Eighth-Born Luna (Emily and Nathan) novel Chapter 78

One second, I was in Nathan’s arms, the cold spray hitting my skin and his blood warm on my lips. The next—nothing. No bathroom. No Nathan.

A blinding light took over, bringing a pain that wasn’t a wound. It was deeper. I tried to scream, but the sound died in the glow.

Then, the whiteness cracked like glass.

I was standing in a strange room. The air tasted of woodsmoke, bitter herbs, and copper. Outside, thunder shook the stone walls, vibrating in my teeth.

A man was dying on the floor.

He was massive. Even pale and covered in blood, power radiated off him in waves. He was an Alpha—I felt the weight of it in my gut.

A woman knelt over him, her long, silver-white hair tangled and damp with sweat. Her hands were pressed firmly against a jagged wound in his stomach, and a faint, flickering light pulsed between her fingers.

She was beautiful, but she was coming apart at the seams.

“No,” she rasped, her voice breaking. “No, stay with me.”

I stepped forward.

“Help him!” I shouted.

Neither of them moved. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but my hand passed through her like smoke. I wasn’t really there. I was a ghost watching a memory.

The woman leaned down, her forehead resting against his. “You promised me forever,” she whispered. “You promised.”

His lips moved, but no sound came out. She let out a sob and pressed harder. The light under her palms flared bright, then vanished. Blood began to trickle from her nose, staining her white lips.

I stared, horrified. She wasn’t just tending to him; she was pouring her own life force into his body. It was a trade.

“Stop,” I breathed. “You’re killing yourself.”

She didn’t hear me.

Time seemed to warp. The fire burned down to embers and was relit.

People came into the room, begging her to eat, to sleep, to let go. She didn’t even blink. She just kept her hands on his chest, her face growing paler and thinner with every hour. She was fading away right in front of me.

This time, her head lifted.

Slowly, her gaze shifted away from the dying man and locked onto mine. The air in the room suddenly felt still, the storm outside muffled as if we were underwater.

She could see me.

“You finally came,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound surprised; it sounded ancient and exhausted.

I took a shaky step back. “You can see me?”

“I have always seen you,” she whispered. “Blood remembers blood.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Who are you?”

She looked down at the man, her expression so soft it hurt to look at. “I was Luna,” she said. “Once.”

The word hit. Luna. It wasn’t just a title. In her mouth, it sounded like a sacrifice.

“He is your mate?” I asked.

“My heart,” she said simply.

The man made a wet, rattling sound in his throat. She turned back to him instantly, her hands glowing again, but the light was weak. Fading. She gasped, more blood spilling from her mouth.

I rushed to her side, feeling useless. “You have to stop. You’re giving him everything.”

She let out a short, hollow laugh. “Would you?”

The question stopped me cold. She looked at me through the dim light, her eyes boring into mine.

The Luna reached out. This time, when her fingers wrapped around my wrist, they weren’t mist. They were real.

They were icy cold…

“You want the power to heal,” she said, her grip tightening until it bruised. “Then you need to understand what healing actually is.”

I shook my head.

“It isn’t light. It isn’t mercy. It isn’t a miracle,” she hissed. “It is taking someone else’s agony into your own body and deciding not to let it go.”

She looked at Alpha on the floor. He was too still. The life was draining out of him, turning the air around him cold. She looked back at me. “Choose.”

My mouth felt like it was full of ash. “What happens if I do?”

“You save him.”

“And if I don’t?”

Her eyes softened, just a fraction. “Then you wake up untouched. Safe. You won’t have to carry this cost. You won’t have to know what it feels like to pull someone back from the edge with your bare hands.”

I looked at the dying man. Then I looked at the rune. I thought of the weight of Nathan’s hand on my neck, the way he looked at me like I was his entire world.

“What will it take?” I asked.

She didn’t lie. “Part of you.”

My stomach twisted into a knot. “How much?”

“That depends on how hard death is holding on.”

My eyes burned. “And if one day… if I have to save Nathan?”

The Luna didn’t look at me with pity. She looked at me with a hard, brutal truth. “Then you will have to decide how much of yourself you can lose before your love becomes just another kind of death.”