Chapter 83: Chapter 83 Visions of Horror
Seraphina’s POV
Someone rushed toward us as we stepped outside, and Julian quickly handed our son over to them.
I needed to see this with my own eyes. He understood without question.
The forest air hit me thick with pine and something else metallic that made my stomach turn. My pulse thundered against my ribs like a caged animal fighting to escape. Julian’s steady hand pressed against my spine as we crashed through the treeline, but even his reassuring touch couldn’t chase away the cold dread wrapping around my throat like a noose.
That’s when we found them.
Two tiny figures lay motionless on the leaf-strewn ground. The sight stole my breath. What made it unbearable was their size, so obviously children, so heartbreakingly small.
The scene defied description. A strangled cry escaped my lips, raw and desperate. The vivid greens of the woodland swirled together into an indistinct blur. Vertigo slammed into me with crushing force, sending me stumbling before I crashed to the earth with a bone-jarring impact.
This wasn’t ordinary dizziness. Something deeper was happening. A torrent of alien images flooded my consciousness, emotions that belonged to someone else yet felt intimately mine. I witnessed them, those two innocent souls, their giggles ringing crystal clear in my head, pure and untroubled. They darted between sun-kissed patches of forest, their happiness a cruel counterpoint to the nightmare spread before me.
The brightness dimmed. The woods transformed into something sinister, shadows creeping forward like grasping fingers. A silhouette emerged at the forest’s edge, draped in gathering darkness. Recognition hit me like ice water, terror coiling tight in my belly.
He lingered there, a deadly trap disguised as patience. Somehow, with absolute certainty, I understood he had lured them here. He had orchestrated their path because children never ventured this deep alone.
The shadow began to change. Joints popped and reformed, dark fur erupted across skin, and where a man had stood, an enormous black wolf now prowled. Its eyes burned with supernatural malice, catching what remained of daylight like dying coals.
Wolves should inspire natural fear, but this creature was different. It wasn’t the typical dominance you felt facing an alpha. Something hollow and vicious lived behind those glowing eyes.
Even its wolf form seemed wrong somehow, though I couldn’t identify exactly what made it unnatural.
The beast moved with inhuman velocity. What happened next became a kaleidoscope of horror, an inescapable nightmare. The sounds would haunt me forever. Horrifying. Beyond imagination. My consciousness tried desperately to retreat, to block out every sight, sound, and perverted wrongness of what I witnessed.
The helpless children screamed and pleaded, but somehow their voices seemed trapped, never carrying beyond their small bodies. The monster didn’t cease its savagery until their breathing stopped entirely.
I shrieked for it to end because witnessing such brutality was unbearable, but this was only a memory, leaving me powerless to intervene. The images would be burned into my mind forever.
Only true evil could commit such acts.
Reality crashed back around me. My body had gone berserk, limbs thrashing wildly while screams tore from my throat. "Stop! Please stop!"
"Seraphina! Seraphina, you need to calm down!" Julian’s voice cut through the chaos like a lifeline, but I couldn’t catch hold. His arms encircled me, attempting comfort, but I remained trapped in a hurricane of terror and bewilderment. When my vision finally cleared, I saw not only Julian but an entire group of patrol guards and warriors who had gathered. Their expressions were grave, every single face fixed on me.
Humiliation burned through me, searing and sharp, mixing with my lingering fear. I jerked away from Julian, staggered several steps, then retched violently onto the moist forest floor. The acidic taste served as a revolting reminder of what had invaded my mind.
Tremors wracked my frame while trauma threatened to drown me in those terrible images.
Julian returned to my side, his embrace becoming my anchor in the storm. "You’re safe, Seraphina. Everything’s alright." His closeness provided some relief, but all I could visualize were those bloodstained fangs and how the beast had walked away without a backward glance at the broken innocents it left behind.
Tears cascaded down my cheeks in an unstoppable flood. I pressed my face into his chest, gripping him as if he were my only connection to sanity. "I witnessed everything, Julian," I choked out, voice muffled against his shirt. "Every horrible second."
The impossibility of it didn’t matter. I had seen it all.
He tightened his hold, fingers threading through my hair in gentle strokes, but then something shifted in his posture. His comforting embrace turned steel-rigid. His soothing motion ceased entirely. I lifted my head, tears still clouding my vision, to study his face.
His jaw had locked into a hard line, eyes transformed to chips of granite. The tenderness from moments before vanished, replaced by raw, protective fury. He brushed away a tear with deliberate precision.
"Seraphina," he growled, voice dropping to something dangerous and primal. "Give me his name."
I dragged in a shuddering breath, the wolf’s image and that shadowed figure branded permanently into my memory. I knew the identity with bone-deep certainty that chilled me to my core.
This was someone who had come here specifically for me, and today’s atrocity proved there were no boundaries he wouldn’t cross to possess me.
I bore equal responsibility for this tragedy because I should have revealed the truth long ago.
"Alpha Dorian," I breathed, the name leaving a bitter taste on my tongue.
Unfortunately, his identity wasn’t the only secret I’d been keeping, and I knew everything was about to get much worse.
