Rejected His Miracle Luna Fated Her Second Chance Alpha by Paprika

Chapter 37

-Ignatius-

Dorothy was nowhere to be found by the time I made it back to the cottage. People were beginning to leave, drizzling out of the door and gingerly stepping over the dark patch of blood that stained the gravel.

No person could survive losing that much blood. Most of them assumed this was Angie’s punishment for trying to poison my mate. I was inclined to let them believe that

News of an imposter attacking one of our own could not get out. I already had people working to dispose of the dead shifter’s b*dy that I had left in the woods.

Looking at the blo ody gravel I knew Angie hadn’t made it. I would have to grieve later though An Alpha couldn’t break down in front of all these people. We couldn’t show weakness, especially not now.

I tried to reach Dorothy m entally but I couldn’t find her. I quieted the alarm bells that went off when I couldn’t find her voice. She was fine, Rita would be taking care of her. I assumed they would have made it to the healers, Gideon’s van was

cone.

After seeing off a few of the guests and shaking hands with some of the elders. I got in my car and sped off towards the hospital. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind at once. The Tally had launched their first attack, but who had they been targeting? Surely not Angie.

It was possible that the rogue shifter who attacked could have been sent for Dorothy instead. He hadn’t been in his right mind. There was something off about him.

Something other than I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was possible he could have gotten the two mixed up. This only worsened my already bad mood.

If they were targeting Dorothy there would be hell to pay. None of them would lay so much as a finger on her without dying by my hand. I had to concentrate on slowing down the car. In my anger and unease, I was speeding dangerously fast on the

dark road.

By the time I made it to the hospital, I had prepared for the worst. I still couldn’t hear Dorothy and my mind went to terrible places in thinking of all the bad things that could have happened to her. And Angie. Angie was dead. I couldn’t fathom it

I burst through the doors and grabbed the shoulders of a nurse hanging around the entrance. “Dorothy – a girl with red hair, is the here?!

The woman was startled and stammered something about room B2. I rushed past her down the corridor, my anxiety churning in my stomach. I found room 32 and threw the door open.

“Dorothy?”

Rita looked up from where she was sitting next to the bed. Dorothy was lying very still. Her hair flowed out on the pillow around her head like a fiery halo. She was h ooked up to a heart monitor that beeped rhymatically and she breathed with the help of a tube in her nose.

I was beside her in a flash, taking her hand in mine.

“What happened to her? She was fine when I ran past her earlier

Idirected my question at Rita who sat with her head in her hand. The old caretaker looked tired and weary. She looked at me with her head bent low. “Dorothy has unlocked her powers.”

I looked back at my mate. Her Lace was pale and sickly, the skin on her cheekbones drawn tight like she’d had the life sucked out of her. It scared me to see her like this. She was breathing, but barely. And when would she wake up?

“What powers, Kata? Her wolf?”

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Rita shook her head gravely “No, this is. Something else. She’s going to be fine, Ignatius. She just needs rest,”

She was avoiding the truth, I could sense it. It enraged me, but I trusted Rita and I knew that she must have her reasons. I brushed a hand over Dorothy’s pale cheek. I wanted to climb onto the bed beside her and hold her until she woke up.

“So what is it then this power?”

Rita stood up slowly, stretching her back as she gazed down at Dorothy with the deepest grief in her eyes. “Let me show you,”

Curious, I followed her out of the room. I was hesitant to leave Dorothy’s side but Rita assured me she was going to be fine. I scasn’t sure I believed her, but I needed answers.

She led me down the hall to another room. Inside, I saw Gideon and Fae, Angie’s subordinates, hovering over someone. sitting up in bed,

Gideon moved out of the way when I stepped inside and my breath hitched in my throat.

“Angie”

The girl on the bed looked straight at me. Her face was flawless as ever and she didn’t have a single injury from what I could see. Angie smiled at me and reached out her arms.

I grappled her in a bear hug, relief washing over me despite the confusion. “You’re alive! But how? All that blood-

“Dorothy,” Angie said quietly, still clinging to me. “Dorothy saved my life.

I pulled back, and looked from Angie to Rita, questioning with my eyes.

“Sit down.” Rita said apprehensively. “We have a lot to talk about

-Dorothy-

I didn’t know where I was. I could hear people moving around me – or sense them more so. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t open my eyes. I wanted to thrash and scream but my b*dy was heavy and inescapable

I knew I was panicking, I couldn’t recall how I had got here, or where “here” even was. I wanted to call out for Ignatius but 1. was trapped within my own mind. I worked myself up into a frenzy, me ntally raging against the walls of my own head.

“You need to calm down, Dorothy

A voice I had never heard before, a voice I felt I had known all my life. It was soothing, lilting and beautiful. It echoed around my mind and stilled my rising panic.

“Who are you?”

“Dorothy, don’t you know? I’ve been here all along”

My inner-wolf. Finally

“What’s happening to me? Why can’t I move? Why haven’t you spoken until now?”

Your mind had been closed off from me until now.”

I didn’t understand how any of this worked. All I had ever been told was that one day my wolf would speak to me. I was relieved that my earlier concerns lackd no merit. My wolf was very much alive. And now I could hear her.

“What’s your

“My name is Ience. This is my eight hundredth life on earth”

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Chapter 37

Renee. It was a beautiful narge. I had suspected that Ignatius’s own wolf was aware of her long before I was, but neither my mute nor his wolf were willing to disclose any information on the matter.

“Tor knows me well, yes. There was love in her voice. “A reckless pair, those two

“Renee, what’s happened to me? Why can’t I move?”

“You were dying, Dorothy. You unlocked your true powers when you managed to finally let me in. It seems the seal wast broken by the strength of your will alone.”

“What seal What did I unlock?”

I could vaguely recall an injured Angie. We were in a moving vehicle. Angie was hurt. A white glow, and then nothing

Renee’s voice was cautious, hesitant to explain. Tim glad I am now able to reach you, Dorothy. There is much we have to discuss,” her voire moved towards the melancholic. “There is so much you don’t know about your own birthright

“Like what?

Be patient. I’ll show you.”

-Ignatius–

I leaned back against the creaky hospital bed. Angie sat reproachfully with her hands in her lap. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to comprehend everything Rita had just told me.

So, Dorothy is a healer? But not like the others. What is it magic or something? Rita had her arms folded, perched on the hospital chair, and looking away from me, her eyes fixed on something I couldn’t see. “And how do you even know about this

Rita kept her gaze away from me, her shoulders tensed up around her n*eck like she was taking strain. “Not magic. A blessing” -or a curse depending on how you look at it. And as for why I know… That I can’t tell you

“Don’t keep secrets from me, Rita. How do I know I can trust you?” I stepped towards her only to be halted by Gideon and Fae stepping in my way and pressing their shoulders together. A lot of people loved Rita, and for good reason, she had been like a mother to all of us

Rita looked back at me, her bird eyes were sorrowful and tired. “can’t tell you, Ignatius.

I could make her confess if I really wanted her to. But I trusted Rita and decided, for now, to let her be.

I sat back down on the edge of Angie’s bed becking for Fae and Gideon to relax. Rita sighed.

“Dorothy has the ability to heal people by her hand. People like Angela,” Angie sniffed at the mention of her name and touched a hand to her throat. “Angela was as good as dead, and Dorothy brought her back from that. But it comes at a great cost to her own life.”

I didn’t like what I was hearing. I didn’t like that there was so much I didn’t understand.

“Meaning

Kita tipped her shoulder. “Dorothy is a life-giver. To give life to someone means she loses years off of her own. If she isn’t. careful, it could kill her..

Her words made me flinch. Dorothy’s death was an incomprehensible thought. I had survived the loss of my mate once. I knew in my heart I would not be able to do it again.

“This has to be kept a secret, Rita continued. “If people were to find out about Dorothy, what she can do, she’ll never be safe. No inatter where she goes.

I wondered if this could have been the catalyst for the vanishing of Dorothy’s former pack.

B2%

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“So what do we do about it you said her powers had been sealed up before? Why can’t we do it again?”

The wizened caretaker shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s too late now. There’s no separating her from it again – it’s a part of who she is.”

I wanted to kick, scream, pound my lists into something solid. Instead, I strode past them all and rushed back to Dorothy’s side. She was still there, a stone statue on the bed

I looked down at her, willing her to open her eyes. Begging her to wake up. I needed to see that brilliant green gazing back at ime I needed to know she was going to be okay.

I climbed onto the bed next to her, fitting my head on her shoulder and taking her hand as the monitor beeped and her chest rose and tell with each small breath.

“Wake up. I whispered, looking up at her as my eyes watered. I hadn’t cried since that night in the snow, but it was all too overwhelming. “Please wake up

My mind was empty without her presence there. I waited for her to flick her eyes open. smile at me, and tell me it was all a joke. Then we could go back home-back to our home, and spend the night together, tangled in each other’s embrace.

1 need you.

-Dorothy-

It was all too much. Too much information, pouring into my mind all at once. I was bombarded with memories I didn’t even know that I had. I watched Renee’s lifetimes flash past me in the blink of an eye. Every birth, death, love, and loss. I wanted to cry and scream and laugh all at once as a million emotions rolled over me.

Over it all. Renee’s voice could be heard, “It was the Luna Goddess herself who bestowed these powers upon your bloodline. It is neither good nor wholly evil. That all depends on how you wield it

We were born into your pack – the Seilvanne – a small assemblage of shifters with a few powerful healers. Those who learned of our abilities wanted it for themselves.

We had endured targetted attacks before and always prevailed. The same power that can give life can also take it away after all. But for one such attack, we were not prepared”

I walled internally at the flood of new memories that slammed into me. There was fire all around me. Flames licked up the sides of crumbling buildings as people scatt ered. Running past me, knocking me down.

Through the smoke someone appeared, a woman I felt I knew. She scooped me up in her arms, cradling me to her chest as she ran, coughing in the grey ash that billowed around us.

People were coming after us, wolves chasing us down. I was crying, clutching the woman as I looked over her shoulder at the wolf that was gaining on us, snapping jaws streaming with the blood of my people. Others around us were falling one by one. Both wolves and people, cut down by the enemies that hunted us.

The snapping wolf was almost upon us, I could see its yellow eyes locked onto me. It looked hungry, predatorial, and vicious Choking on smog and staring into those ravenous wild eyes, I understood then that I was the hunted. That I was

prey.

The slathering creature made a jump for me and the woman when a howl came from the right and another large wolf crashed into the first – knocking him to the side and saving me from those flashing jaws that were about to clamp down IL my head

I had felt the hot breath of the creature blowing into my Lace before it was snat ched away, rammed off of its feet by the natları woll.

My father. A shafter covered in shimmering auburn fur. I watched as he tore out the throat of the thrashing wolf. He looked

– gazing at him over the shoulder of the retreating woman who camed me

Denied out pangand when tre muar wolves descended upon m. I reached out my small d*rty hands, crying while his

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Chapter 37

howls faded away as he was lost to me in the suffocating smoke.

This was what happened to my family. This is what became of my park, ash, and blood-wiped out by the greed of our enemies. I was furious, vengeful. Frried in anguish while Reure tried to console me

I had barely managed to recover when I was washed with a final memory. The billowing flames and ash were gone. I was smaller still, caressed in the arms of a woman whose face couldn’t make out.

Her long red hair swept down her shoulders and tendrils of it brushed softly over my face as I gazed up at her. She was smiling at me. I knew she was speaking but I couldn’t make out her words. They were as fuzzy and blurred as her face was.

“Who is she?” I asked Renee. But my wolf was silent, waiting for me to run through the memory myself. The woman leaned down to press her l*ps to my forehead and I reached up to grab a strand of her hair, She took my tiny hand in hers and k*ssed my lingers.

“Be good.”

1 brand her whispered words before her hand dropped to her side and I felt myself wrenched away from her by strong armis, 1 didn’t want to leave her, I wanted to stay in her embrace. I shricked Bonelly, a shrill cry as I was ripped away from my mother

I could see her slim frame, bundled up on a small bed. Her head fell to the side and her long hair hid her face from me. She

wasn’t moving

I

Shadowy figures that couldn’t properly identify rushed to her side, panicked voices begging her to stay All the while I was screaming for my mother, reaching for her and struggling in the firm hands that held me.

“Shh, Dorothy, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay” My father’s voice was in my car as he held my squirming b*dy. “It’s going to be okay” The tears in his eyes and the cr ack in his voice said otherwise, I wouldn’t stop thrashing, clawing, and screaming for my mother.

Finally, it was over and I was once again floating in the dense, dark emptiness of my mind.

“You’ve had a hard life, Dorothy, Renee’s voice surrounded me, soothing me as I recovered from the grief that was swirling in my chest. “There will be more hardships to come.”

“I want to wake up now,” I told her, “I want to see Ignatius.”

“In time,” Rence answered, lulling me into a kind of quiet slumber. “Your b*dy needs to heal. You did a number on yourself. giving so much of your energy to Angie. You’ve taken years off of your life.”

“Am I dying?”

“No, not yet. Not anymore. But you need to be careful. This ability of yours, it’s a dangerous power to wield”

I still didn’t entirely understand what she meant. But I let myself sl*p into a deeper state of unconsciousness all the same.

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