Jacky’s POV
Everything was spinning. Roman gripped both sides of my head with his hands. He pinned me in place, forcing me to confront something I wasn’t ready for. I fought it with everything I had, but his voice cut through me like a blade, dragging me into the depths of my own mind. It felt like a spell, Like I’d left my physical form and travelled somewhere different.
The haze thickened. At the back of my mind, images-faint at first-grew sharper, forming scenes that unfolded like vivid dreams. No, not dreams. Memories.
I was standing in an open field. A massacre. Blood soaked the ground and hundreds of dead bodies were scattered all over. It looked like a battle scene, only I was the one standing in the middle of it all, bloody sword in hand. At the edge of the field, there were women screaming for their husbands, Alphas roaring in agony, devastated by the death of their warriors.
“What have you done?”
The voice-his voice-boomed through the chaos. My head snapped toward him. Alpha Roman, standing amidst the carnage, looked at me. His eyes were a haunting red, different from his usual stormy gray.
“I loved you. I trusted you. How could you do this?”
At my feet lay a figure, a woman. No. Valerie. Why was Valerie here? Have we ever met before?
Then the scene shifted suddenly. We moved in reverse, rewinding like an old tape. I was no longer in the bloody field surrounded by death. Instead, I was in a forest, lying on a blanket with Roman. Alpha Roman
Why did my heart flutter? Why did I feel more than just hatred for him? Deep down, all this hate I’ve had for him for killing Eloise starts to fade. Instead, a new feeling enters. No. Not new. Old buried feelings. I…I loved him. I adore him. Once, Alpha Roman was the most important person to me. Once I could have given my life for him. Once, I actually did.
He was seated in front of the blanket, leaning in to kiss me. His smile was gentle, his touch softer than I remembered. We kissed, fed each other grapes, laughed like the world belonged to us.
“Remember us, Jacky. Remember how you destroyed us.” Alpha Roman shouted, breaking through the haze in my mind. Here, in the forest, we were happy. He didn’t have a care in the world. He was a happy man. There was no bitterness in his heart, no anger, no malice. He was gentle with me, he treated me like the most precious thing in the world.
What had I done? What was this?
Then, another shift.
We moved in reverse again. My memories didn’t come from the start, instead they came from the end. From how we ended to how we started. When the scene shifted, I saw Roman and I fighting about something. I cried, he cried with me. He cried with me? Alpha Roman?
Valerie was there.
“We can’t just let her win.” Valerie argued. “I love you, sister-in-law, you can’t just sacrifice yourself.”
Valerie cried as she pulled me in for a hug. We stahyed like that for a while, sobbing into each other’s shoulder. Roman was standing at the end of the room, looking broken.
“I have to defeat the goddess. The only way to stop the reincarnation is to die. When I do, she’ll be stuck within me. You can burry me, and this cycle won’t repeat itself.”
“No!” Roman argued. “I can’t loose you. We can’t let her win like this.”
“We’re not letting her win, Roman.” I cried, moving to him. “Look at me.”
He did, gritting his teeth like he didn’t want to cry. “I love you, you know that. But this is beyond us. We can’t just..”
The scene shifted violently, stealing a piece of important memory that would answer my questions. I tried to blink, tried to focus so I’d go back to it, but my efforts were fruitless. In this memory, we were in his bed naked. Tangled in each other, his cock inside me. He hugged me, fucking into me while he kissed my breasts. I moaned, shouting how much I loved him. It wasn’t just a memory; it was alive, burning through me as if it were happening all over again.
“No,” I whimpered, my voice breaking. “What is this?”
Roman’s voice was the only anchor in the storm of emotions tearing me apart. “Let me in, Jacky. You have to remember.”
“Remember what?” I cried, trying to claw my way out of the memories, out of his grasp.
“What you did to me. To us.”
Before I could respond, something pierced the haze. A sound. A commotion.
Then, a scream.
“No! First your sister, now you!” The voice was shrill, venomous. Malia.
“You can’t steal Alpha Roman from me. He’s the love of my life!”
My wolf howled, her voice shrieking danger, but I couldn’t pull myself out of the fog. Each memory stabbed into me like shards of glass, leaving me vulnerable. My body wouldn’t move. My fingers were limp, my legs were useless. I was trapped in my own mind, drowning in memories I couldn’t escape.
And then, it hit me.
The impact was brutal, something hit my chest. The sound of something breaking filled the room, and the force of it slammed me back into a wall. Roman’s hands detached from my head as my body crumpled.
“NO!” Roman’s alpha wolf roared.
For a moment, I regained consciousness. Suspended between pain and numbness, I opened my eyes. Roman was on the other side of the room, holding Malia against the wall, choking her. He was half transformed, his wolf having taken over.
“Roman,” I tried to speak, but no sound came out. My throat felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
Valerie’s face appeared above me, her lips moving. She was saying something, but her voice didn’t reach me. I blinked, trying to focus, to understand what she was saying.
Her hands shook as she touched me, crying. I followed her stare.
“Jacky,” she whispered.
Her hands were covered in blood. Whose blood?
I looked down at myself, and reality hit me.
My clothes were soaked in red. My breath hitched as I lowered my gaze further, and that’s when I saw it.
An axe.
It was embedded in my chest. The pain I should have felt was dulled by the shock, my body was going cold and numb.
My vision darkened as the room started to spin. Valerie’s screams became more distant, Roman’s roar was now an echo.
And then, everything went black.