CHAPTER 118: CHAPTER 18: DARK ECLIPSE

ARIA POV

We ran toward the village as fast as we could. What I saw there made me sick. Shadow creatures were everywhere, chasing frightened pack members. But these weren’t the same shadow creatures we’d fought before. These were bigger. Stronger. And they moved like they knew exactly what they were doing.

"Help!" A little girl’s voice called out from behind a burning house.

I raced toward her, but a massive shadow creature stepped in my way. It was twice as tall as me, with claws like knives and teeth that glowed red.

I raised my hand to use my Moon Alpha power, but nothing happened. The silver light that always came when I called for it was gone.

"What?" I tried again, fear rising in my chest. Still nothing.

The shadow thing smiled, showing those horrible red teeth. "No moon magic today, little Alpha," it said in a voice like broken glass. "Haven’t you looked up at the sky?"

I glanced up and gasped. The sun was there, but something was wrong with it. A dark shadow was slowly moving across its face. A solar eclipse.

"The eclipse blocks moon power," the creature laughed. "Your precious Moon Goddess can’t help you now."

Without my powers, I was just a normal werewolf. I shifted into my wolf form and lunged at the thing, but it swatted me away like I was a fly. I hit the ground hard, pain shooting through my ribs.

"Aria!" Zara ran toward me, but three more shadow things surrounded her.

Through our network, I could hear the other Moon Alphas crying out in fear. None of them could use their skills either. We were all helpless.

"This is impossible," I gasped, trying to get up. "Solar eclipses don’t affect moon magic."

"They do when we make them," another person said.

I turned to see a figure walking out of the darkness. It looked like a person, but wrong somehow. Its skin was gray, its eyes were black holes, and when it moved, reality seemed to bend around it.

"I am Malakar," it said. "First of the Shadow Lords, enemy of your kind since the beginning of time."

"I’ve never heard of Shadow Lords," I said, backing away slowly.

"Of course not," Malakar smiled, and the look was terrifying. "We’ve been sleeping for a thousand years, waiting for the right moment to wake up. Your little network gave us exactly what we needed."

"What do you mean?"

"Every time you Moon Alphas connect your power, you create ripples in the magical world," Malakar explained. "Those waves woke us up. And now we’re going to finish what we started long ago."

"Which is what?"

"The complete destruction of werewolves."

More Shadow Lords emerged from different directions. I counted at least twenty of them, each one projecting power that made the air itself feel heavy.

"Why?" I asked. "What did we ever do to you?"

"You exist," Malakar said simply. "Your kind was never meant to be created. You’re mistakes that need to be fixed."

"We’re not mistakes!" I shouted, anger giving me strength. "We protect people! We help them!"

"You’re abominations," another Shadow Lord said. "Half person, half beast. You don’t belong in either world."

Through the network, I felt one of the Moon Alphas die. Her light just... went out. Then another. And another.

"Stop it!" I screamed. "Leave them alone!"

"We’re not just killing the Moon Alphas," Malakar said lightly. "We’re killing every monster we can find. Men, women, children. It doesn’t matter. You all have to go."

Terror filled my heart. Not just for me, but for every monster in the world. For Kael, Jaxon, and Lucien back at home. For little children like the girl who’d called for help.

"I won’t let you," I said, even though I had no idea how to stop them without my skills.

"You can’t stop us," Malakar laughed. "Look around. Your people are dying. Your skills are gone. Your precious Moon Goddess has abandoned you."

But as he spoke, I noticed something. The eclipse was moving slowly across the sun, but it wasn’t complete yet. There was still a thin piece of sunlight showing.

"The eclipse isn’t total," I realized out loud.

"Not yet," Malakar agreed. "But in ten minutes, it will be. And when the sun is fully blocked, we’ll have enough power to kill every werewolf on Earth at the same time."

My mind raced. Ten minutes. That’s all the time I had to figure out how to save my entire species.

Through the network, I reached out to the remaining Moon Alphas. "Can anyone hear me?"

"Barely," came Raven’s weak voice. "My area is overrun. I don’t think I can hold out much longer."

"The eclipse is the key," I said. "They’re using it to block our power, but it won’t last forever."

"But we’ll all be dead before it ends," another Moon Alpha answered.

"Not if we can survive long enough," I said. An thought was forming in my mind. A crazy, possibly impossible idea.

"What are you thinking?" Zara asked through the network. She was still fighting three shadow things, but barely holding on.

"The eclipse is moving," I said. "It’s not the same everywhere at once. Some places still have partial sunlight."

"So?"

"So if Moon Alphas in those places can still use some power, maybe they can help the rest of us."

I felt a spark of hope from the network as the others understood.

"It’s worth trying," Raven said.

But before we could do anything, Malakar raised his hand. "Enough talking," he said. "Time to end this."

Dark energy started building around all the Shadow Lords. I could feel it pushing down on me like a heavy blanket.

Then, through the network, I felt something that made my heart stop.

An attack on my home land.

Not just ghost creatures this time. Something much worse. I could sense Kael, Jaxon, and Lucien fighting hard against enemies they couldn’t even see clearly.

"No," I whispered.

"Yes," Malakar smiled. "We saved the best for last. Your precious twins are about to die, and there’s nothing you can do to help them."

The eclipse moved another inch across the sun. My powers sparked for just a second, then went out again.

But in that brief moment, I’d felt something through the network that changed everything.

The attack on my home wasn’t random. It was a trap. And I was the real target they wanted.

"They’re using my family as bait," I realized with fear.

"Very good," Malakar said. "Come home and surrender yourself, and we might let them live a few minutes longer."

Around me, dark creatures closed in from all sides. The eclipse was almost complete. And somewhere far away, the three people I loved most in the world were fighting for their lives.

I had to choose: save myself and the other Moon Alphas, or rush home to save my family and walk right into the trap.

But as I stood there, circled by enemies and cut off from my power, I felt something new stirring inside me. Something that had nothing to do with the moon.

Something much older and much more dangerous.

The eclipse hit totality, and the world went dark.