CHAPTER SIX

Jaydon’s POV

The pain… It was unlike anything I had ever felt in my lifetime as a human and a wolf. The agony… It tore through me, consuming every thought process, every breath and reason I had left. The only singular thought that relived through and existed in my brain at the moment was the overwhelming torment that burned through my body with every beat in my heart.

I could feel the life draining out of me bit by bit. I could feel every drop of blood that had marked its place into the earth take another piece of my soul away from me.

The ground beneath me was stone cold, and was damp with the blood I unconsciously spilled. My blood. It pooled around me, soaking into the dirt, the leaves, the very fabric of the forest. My forest. My home. My pack. And I was failing them.

Sebastian's teeth had ripped and torn through my every flesh and muscle, tearing my throat open in a way that I felt no amount of healing could fix it.

I could feel what’s left of my strength slip away from me, my body growing weaker with each passing second. I had fought so hard, I really did. I tried so desperately to protect them, to be the Alpha they needed. But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.

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Lying there struggling to catch breath that seemed so impossible now, my brain started wandering. Was it the blood loss, or just my mind giving me a way to escape from what could happen next? But I felt as though I was pulling out of the pain, away from now. My thoughts slipped deeper into the corridors of my past, to a time when life was at its most simple. Before I was no longer human.

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It was like watching that happen all over again. Feeling the sun soaking through my skin, heating me as I walked down the streets of this little town that always had been home. The streets were filled with the sound of laughter, and carried through them was the scent of baking baguettes from a bakery at the end of our road. A perfect day, the kind of days that have become so scarce for us.

I was a kid, and I was just living, worrying most about whether or not we would get to the auto shop in time for my shift. I lived an uncomplicated life, and that was the way I liked it. I belonged, I had a career, plans for the future that were created meticulously. I was going to inherit the shop one day, and then I would eventually settle down, maybe start a family. It was a good life. A safe life.

And then everything changed.

I recalled feeling it for the first time—that inexplicable urge, drawing me into the trees come full moon. Somehow, something ancient and strong within me I could not deny was calling. That night years ago when I slipped into the woods, went completely unaware that it would be the last time I could feel normal ever like a human.

The agonizing suffering of that transformation was my flesh bending and breaking, creating shapes completely illogical to men or sense. The pain was unbearable, to be sure; but even that seemed tame compared with the terror of losing control and becoming... else. Then, when it was done and I had my head back on straight again, everything changed—hopefully forever. I was something new. Something wild. Something dangerous. It was the moment my old life slipped away only to be replaced by a fate handed out that I never knew how wrong of an answer it was until now.

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As the memory faded, I felt a sharp pang of loss. I had never truly let myself mourn that life, never let myself grieve for the man I had been before the transformation. I had been so focused on surviving, on learning what it meant to be a werewolf, to be the Alpha, that I had pushed all of those feelings aside, buried them deep down where they couldn’t touch me.

However, they came flooding back now as I lay dying in my bed, and the emotions crashed over me. I had lost so much. I sacrificed everything I had—my family, friends, and future—for this. Only this time, I did not stay in that bed for a fight of my own choosing, for the destiny outta nowhere thrust upon me. And then, at the end of the day, what did I have to wear? A broken body, a pack without an alpha, defenseless and now faced with no leader soon to come, and the end of what should have been a beginning.

I always thought I would have more time. It was time to step up and be the Alpha, for me to show I could lead, how I would protect those that relied on us. It was time to work out who I now was in this strange and scary new world. Time had run out, and I was not prepared.

Tears came hot behind my eyes, but they would not be stopped now. They spilled over, mingling with the blood on my face as it finally dawned upon me what was really happening. I was going to die here in the dark and alone with nothing I could do but sit.

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I thought of Alex, of Maya, of Sky—my pack, my family. I had promised them that I would protect them, that I would lead them through the darkness. But now, I was leaving them behind.

I had let them down, just as I did myself. Next thing you know, the darkness is broken by faraway laughter.

“Jaydon… Jaydon, hold on. We’re coming.”

It was Alex. His voice was desperate, scared. He called out for me, a shout against the pitch black all around him in desperate hope that he might locate me before it was too late.

But it was already too late. I knew that. My body was trying to die, every forced step a pulsing thunderstorm in my eardrums; all light and noise funneled into a pinprick of focus at the end. All he could think about was how the world is losing its grip on him, and what a shame that all probably meant.

Yet, despite all that I continued to want him, to call out with an angry voice and refer back: Yes, there can be peace… but you will take me from my road car the way we were shown. I wish to tell him to look after his pack and guard them ready for my position. But the words wouldn’t come. It felt like my throat was ripped clean out of me, and all that came forth now sounded pathetic.

My vision blurred, and the light seemed to flicker on and off in my eyes, dimming further so I knew I was running out of time. The sounds of the forest and Alex kept me tethered to this side. But it was no use. It was too much, much too dark. My body froze, and the pain moved far away. My brain-body connection delayed as my mind faded with a blankness. This was it. The end. The last few minutes of a life too short-lived.

And with my final breath, as the world began to fade from view for one last time, I lamented all that would be left unsaid and lost in any moment but this.

It was the last act of defiance, refusing to be sucked out and lost into some kind of cosmic void. I had no idea how long I lay there—between consciousness and death, hanging on by a thread. Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours. It was as if time meant nothing, and I was floating—adrift in a sea of darkness, with no bottom to hold me up, no light shedding sight.

But in that haze, I felt something—a comfort, an essence. At first, it was faint, a flicker of sensation, but then it became more pronounced and began nagging at me persistently until I could no longer ignore it. It was kind of like when you are about to fall off a cliff and something grabs hold of what little part there is that has managed not to let go, just softly holding on as though it were afraid gently grasping would tear the last thread.

I could feel it, stirring within me something that was lower, more base and older than anything else in my new body. The bond. ​It was not simply a relationship between me and the pack—it was more than that. Something deeper. Something more than the physical, beyond touch. Like it was all that we were, everything about us, left in the firmament, buzzing and cursing me to hold on, to battle, to live.

I held on to the stillness, that light, for dear life. It was all I had left, the only thing preventing me from falling completely away. Little by little and then more all of a sudden, it started to reel me back in from the brink of darkness into light. I felt pain first, that after three days, letting me sink into numbness, had finally sliced through the disguise and laid my body open. I actually welcomed it, embraced it even, since that meant I was still breathing.

My heart was beating, but faint and irregular, fighting to keep going. Drawing in air took superhuman effort, and when my lungs did finally inflate, it burned. But I was breathing. I was alive.

As I opened my eyes, I blinked a few times because it was difficult; they were so heavy from blood and dirt. I struggled to even move, all of my muscles seizing in pain. I moved, barely enough that I could feel the floor beneath me and slide my chill skin across to take on a sense of normality.

I was still here. Still in the forest. Still alive.

But for how much longer? My wounds were grievous, my strength almost completely gone. I was hanging on by a thread, and it wouldn’t take much to sever it.

I heard footsteps then, faint and distant, but growing closer. A voice, calling out my name, full of panic and fear. Alex.

I wanted to call his name, let him hear that I was still alive but instead my voice betrayed me; nothing comes out of my ravaged throat. It was the best I could do, just lying there waiting for him to find me before it would be too late.

Darkness was starting to take hold again, and the light-in-sight slipping away. This time though, I resisted; trying with what little mental strength that was left to hold onto consciousness.

And then, as though through a bit of fog; there he was—Alex…with total despair playing across his face where once laughter would be and he crouched next to me with shaking hands outstretched toward my body.

“Jaydon,” he kept his voice quiet with cracks. “Oh God, Jaydon…”

I wanted to have him that it was alright, I would still show up every day and keep fighting. Only a feeble noise, barely even above a whisper.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked down at me, a look of hope and despair colliding on his face. His voice was full of emotion, “we are going to get you out of here. We’re going to get you help. Just hold on, okay? Just hold on.”

I saw fear in his eyes, uncertainty. He must have known as I did that it was already over. That nothing could be done. Still, he could not say it. I could not acknowledge that he had lost me.

And I could not allow him to do it alone.

I wanted to speak, say it was ok and I was not scared. But the words wouldn’t come. As the tears worsened, all I could do was contort my arm and reach out to touch his hand.

He held my hand harder than ever before; the darkness was too close. “Jaydon, I am here” he spoke as his voice distorted. “I’m right here. You’re not alone.”

They slid down my face, with the blood and grime. I was never afraid to die, the fear I had is in what I might leave behind. My pack, my family. Everything I would never have the chance to say, everything I would never get a change to do.

But as I bled out, suspended between existence and oblivion… it dawned upon me. I was actually not just leaving them behind, but a piece of me as well. The bond, the tie which we had that was such strong couldn't be ended not even in death. It would survive, within themselves, in the pack and with the legacies we built together.

And that gave me peace. But it helped me loosen my grip.

That was the moment when I could hear it—darkness That captured me, The light sliding out of my sight. But this time, I didn’t resist. I accepted it, hugged it in, because I never left. I would forever belong to them as they did in me.

And with that one thought, I released it.

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The last thing I felt was Alex’s hand in mine, warm and steady, grounding me in the here and now. The last thing I heard was his voice, full of pain, love, and sorrow, fading away. It was all my imagination. The hope of some life left in me. It felt real, but it was all in my head, my mind playing cruel tricks on me even till the end.

“Goodbye, Jaydon.”

And then, there was nothing.