since she was a teenager. But when Darius, a mysterious and handsome alpha, arrives with a claim to her heart, Luna's world is turned upside down. As sh...
