Prologue
The Rise of the Hidden - Emergence - Book #2
Jess's POV
Time stops when you lose someone you love. Death also settles into you. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t compel yourself to do anything. Everything just…stops. Well, except for everything around you.
Oh, and the pain. The pain grows and devours you.
The wound was wide beneath his beautiful coat. I tried to protect my racing heart with promises that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but my eyes betrayed me. They were cruel, drawn to the lighter blend of his mother’s fur. The beautiful pearlescent blend was now crimson. I hovered over him, my hands pressing into that soft fur as his warm blood slipped through my fingers. I readjusted my hands, frantic, over and over, trying to cover the jagged gash running the length of his neck. Tears fell like rain, mingling with the brilliant red, dispersing only to be devoured by it, as though the blood were stronger and consumed my sorrow.
His fur grew matted and thick as I fought to close the wound.
I had to slow the bleeding. He would heal.
Sounds escaped my throat—screams or words? I don’t know.
How does a life collapse on itself?
Just like this.
It happened again.
When I lost my mom, I had nothing left. Her death took all the love in the world, snuffing it out in the moment she was gone. Like someone cruelly blowing out the candle that had once lit my world.
Then…I felt utterly alone. Scared in the dark.
Yet I still survived. Even when the abuse began, I internalized the pain, locking it in the box where only pain could enter and never leave. No matter how much pain I added, the box never broke open. Had I not found the way to turn it all off—by locking it away—I would have forgotten the hope that Mom left behind. The love she imbued in my soul that also surrounded the box of pain, holding it shut.
She had enough hope for several lifetimes. Did she know I would need it? Was it left behind for me, deliberately? Like a piece of her was embedded in my soul to make me push forward.
And I did—pushed forward with the strength of ten people or more. Because that’s what it took.
Now, I wonder if it was partly my wolf? Did she not let me give up during that hellish time? I wanted to believe it was both—her and my mother, always with me, fighting for me. It made my memories, the nightmares, pass more quickly.
But Aiden…Aiden made me forgot about the box. I didn’t have to hide the pain anymore. He made me stronger. I saw a world of beauty that took my breath away, that stopped time. Beauty that filled my heart so fully, I could actually feel it grow. Tears fell from my heart’s overwhelming gratitude.
That had never happened before.
But now, I was exhausted. My hope was gone. My wolf’s emotions were joining mine, ancient and deep. The grief was too much.
Another scream tore from my throat. It sliced through me like glass. My eyes locked on the only man I have ever loved, the only man I ever would. And the box of grief—gone for too short a time—reappeared, filled to the brim, about to rupture. The sides expanded with their warning. My subconscious kept shoving the pain back inside.
My voice was so angry, desperate…powerful. I didn’t even recognize it as mine, thought it mirrored the agony filling my body.
Somehow I knew. It was my soul ripping apart. I wouldn’t survive this loss.
I didn’t want to.
Just seconds ago, I heard his voice inside our link, “I love you, Jess.” It was beautiful, intimate, and now there was nothing but this fucking silence. Silence that raged like hell inside my thoughts. I begged the fates to give him back, to let his heart be faint, to heal little by little, until finally, it would be enough to hear it again. I kept waiting. I kept trying to hold the blood inside.
My heart raced, faster and faster. It didn’t register that this was dangerous, that it was too fast. Maybe because I just didn’t care. He was all that mattered.
Dread filled every cell in my body, and I kept screaming, begging.
“Aiden, stay with me.” I sobbed, my mouth pressed to his ear. “I can’t live without you.”
I held my breath. I pulled back just slightly as my eyes roamed over his body. He was still in wolf form. We heal faster in this form.
I listened.
And waited to hear something.
No movement. No slight rise of his ribs to take in air. No heartbeat beneath his beautiful wolf exterior.
My eyes glanced at my hands. Others were covering mine, trying to help. I had no idea how long they’d been there, but the blood just kept flowing through our fingers.
So many hands.
Then I felt a large arm drape over me.
“Breathe,” Zeb pleaded.
I thought he was speaking to Aiden, pleading for his soul to linger long enough to stay with us.
I was wrong.
He was talking to me. Begging me.
But it hurt to breathe. The pain in my chest was so overwhelming that I couldn’t fill my lungs.
The box of pain—it wouldn’t hold any longer.
I felt another arm, then another. His pack. My pack now. I felt their grief, their omniscience.
They thought they knew before I did. But they didn’t. I heard his heart stop, too. But I had to believe that the healing process was still happening, deeper than I could hear. Even a little…little things add up, right? So, I had to believe it would reach a point where his heart would restart—such a foolish hope. But being paranormal, I needed to believe in something else that didn’t make sense.
But his pack knew it was over. They had seen too much.
I hadn’t.
I was surrounded by them now. Their fear cloaked me more than their arms. I was too young of a wolf. The pain could trigger my wolf to take over and react poorly. I could hurt myself, or worse, someone innocent. So they held me down.
It was loving, but confining. Too damn confining. I didn’t want to feel that from them. These beautiful, selfless beings. I needed to burn in my rage, to share it far from here. My mind focused on one thing: attracting those monsters. I wanted to fight them, tear them apart until I couldn’t anymore, and they destroyed me. But I would take as many of them as I could with me.
That’s all I wanted now. That’s how this had to end for me.
But they held me against my will, and I screamed. The pain expanded as tears flowed mercilessly down my face. Their heads bowed, avoiding my gaze. Their future Luna. They couldn’t bear to look. I cried and shook, and my wolf demanded to be released, but they wouldn’t give me an inch to shift to her.
I demanded that they let me go, but by then Josh had arrived. He shook his head, and his command, as the alpha’s son, overruled my own. A surge of power coursed through me, and the anger of being denied grew. I was a future Luna. I hadn’t understood what that meant twenty-four hours ago, but now, with the spell lifted, my wolf and I understood everything—and we were pissed.
She was becoming feral.
We needed our revenge more than the breath I still couldn’t take.
I didn’t know how it was possible to feel so torn apart. I felt so much love and hate at once. Our loss was too great. My wolf knew that fate had given us this life with our mate, and these monsters had taken him. He was ours, destined before time began. Yet these vile creatures erased him in a single, brutal stroke.
We were supposed to have him. It was decided. Then these monsters called fate, our bond, our mate a liar and changed everything…in an instant.
The power inside of me kept growing. At first, I didn’t know what it was. It felt like the tearing of my soul when his heart stopped, as deadly as that moment. When his voice no longer echoed, telling me, “I love you”—the words that calmed me—it all became too much.
Instinct told me to release it immediately, to send it straight to the evil it was designed to destroy. But the evil was hiding like a coward, and I was surrounded by these beautiful people trying to save me.
So, I did the only thing I could do.
I saved them back…I kept the power inside.
And I swallowed it like poison.
The hum was deafening, surrounding me. The beautiful pain had become so intense that it replaced all the other agony that had been ripping my heart apart.
Then…I felt nothing.
“No!” Joshed screamed with tortured breath as my body began to glow and went limp beneath those trying to save me.
