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, turning 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 piece 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.

I could 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?”

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

“Nathan?” I whispered.

His jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumped. For a long, terrible beat, he didn’t answer. When his eyes finally met mine, they were hollow.

“My father,” Nathan whispered. The words felt hollow, like they were drifting from a thousand miles away.

My heart skipped a beat. “What happened?”

Nathan’s throat worked as he fought to find his voice. His eyes were dark, shattered. “They found him. The Rogues… it was a goddamn ambush.”

The only sound in the bathroom was the steady splash of water against the tiles. Nathan looked broken, like the world had just been ripped out from under his feet. The powerful Alpha I knew was gone, replaced by a son who had just lost everything.

“He’s dead,” he choked out. The words hit the air like lead.

My blood ran cold. “And what about Meredyth?”

He closed his eyes, his jaw tight enough to snap. “The guards are bringing her back to the pack house now. I can feel her through the link… she’s fading, Emily. She’s barely holding on.”

The rune on my arm pulsed. Once. It was bright—painfully bright—sending a jolt through my system. I looked down at the glowing mark, then back at Nathan’s broken expression.

I finally understood why the trial had come now. Why did I have to see that dying Alpha in the past?

I pushed myself up, ignoring the way my muscles screamed in protest. Nathan reached out to hold me down, his hands shaking.

“Emily, you can barely stand—”

“Take me to her,” I said.