CHAPTER 194: ANOTHER REALM...

[ A place between spaces...utter Darkness]

Kieran opened his eyes to silence.

No...not silence. That hollow hum.

The one that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once, pressing on the bones behind his ears. Gone was the Great Woods, gone was Autumn... gone was the mist... where was he?!

His eyes adjusted to the kind of darkness that wasn’t just the absence of light... It was thick. Tangible. A darkness that could be felt.

Kieran looked around. It was some kind of a forest for sure...The trees there stood taller than they should, warped in strange bends, their bark slick as if sweating. Roots twisted together like the spines of some long dead beast and they pointed up, like mangroves...but it looked much nastier. The ground was damp beneath his knees too.

He knew this place.

He had seen it before...not in reality but through Autumn’s eyes, when she had woken up screaming from her dreams, wrapped in his arms. When she had refused to talk about it, only whimpering and curling closer to him like she wanted to disappear into his ribs.

Now he was there.Inside Autumn’s nightmare.

Kieran rose slowly, his breath shallow, his hands outstretched as he waded forward. Each step was carefully calculated, his boots sinking into the spongy earth.

Kieran realised this place was also covered in mist...

But the mist there wasn’t like the one in the Greater Woods. This one didn’t just cling. It listened to his every move... like it was a living thing...

And then he felt two light taps on his right shoulder.

"Hello, brother..."

The voice was so close to his ear that his breath fogged from the sudden chill.

A voice he was never meant to hear again.

"...Did you miss me?"

Kieran froze. His muscles locked in an instant, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling.

No.

It couldn’t be.

He killed that voice long ago. He buried it with his own hands.

His chest tightened painfully as he swung around... Nothing.

Only the leaning trees. The pulsing fog.

Then...somewhere just up ahead...faint...like a projector playing a movie... but very low quality... low resolution... he saw something...

"Kieran... open your eyes..." Autumn’s voice. Autumn’s face. Strained. Breaking.Tear streaked... panting...

"Kieran, can you hear me?" Her breath hitched audibly, a wet, choking gasp.

Through the haze of this shadowed place, he caught more glimpses of the real world...like fractured glass...of her form. Kneeling. Bent over him...Clutching at his still body in another place. The mist wound around her throat like a slow, deliberate hand... literally strangling her... but she was oblivious to her own pain... her eyes were fixed on him... her hand slapping his face... desperate to wake him...

" Autumn..." He stepped forward,hands stretched, as if to reach her...but her image wavered, dissolving.

"Psst! Psst!"

The mocking hiss came again, closer. "Such a pathetic little sexy thing you have got for a mate, big brother..."

Kieran’s jaw clenched so hard it ached.

"Look at her," the voice purred, heavy with venom. "Dying herself, but still clinging to your dead body. How romantic."

The air shifted.

He turned...and there he was.

Karl Blackmoon... the other Blackmoon heir... lost to darkness... and thought to be gone forever...But there he was... eyes breathing fire and loathe... blood red...

Or... what was left of him.

He was definitely not the boy Kieran had grown up with. Not the man he would have grown into if he got a fair chance at life...who had once laughed until tears came.

This was Karl...without any essence left of the real him. The one Kieran had lost to the darkness. The one he loved so much... and the one he had been forced to put down.

His brother’s face was a pale distortion, features melting in and out of shadow, gaze too intense...too dark to be anything living...

Kieran swallowed hard, his voice low. "Karl... if this is your doing, please...let her go. You want revenge, fine. Take it out on me."

Karl tilted his head, smiling slowly.

"She is pregnant," Kieran pressed, the words louder, urgent. "Don’t pull her into your twisted get back game...I am the one you want...you have me..."

But Karl’s smile widened, teeth flashing unnaturally white in the void.

"Pregnant? Oh, as if I didn’t know..." His tone dripped with mockery. "...I know everything about your little mate, big brother. Everything."

Kieran’s nostrils flared.

Karl took a single step forward, his boots soundless on the wet earth...as if floating...His voice dropped to a whisper, the kind you couldn’t help but hear no matter how far away you stood.

"I know how she wriggles when touched just right. I know how responsive she is. I know the little gasps... the whines...the moans..."

"KARL!"

The roar ripped from Kieran’s chest before he could stop it, echoing through the landscape like the crack of a whip.

Karl however didn’t flinch.

He smirked harder...satisfied...like it was just the reaction he was expecting.

"Oh... and your little pups kicking in her belly..." He lifted his hand as if feeling the air, fingers curling like he was plucking beads in an abacus, counting. "...One plus one plus one..."

His grin sharpened into something predatory. "Kill one, get two free. What a great offer, big brother. I am delighted."

"You evil scoundrel..." Kieran’s roar erupted....it was nothing but gravel and venom now.

Karl’s head lowered slightly, his blood red eyes never leaving Kieran’s.

Kieran moved before thinking...too instinctive...just like Karl wanted...a lunge of pure rage. The darkness swallowed the space between them in a single heartbeat.

The blow cracked like a thunderclap.

Kieran’s shoulder slammed into Karl’s chest, driving him back into a tree so hard the warped trunk split down the middle. Splinters rained over them...and the sound echoed all around like bones breaking.

But Karl laughed through it all... " Alright! Alright!" He rubbed his hands together. " You wanna play, big brother? It’s been ages since we fought like this... Alright then... game on!!! "