-Jack-

I was slowly regaining consciousness. I didn't understand it first, but I could see glimpses of the snowy ground under my paws every now and then, while I was coming to. I was so incredibly weak... How much of me was left? How long did I have left, until Henry and the thousands of parasites devoured the last of my soul? My spirit...

'Ah... You're awake,' Henry laughed somewhere inside the body we shared.

I didn't reply to him. I was unable to form a thought, and he knew it. It amused him. He knew the body would soon be his, but he didn't mind tormenting me while I withered away. No... I was sure he wanted to keep me alive as long as possible just so he had someone to torture.

I had learned a lot about him ever since he possessed me. He was not a good person, not even when he was alive. He... he skinned his own children alive when he was still human... All seven of them. His wife suffered far worse fate than that... His spirit was almost five hundred years old, and time had not made him any kinder.

Anthony... That rotten Shadow Walker... Why would anyone want to work with a Shadow like Henry? And what kind of a person you had to be to control a Shadow like Henry?

'That's none of your concern...' Henry muttered. 'I believe you have far more important things to worry about.'

I was finally able to see around. His shadows retreated so I could regain my senses, but they still had a strong hold of my spirit. I could even hear the wind and the birds around us. And I could smell.

'How?' I managed to ask.

I didn't see anything behind the snow and the trees, but I could smell well enough to know we were in Rayleigh's territory. And not just at the edge of it. I could almost hear their village close by.

'How did we get here? Easily – your sworn enemies are not paying enough attention to their borders right now,' Henry told me.

How could it be? Didn't the Blue Moons realize the danger they were in? I was sure they would now know they had a Shadow Walker coming after their old world object! I had heard enough stories about the battle that happened almost two decades ago in this very same territory. Had they forgotten all about it? How could it be! Rayleigh himself was leading his werewolves against the Shadow Walkers!

And Henry had managed to sneak us deep into their land...

'Let's see... If I were a diviner, where would I be hiding?'

Henry's words made my entire soul grow cold. He was after Arch! Was he here? I couldn't tell, no matter how well I knew his scent. Maybe he wasn't in the territory at all?

'Keep wishing. I know for a fact that he's here. Alpha Rayleigh has ordered his whole pack here,' Henry spoke, and I could almost see his evil smile. 'I must say, your loyalty to him is admirable. No, no – it truly is! He doesn't recognize you even as a possible mate, and yet, you're wasting the last of your already short life trying to defend him. Truly admirable. Foolish, but admirable...'

Defend him... I truly wished I had enough strength to actually defend him. He was... the only light in my darkness. Ever since he turned sixteen... I knew... but...

'It must've been terrible for you to know right away that he was your mate, but his eyes slid past yours without even the tiniest flicker of recognition. Should we watch it again?'

'Stop already...' I told him, but he just laughed.

'Come on! It's a very sweet story! Even I was moved when I first saw that memory!'

'Please don't...'

It was too late.

The snow in front of me vanished, melting into the hard floor of our school. People passed me by, trying to avoid making eye contact with me. Even teachers moved closer to the walls on their way. In that memory, I walked through the hallways, heading to the next class... I was just a bit over sixteen years old at the time.

And then I saw Jaden. The past me felt so much hate at the sight of his smug face. He and his perfect little life... He had adoring parents and a beautiful territory and no doubt the Blue Moons saw him as the golden boy... He had everything and he still acted like an arrogant douche... He and his friends acted like they were the kings of the world, showing no appreciation to what they had...

He was prancing around like he was the goddess' gift for the world, while I had nothing left. I had to see my mother die right in front of me. My father was a manifestation of hate, and our territory was an abandoned factory... Why was life so unfair...?

As Jaden and his friends walked closer, I started to feel weird... I felt... warm all of a sudden. Like I was wrapped in warm arms... And I felt like I wasn't alone anymore, like... like I had found my place.

When I looked up, my eyes met his brown ones. Arch. It was a fleeting moment, but for a second, all that weirdness I felt grew a thousand times stronger. I almost smiled at how good I felt. It was a moment of pure... pureness. I would never forget how I felt at that moment.

And I knew. I instantly knew it was him. My mate. Arch, the diviner of the Blue Moons, the best friend of the guy I loathed, was my mate.

His eyes traveled past mine, almost like he hadn't even seen me there. I turned around to look after him, but he just kept walking. Like I was air to him.

'Priceless,' Henry chuckled. 'This is why it was so easy to possess you. When you realized he would never consider you as his mate, your already broken soul shattered into so many pieces it was easy to invade. Maybe I should show him some mercy for preparing you to be entered.'

I had never felt such warmth before... It was the first and last time I felt like I had hope.

How I hated Moon Goddess... why did she show him to me, knowing he would never accept me? Knowing that he would never even consider me as his mate? That he wouldn't feel a single thing when our eyes met? Why was I punished so...? What did I do wrong?

Ever since that day, I saw him everywhere. All I could do was look away, so I didn't have to see him. I had to live my life, knowing painfully well what I was missing out on. I could have a mate. I could've been happy. Maybe... maybe even have an actual home with him...

Instead, I had to return home at the end of the day, and listen to my father's hatred in that cold, barren factory.

'And still you want to protect your mate...' Henry said, and the memory vanished.

'He will... always... be my mate...' I told him. 'I don't care... what happens... to me... as long... as he's safe...'

'So noble,' Henry snorted. 'But he won't survive much longer, and you can't stop it. No one can.'

'I won't let you kill him!' I said, but he only laughed, before he forced me back into the darkness.

I had no idea what was going on outside my body after that. Henry didn't let me out from the darkness in a long time. I wasn't even sure if I was awake or sleeping most of the time. My life had become darkness ever since my father made the deal with Anthony, and I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

One day, he was just there, walking through our territory. My father let him in. He let him fuel up his hatred to a whole new level. Anthony promised vengeance. He promised destruction. He promised death. The top three on my dad's favorites. He never stopped to ask for more details.

All Anthony asked in return was The Blue Moon, the portal. He knew how to get there, and he knew where the keys were. Jaden and his father. Anthony needed a vessel for his pet shadow, and my father pointed towards his pack.

"Use whoever you want," he said.

We were nothing but a bunch of broken souls, easily possessed. I wasn't the first victim, but the second Anthony heard that Jaden was in the same school with me, their eyes turned towards me.

Henry laughed when my father held me still, while the shadow entered my body. He laughed, because I was incredibly easy to possess. His words. My broken spirit wasn't strong enough to battle against this five-hundred-years old monster. Anthony infected me with his parasites, his... shadow cubs. They continued multiplying inside me, until I could feel thousands of holes in my soul. The infestation spread from me to everyone who I encountered, to my friends. My classmates. The people in town.

And they stayed hidden, waiting for their time, eating away the souls of their hosts like maggots went through a carcasses.

It was supposed to be an easy task to possess Jaden, but since they couldn't afford to raise any suspicions, they had to work slowly. Anthony let his shadowy infestation spread slowly though the city to confuse the Diviners, to make them so sick they wouldn't know what was going on anymore. To make them numb to the danger. That was the first step.

The next one was to find Jaden's Echo, and their best bet was the secret hideout he had up in the mountains. They couldn't find it, and since the land belonged to the Spirit Walkers, and the spirits lived in the forests surrounding the town, they couldn't send shadows to scout the area. Spirit Walkers would've noticed it right away.

So... When Henry stumbled on that mousy boy, Oliver, they thought they hit the jackpot. A Spirit Walker youngling, a scared orphan, should've been easy to command. Henry even infested him with a spy shadow to make sure he'd do what he was asked, and make sure he didn't tell about the plan to anyone. Henry was sure that a single Spirit Walker, or even two of them, couldn't remove the spy, even if it was spotted.

But Oliver didn't do what he was supposed to do. He didn't follow Jaden, even after Henry reminded him of it. It was me who realized that Oliver probably didn't know he was a Spirit Walker. Henry would have killed the boy in his rage if I hadn't yelled him to stop. I regained the control of my body for a few seconds, just enough to talk some sense into Henry.

The plan was now ruined. Oliver didn't know how to use his powers to get to the secret hideout. But then... as we followed Jaden, we noticed him becoming closer to Jaden.

And Henry saw the Echo in him. He was sure it belonged to Jaden. I did what I could to slow him down – A tiny Spirit Walker could never outrun a werewolf. I used a lot of my remaining strength to try to take over my own body. I couldn't do it, but it was enough to slow him down, and then Jaden appeared with his friends.

Henry sacrificed a lot of shadows to possess them temporarily, but it wasn't enough. The Spirit Walkers were already there. I wanted to laugh at how perfectly the Spirit Walkers had kept their presence a secret. Henry was so mad about it... He was forced to face five guardian spirits in his weakened state, and he was not happy. His anger made me happy.

But the fact that Henry was able to sneak into Rayleigh's territory worried me. What were they thinking? Why weren't they more alert? True, it was hard to spot one single wolf in a big territory, but we were close to their town! How was it possible we got this far?

Arch... I couldn't let anything happen to him... but what could I do? I lost so much energy while trying to protect Oliver that I couldn't even regain my senses anymore... How could I protect Arch? I was barely alive...

'You finally understand how futile you're attempts are,' Henry laughed.

'Fuck off...'

'You know what? I think I'll let you choose how I kill him. Doesn't that sound like fun?' he spoke somewhere in the darkness.

I didn't reply to him. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of taunting me.

'First option, I'll rip his limbs off one by one, like your father asked,' Henry said. 'Two, I'll skin him alive – that's my own personal favorite. I'll save his face for last since you're so fond of looking at it.'

I wanted to vomit at the thought of that...

'And three... I think you'll love this one... I won't kill him right away. I'll take him back, and use him like a bitch while he starves to death. How's that? You'd like that option, right? I'd let you watch how I fuck –'

'Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth!' I yelled in rage, and for a second, I could finally see my surroundings. 'I will not fucking let you touch him! Do you fucking hear me?!'

'All three it is then,' Henry chuckled, but his confidence took a hit when he realized I could still find my way back from the darkness. 'Hmph, like you could ever stop me.'

'I can still do it,' I told him, feeling stronger with the help of my rage. 'You have no idea what I'm capable of.'

'Please – you're strong enough to use your vision again. That's still pathetic. You can't stop me anymore. You can't even slow me down! Your spirit is nothing but a whisper anymore! Even Echoes are stronger than you!' he spoke, his voice growing louder by the second.

'Why so mad?' I chuckled, and he fell completely silent. 'Oh... Silent treatment, huh...?'

His darkness was surrounding me again, forcing me to let go of my senses. Soon enough, I was back in the silent, dark bubble. I didn't fight back. I needed to save my strength for later.

I was going to need it.