In the heart of the astral plane, somewhere in the echoing vastness, Stone and Ella faced the shadowy figure that seemed both guardian and gatekeeper.
There was something about it that was oddly familiar to Stone, but the creature’s malevolent red eyes bore into them.
He’d have to question it later.
Stone felt the weight of the creature’s demand settle over him like a cloak of lead.
How could he face his darkness when he didn’t even fully understand it himself? Especially not when a curse was boring its way inside him, making it impossible to know how deep his darkness truly goes.
Hell, he didn’t even know which darkness was his anymore.
Beside him, Ella’s posture stiffened with determination, her eyes reflecting the flicker of the same resolve that hardened in his chest.
They had to face this—they both knew it. But how?
With a small nod, Ella offered Stone a silent agreement to face whatever came next. Somehow, they’d have to do it. What other choice did they have?
However, the first trial emerged from the shadows like a specter of unspoken truths and half-acknowledged fears. It took form as a dense, oppressive fog that seemed to whisper their deepest insecurities as it separated him from his mate.
Stone’s heart pounded as his vision was consumed and then he faced a scene he hadn’t dared revisit in his mind.
The forest around him blurred into a nightmarish tableau, focusing sharply on the moment he had first laid eyes on Ella.
The memory, raw and unfiltered, replayed with visceral clarity. He had arrived at the crash site, heart pounding with the urgency to find Doug—only to stumble upon a scene that would redefine his entire existence.
There she was.
Ella was struggling against the fading strength of Doug, whose life was slipping away even as he inadvertently passed on his legacy of power.
Stone had sensed the shift in authority—the alpha status transferring in a pulse that resonated through the air he breathed. Yet, his mind had been captured by something else entirely—the immediate and overwhelming connection he felt for a woman he’d never met before.
The fog around him thickened, echoing with the sounds of that afternoon—the distant screech of birds, the rustling of leaves, and Ella’s gasping breaths.
The creature’s voice echoed through his mind, “Confront your truth, Stone. Face the darkness within your desire. What is the secret here you’ve refused to face?”
Stone struggled internally, his instincts as a protector clashing with the raw, almost predatory desire that had surged through him the moment he had made contact with Ella. It had surprised the hell out of him and it had taken every ounce of strength then to pull back from it.
No, he wouldn’t give that desperate urge a voice—or even realization.
He couldn’t because he…
The waves of connection he felt that day slammed into him and he rocked back from it. The way his body had responded—every nerve ending on alert. The rush of blood to his dick and the way he had to do something—anything to ensure she hadn’t noticed.
He had wanted to claim Ella.
Then and there.
From the moment he had been in her vicinity, a desire so potent and immediate had consumed him, and… it had terrified him.
A part of him knew what it had meant. How could it not?
Yet, he had never confessed this—not to Ella, not even to himself fully.
He had always overshadowed it by the subsequent turmoil and responsibilities that had enveloped them both. There had been so many things that needed to come first.
Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was scare the hell out of her. She was human coming into a supernatural world, for fucksake.
Stone stood motionless, the memory of that fateful afternoon flooding through him like a relentless tide. He could almost smell the crisp air—could feel the tension and raw energy that had crackled around him, igniting something intense and primal.
The scene played out before his eyes, over and over and over like some sort of Groundhog Day from hell.
It was as vivid as if he were there again—not just a phantom in this spectral realm.
How could he stop this loop?
It was torture.
Every time around, his body reacted to her proximity. He didn’t know if it was his physical body or this astral version—but it felt real as fuck.
He slammed his eyes shut, willing the blood flow to back off.
Nothing worked.
Around him, the fog deepened, its tendrils curling into shapes that mirrored his turmoil.
The creature’s challenge echoed in his mind, a relentless whisper, urging him to confront the desires he’d buried deep beneath layers of duty and restraint.
“What is the secret you’ve refused to face?” the voice boomed again, more insistent this time.
Stone’s jaw clenched as he wrestled with the implications of that day.
The magnetic pull, the instant bond he felt with Ella was something far deeper than mere attraction or duty.
It was a call of mate to mate—a connection forged in the heat of crisis that had overwhelmed his senses, demanding recognition.
Fuck, it demanded submission.
And he had rejected it.
Oh, god.
He had rejected its calling.
He shook his head, trying to dispel the vision, but it clung to him stubbornly.
“No,” he muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible above the howl of the shadowy winds swirling around them.
As the winds howled, the fog continued to thicken, pressing against Stone with the weight of his unacknowledged truths.
He felt it in every fiber of his being—the undeniable force of what he had tried to bury for her.
His wolf.
The primal essence of who he was at his core had been stifled—silenced by him to lean into the comforting acquiescence of his human side—for Ella.
Stone had always known he was not just a man, but a creature of profound instinct and elemental needs.
He knew his strength.
His power.
And he relented it all.
Yet, here, in this trial, he was being forced to confront the fact that he had been denying the very core of his being for months.
He wasn’t just a man—one who could live with human rules and emotions. He was also a wolf—a wolf who was bound by supernatural rules about love and fate.
A wolf who had found his mate.
The creature’s voice pierced through the tumult, relentless and sharp as a knife’s edge. “Your denial—your refusal to embrace your true nature will be your undoing. How can you be worthy of the Breath of Selene, when you deny half of who you are?”
Stone staggered, his form nearly buckling under the intensity of the confrontation. It was like he had been slapped across the face.
How could he be trusted with the Breath of Selene?
Maybe he couldn’t—shouldn’t.
His breath came in ragged pulls, his heart pounding as if trying to break free from his chest. The mirage of the forest around him seemed to close in, the trees bending toward him, their branches like fingers accusing him of his denial.
“I was trying to be what she needed,” Stone gasped out, the admission tearing from him with the force of a confession long held back.
The raw, primal part of him—his wolf—had always been there, simmering just beneath the surface, and in that first overwhelming moment with Ella, it had surged forward, demanding to be recognized—to claim.
But he had silenced it, terrified of what it meant to let that part of him loose. Terrified of scaring Ella, of driving her away before they had a chance to understand what was happening between them.
The creature’s laughter was a cold, harsh sound that filled the space around him. “Fear of your true self is no virtue, Stone. To lead, to truly connect with your mate, you must be whole. You must accept all parts of your being. Only then can you face the challenges ahead.”
Stone clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.
The truth was a bitter pill, laced with the pain of self-recognition.
The creature was right—and he hated that fact.
He had been living half a life—giving Ella half a mate, protecting their pack with half his strength.
The air grew heavier, the weight of his denied nature bearing down on him as if to crush the very breath from his lungs. Each thought that raced through his mind was shadowed by a darker echo—a whisper of the primal instinct he’d tried to cage.
It had been necessary.
He swore it had been.
But what if…?
“I need to breathe,” Stone gasped, the words lost in the roar of the shadowy wind that seemed now not just around him but within him, swirling through his veins with icy fingers.
He stumbled forward, his knees weak, each step an effort against the thickening fog that wrapped around him like chains. The edges of his vision darkened, the world narrowing to this confrontation with himself—with the wolf that was part of his very essence.
In that suffocating darkness, Stone’s internal battle raged fiercer. The instinctual pull to embrace his full nature clashed violently with the man who had promised to protect—to restrain himself for the good of those he loved.
“How can I be what she needs if I let the wolf take hold?” he thought, despair threading through his resolve.
The creature’s voice, now almost a growl, filled the space. “By denying your nature, you deny her the mate she deserves. You weaken both yourself and your bond. Face what you are—embrace it, and rise stronger. Or sink into the abyss. Your choice.”
It was a challenge and a prophecy—the words striking at the very core of Stone’s fears and desires. He couldn’t deny the truth in them, the undeniable fact that his refusal to accept his dual nature might be the one thing holding them back.
“What if she can’t accept me for who I am?” he wondered aloud.
The question hung in the dense air of the astral plane and made him sick to his stomach.
The idea that Ella might be repulsed by his animalistic side ripped at his heart, cracking it open like nothing ever had before.
He couldn’t lose her.
He couldn’t…
The fog pulsed with his heartbeat, tightening as his doubts grew, yet loosening when he edged toward acceptance. This place—it was good at creating physical manifestations of his inner turmoil. It was a battlefield—not with weapons but with his own fragmented self.
Leaves whirled around him as the shadowy landscape of the astral plane twisted and turned with his indecision.
The voices of the forest grew louder—a cacophony of past and present merging into a relentless assault on his senses.
Stone continued to clench his fists, the muscles in his arms tensing as he fought against himself. The desire to let go, to embrace his wolf, battled against his need to protect Ella from the intensity he knew resided beneath the surface.
“I can’t let go. I can’t,” Stone whispered, his voice cracking as the words spiraled away into the wind.
Each breath became harder to draw, the air thick with the scent of pine and the cold bite of unresolved truths.
The creature’s eyes seemed to burn brighter, its gaze unyielding. “Denial is a cruel kind of torture. Don’t you agree?”
The words hammered at him with the force of a gale, challenging every barrier he had erected.
This wasn’t just about facing his wolf, he realized.
It was about trusting Ella to face it with him.
Could he risk the bond they had by revealing his secrets?
The fog darkened further, swirling into a vortex that seemed to draw him deeper into the mayhem of his fears. The edges of his vision blurred further, the world reduced to the immediate terror of the trial.
He could feel the darkness nibbling at his soul. The threat of being lost to this place was a tangible force pressing against his every thought.
Stone’s resolve wavered, the lines between man and beast— protector and destroyer—blurring in his mind.
“Is this what it means to be whole? To risk everything in the hope that she might understand? Might accept me?” he called out, his heart a drumbeat of dread and determination.
He had never done this before.
Never thought he’d have the chance.
He thought he’d be alone forever.
“Only one way to find out,” the creature responded with a sardonic chuckle that echoed against the confines of his mind.
But what if she couldn’t?
As the creature’s presence loomed larger, its figure almost blending into the encroaching darkness, Stone’s breaths became shallow gulps.
The realization that he might never escape this astral prison settled over him with a suffocating finality.