My Fated Mate Can Have Her

Chapter 303: Lifetimes

Violet

Fire was everywhere.

And a lot of screaming.

I tried to move, and turn my head, but my body wouldn’t obey me. It felt like I was trapped inside someone else’s body, and all I could do was watch...

Smoke burned my throat. Heat pressed against my skin. All around me, the world was chaos.

I was standing on a stone balcony overlooking a large city with rising structures, and majority of them were engulfed in flames. Black smoke billowed into a night sky that had turned orange with reflected fire.

My stomach sank at the gut wrenching screams that echoed all around it.

And beneath it, were the sounds of battle. Metal clashing. Wolves howling. The thunderous impact of bodies colliding.

"Zephyr!"

The name snapped the attention of the body I was in. Two small girls came running through an open doorway, their faces streaked with tears and soot. Their little hands reaching out desperately.

"They’re coming!" one of them sobbed. "The wolves are inside the walls!"

I felt the body I was in move, felt arms that weren’t mine reach down and grab the children.

"Come quickly." The voice that came from my throat was not my own. It was deeper, and fierce with barely contained terror. "Stay close to me. Don’t let go."

We ran through oddly shaped corridors, past tapestries that were already catching fire, and slid down stairs that shook with distant impacts. The children clung to the body, their small fingers digging into my robes hard enough to bruise.

I wanted to tilt my head to see what I was wearing but the body wasn’t responding.

Was this some sort of vision?

We burst out of the building and into the streets.

The city was dying.

Wolves tore through the streets, their jaws red with blood. Bodies lay crumpled against walls and sprawled across pavements. Some wore robes like mine. Others wore armor, and in the midst of it all were white and silver coloured wolves fighting off larger, darker ones.

Lycans were being slaughtered before my very eyes.

The view passed in a glimpse and I was already running. I felt this body’s terror and determination as if they were my own. The children stumbled and Zephyr hauled them up to her chest, never stopping or slowing down.

We plunged into the encroaching forest.

It was the only part that hadn’t caught fire yet.

The trees closed around us, dark and thick, but I could still see the orange glow of flames through the canopy. The screams were fainter now, but no less horrible.

A howl split the air.

It was too close.

I skidded to a halt, shoving the children tighter to my chest. Three wolves emerged from the shadows between the trees, their eyes gleaming, their lips pulled back to reveal bloody teeth.

I felt Zephyr’s chest expand with a breath. Felt something inside her reach inward as if bringing out a manifestation of herself.

Light exploded beside her. A wolf materialized from nothing.

It was my wolf.

Her wolf.

Our wolf.

If I was in my own body, I would feel a numbing sensation consume me.

Was Zephyr me?

My wolf slammed into the attacking wolves with a sudden force.

Zephyr didn’t wait to see the outcome. She grabbed the children and ran, leaving our wolf behind to fight and trusting it would follow us when it could.

The forest blurred around us. Branches whipped at my face—her face. The children were crying, their sobs punctuated by gasping breaths as they shuddered against my chest.

We burst out of the treeline and stopped.

Another part of the city stretched before us. This section was burning too, flames crawling across rooftops and spilling from shattered windows.

But worse than the fire were the wolves.

They poured through the streets like a dark tide, dozens of them, hundreds, more than I could count. They were everywhere, cutting down anyone who tried to flee, hunting through buildings for those who tried to hide.

"No," Zephyr breathed. "No, no, no—"

A hand grabbed her arm.

She spun, nearly striking out, but stopped when she saw the face. An older man, his grey hair matted with blood, his robes torn and singed. His eyes were wild with desperate urgency.

The ground started to tremble.

"Priestess," he gasped. "This way. Quickly."

’Priestess?’

"What’s happening?" Zephyr demanded, even as she let him pull her along the tree line and away from the burning city. "What was that quake?!"

The man’s face crumpled. "The remaining elders are creating a cataclysm. Banding together whatever power they have left to take as many wolves as possible with them."

Zephyr stopped dead. "That’s suicide!"

"There are Supreme Alphas here. All of them. We have no other choice!"

"There are still Lycans in the city!" Zephyr screamed.

I could feel her tears building up.

The man wouldn’t meet our eyes. "Many have fled. The rest are..." He swallowed. "The rest are dead. The elders are dying. This is what they can do. What they have left to give."

"This is madness!" Zephyr screamed. The children flinched against her, crying harder. "Absolute madness! They’ll kill everyone left!"

"They’ll kill many wolves too." The man’s voice was hollow. "Perhaps enough. Perhaps—"

The ground shook again, harder this time.

We all staggered. The children screamed. Zephyr’s hold on them tightened as the earth beneath our feet bucked and heaved.

"It’s starting," the man said, his face going pale. "We need to move. Now. Head towards the sea and—"

A sound like the world splitting open tore through the air.

I had never once heard such a thunderous sound before.

Zephyr turned and I saw the wave.

My heart plummeted.

There was a sea nearby?

It rose up, towering in the distance like a living mountain. It was impossibly tall, impossibly fast, and racing towards us with a roar that drowned out everything else. The water was dark and churning.

If that hit us...

"RUN!"

The man’s wolf materialised at his side, smaller than ours.

He yelled. "The sea is no longer an option. We need to get to higher ground!"