Katya
We are eating dinner when I feel the pull. It sucks me in and I am suddenly standing in the fountain room of the Moon Goddess realm. I try to figure out what has pulled me here, yet as another wave of nausea rolls over me, the realm shakes. The water in the fountains sloshes over the sides and I grip onto one, trying to hold it steady.
I stare down at Dominic’s wolf that glows like a beacon amongst the mist. The shudders stop again and I regain my feet, moving to the fountain of life. I swipe through the smog and steam, clearing the water to see Eziah’s life force darkening and Marabella’s turning gold.
My heart hammers in my chest as I try to figure out what is going on. What went wrong? Frantically, I drag my fingertips through the water, some spills over the edge, as I rewind the past to see. They opened the coffin! I gasp. I had no idea how they could do it, but I also knew it would be done. Never in my life have I wanted one of my visions to come true, but this one, the sacrifices I would make for it to stay true, are unfathomable.
Suddenly, the realm shakes again and each time Eziah’s life force grows darker and Marabella glows fiercely. Nothing is working, my son is dying and I watch helplessly as they try to piece the puzzle of the curse together when I notice something in the center of Marabella’s life force. It is a black smudge.
And something else, something trying to attach to her. I move to another fountain. The one containing Dominic’s wolf, along with it, is another flickering life force, though it isn’t like the others – it glows and flickered blue, and tendrils seep behind it, trailing it.
I touch it, and dread befalls over me. Darkness. Darkness, so powerful it threatens to consume me.
Now, I am trying to piece together what is happening when I watch Dominic’s wolf chase after it, trying to calm it when it hits me and I scoop them out of the fountain. I wait for Dominic’s wolf to disappear in my hands like it usually does, but he remains, letting me transfer him back to the fountain of life. Along with a strange shadow wolf.
I place them in the fountain and they both attach to Mara. I gasp at the realization. Tears brim in my eyes and I choke on a sob. My baby girl is pregnant.
Dominic’s wolf is sensing its kin. Yet still, Dominic won’t wake. I watch them argue while Dominic’s blurring little blob of a wolf flickers, staring up at me expectantly.
“What is it?” I ask him, but he just stares at the pup and back at me. I touch the smoky wolf and his name appears in my head as I witness his past lives.
“Obsidian,” I murmur.
Looking back at the fountain, I move through the water, sifting through time and looking for anything that could lead them to break the curse. Obsidian, my daughter’s child’s wolf, keeps playing on my mind.
The word is so dark and the shadows attach in mind. I am brought back to the curse. How it all started. I watch, although I have watched it a million times over the last couple of months.
Two stones, the moon, and a sacrifice. I look away when I watch Celeste kill the girl. So tragic. The stones, one represented death, and the other life.
“One creates a God, one destroys one,” Celeste tells Kaif. It makes me wonder and I remember Selene’s words.
“I’m tired.” She was tired of being the Moon Goddess. It truly was the worst curse of all. Choosing fate, choosing who lives and dies. Did Celeste hand the realm to Selene for the same reason Selene gave it to me? Eternity is a long time and everything has a loophole. That dagger is the loophole. Suddenly, the realm shakes again and I lurch forward. My hand falls into the fountain to catch myself.
It starts with the moon; it ends with the moon. Those words play on my mind when it clicks. It isn’t a literal moon. Celeste, the Moon Goddess, was the first to start it. It has to end with a Moon Goddess. I rush to the shelves, looking through the old books and finding the lists of curses and those that are still cursed. This was only a recent find for me. I spent so much time looking for the Octavian curse, but it wasn’t their curse. They were collateral damage from a curse specifically placed on Kaif. As punishment for Celeste, it was her curse for rejecting her mate, Hades. Finding Kaif’s – it never made sense to me. Yet one thing Seline always said to me. “Never sacrifice a mate bond. Always choose your bond.” Kaif chose his son over his bond. Celeste chose her coven over hers.
The drawings are ancient and symbolic as I stare down at the old parchment. There stands Celeste, the stones in each hand. The moon above her. Her sacrifice at her feet. Yet how did it fit? One takes life, one gives it. The stones were Gemini! Dark and light.
I wander over to the fountains and watch Marabella and Eziah once again try to break the curse. Yet, neither can harbor the other’s power. Because neither is a full Gemini. Together they are the Gemini, but neither is both. My blood runs through their veins, but neither of them is a Gemini God or Goddess. Only Demi’s. The stones, the curse, my kids, and how they cancel each other out.
I shake my head. One creates, one kills. Celeste wanted out, but what was her sacrifice? It was her life. She sacrificed her life so she could rest. It suddenly makes sense. They can’t destroy the stones. Only the stones can destroy each other, just like I watch my children kill each other.
A pit forms in my stomach, and I feel myself craving my mates. Just the thought of them has them being sucked into the realm. It rarely happens, but they are both an extension of me and I them. Me, needing them, pull them to me.