Eighth-Born Luna (Emily and Nathan) novel Chapter 79

Time had run out.

The Luna stepped back, and suddenly, I wasn’t a ghost anymore. I was kneeling over him. My palms were pressed against the jagged wound in his stomach. His blood was hot–too hot–and it coated my fingers, sticky and real.

I panicked. “I can’t-”

“You can,” she whispered from the shadows.

Three cold, thin voices echoed through the dark: “A life for a life.”

“No,” I snapped. My voice shook, but the defiance was mine. “Not a life. Not all of it.”

The darkness went still. I closed my eyes and reached deep into my chest. I looked for something deeper- something white, quiet, and endless.

I pushed that feeling into my hands.

Pain answered instantly. It was brutal. It felt like hooks sinking under my ribs and yanking. I cried out, my back

arching.

The wound beneath my hands started to pull together. Slowly. Too slowly. The agony spread through my arms, urning my fingers numb. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed by iron bands.

My heart stumbled. Tu–dum. Tu-

“Breathe,” I whispered, forcing more of that white light into him.

The Alpha didn’t move.

Breathe!”

My vision went blurry. The Luna knelt beside me, but she didn’t lift a finger. This was my price to pay.

I bowed over him, pressing both glowing hands against his chest. “Come back!” I begged.

The rune on my arm flared white–hot, searing my skin. Something tore out of me–not flesh, not blood, but a

›iece of my very soul.

I screamed, the sound echoing off the stone walls.

And then, the Alpha inhaled.

It was a violent, gasping sound. He was alive.

The room exploded in a flash of light. I fell back, my body shaking uncontrollably. The Luna caught me. Her arms were cold, but her touch was gentle now.

“Now you understand,” she murmured.

Icould barely find my voice. “It hurts.”

‘Yes.”

“Will it always hurt like this?”

She looked at the man. He was breathing weakly, but his heart was beating. Then she looked back at me.

“Only if life matters.”

Tears ran down my face. On my arm, the rune began to change. The broken lines reached for each other, connecting like a puzzle. A solid white mark bloomed across my skin, glowing as bright as a full moon.

The Luna pressed her palm over the mark. Her skin felt like ice against my fever.

“This is the first gift of our bloodline,” she whispered, her voice echoing in my bones. “Not to destroy. Not to

Command.” Her eyes locked onto mine, hard and ancient. “To restore.”

The stone walls around us began to crack. The memory was falling apart.

“No–wait,” I croaked, reaching for her. “Who are you? What happened to you?”

For the first time, she smiled. It was a sad, beautiful expression that broke my heart. “I stayed.”

The room shattered like glass.

I fell backward into a void of pure white light. Nathan’s voice tore through the emptiness, loud and desperate.

‘Emily!”

I gasped, air rushing into my lungs so fast it burned.

Nathan was holding me on the bathroom floor. He was soaked to the bone, his face pale and trembling.

“Emily.” My name broke in his throat. “Goddess, look at me. Come back to me.”

I blinked, trying to clear my head. His face hovered above mine, masked in a terror I had never seen before. The Dowerful Alpha was gone; only a man afraid of losing his world remained.

“I’m here,” I whispered.

He let out a ragged breath, sounding like it had been ripped from his chest. “You stopped breathing. Your heart… It just stopped.”

I looked down at my arm. The rune was there. It wasn’t fading, and it wasn’t a dream. Delicate, ancient white lines curved over my skin, glowing softly even under the streaming water.

Nathan followed my gaze. His expression shifted from relief to pure shock. “What is that?”

5:58 pm

I swallowed hard, the taste of his blood still faint on my tongue. “I think… it’s the first one.”

“The first what?”

I looked at him, and the knowledge settled into my mind like a heavy weight. I didn’t know everything, but I knew

this. “Healing.”

His eyes widened, his lips parting to speak, but he suddenly went rigid. His gaze sharpened, turning distant and

:old.

The Mindlink.

I felt the shockwave through him before he even opened his mouth. Fear. Grief. A dark, heavy cloud of pain.

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