CHAPTER 116: CALEB’S RESEARCH

Caleb POV

When I picked up the old book, it blew up in my hands, sending pages flying through the secret library like angry birds. Just seconds before, I was standing there when words written in silver ink started to glow and burn the air. I jumped backwards.

"What the hell?" I gasped as I saw a warning written in a language I had never seen before in floating letters.

As I picked up the scattered pages, my hands were shaking. The third book today that didn’t let me read about Null Bearers without getting angry. It’s possible that something or someone didn’t want this information to get out.

Still, I had to keep going. Everyone else was fighting or making deals, but I was researching, which is what I did best. And what I found scared me more than any claw or sword.

The burned pages crumbled in my fingers, but I could still make out fragments of writing. "...born between worlds..." and "...neither fully connected nor completely separate..." and most importantly, "...the key to crossing all boundaries..."

My phone buzzed with a text from Aiden: "Emergency meeting canceled. Strange magical interference in the caves. Where are you?"

I typed back quickly: "Library. Found something important. Stay safe."

What I didn’t tell him was that I’d been trapped in this hidden part of the pack’s archive room for the past three hours. The door had sealed itself when I’d spoken the words "Null Bearer" out loud while reading. Magic doors were tricky that way.

I grabbed another book from the restricted shelf, this one bound in what looked like human skin. Gross, but if it had answers about what was happening to Lily, I’d read anything.

The moment I opened it, pain shot through my head like someone was driving nails into my brain. Images flashed behind my eyes - not my memories, but someone else’s.

A woman with silver hair stands in a circle of robed figures. Her belly was huge with pregnancy, and her eyes were completely white.

"The child will be born between the veil," one of the figures said. "Neither fully in our world nor fully in theirs."

"She’ll be powerful beyond measure," another added. "But also vulnerable. The Void King will hunt her above all others."

"Then we hide her," the silver-haired woman answered. "We make sure she never knows what she is until the time is right."

The vision ended abruptly, leaving me gasping on the floor. That woman had looked exactly like Lily, but older. Much older.

I flipped through the book desperately, looking for more information. Most of the pages were written in that strange glowing language, but some had been turned into English.

"A Null Bearer is created when a child is conceived during a crossing between worlds," I read aloud. "The mother must be in both realities at the moment of conception, creating offspring that exists partially in each."

My blood went cold. Lily’s mother had disappeared when she was just a baby. Everyone assumed she’d been killed by rogues, but what if something else had happened? What if she’d been taken to another world?

The book continued: "Null Bearers appear normal until their eighteenth birthday, when their true nature begins to manifest. They can walk between realities, see through illusions that fool others, and most importantly, they cannot be controlled by entities from other dimensions."

That explained so much. Why Lily had sensed the danger before anyone else during the rogue attack. Why her wolf form was faster and more agile than it should be. Why the Void King’s magic hadn’t been able to touch her during previous encounters.

She wasn’t just special because of some mate bond or pack politics. She was literally built to fight creatures like the Void King.

But the next paragraph made my heart stop.

"The birth of a Null Bearer’s first child creates a dangerous window between worlds. If the child is born during a Void incursion, the barriers between realities may collapse entirely. The Null Bearer and her offspring become targets for entities seeking to cross over permanently."

Lily was pregnant. The Void King was trying to break through. And according to this book, her baby’s birth might be exactly what the creature needed to enter our world completely.

I had to warn everyone immediately.

I tried the door again, pushing and pulling and even trying to break it down with my shoulder. Nothing worked. The magical seal was too strong.

That’s when I noticed something that made my skin crawl. There were scratch marks on the inside of the door. Deep gouges that looked like they’d been made by desperate fingernails. Someone else had been trapped in here before me.

I grabbed my phone to call for help, but there was no signal. The magical interference Aiden had mentioned was getting stronger.

Going back to the books, I searched frantically for anything about how to protect a Null Bearer during childbirth. Most of the information was either burned away or written in that impossible glowing language, but I found one passage that was readable.

"Only another Null Bearer can safely deliver a Null Bearer’s child. The midwife must share the same split existence between worlds to maintain the barriers during birth."

But that was impossible. According to everything I’d read, Null Bearers were incredibly rare. There might be only one or two born every few centuries. What were the chances that there was another one alive right now?

Unless...

I grabbed the oldest book on the shelf, one that looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades. The cover was so worn I could barely make out the title: "The Hidden Bloodlines of Silver Peak Pack."

My hands trembled as I opened it. If my suspicions were right, this book would contain family histories going back hundreds of years.

I flipped to the section about pack founders and began reading names and dates. Most of the entries were normal - births, deaths, matings, nothing unusual.

But then I found an entry that made everything click into place. " Elder Iris Morrison, born 1953. Mother: Unknown. Father: Marcus Morrison (Beta). Notable: Child showed unusual abilities from birth. Could sense danger before others and seemed to exist partially outside normal pack bonds. Suspected Null Bearer, but records sealed by Alpha order."

Elder Iris. The woman who’d been helping Lily understand her role in the pack. The woman who always seemed to know things before anyone else did.

She wasn’t just a wise old omega. She was like Lily - a Null Bearer who’d been hiding her true nature for seventy years.

I had to get out of this room and find her immediately. She was the only one who could safely deliver Lily’s baby.

But as I stood to try the door again, the temperature dropped twenty degrees in seconds. Frost formed on the books around me, and my breath came out in white puffs.

"Found something interesting, young wolf?"

I spun around to see a figure materializing from the shadows between the bookshelves. It looked like Elder Iris, but her eyes were solid black and her smile showed teeth that were too sharp.

"You’ve been very helpful," she continued in a voice like breaking glass. "Leading us right to the information we needed. The Void King is most grateful."

The books around me began burning with cold fire, destroying evidence of everything I’d discovered. But worse than that was the realization hitting me like a physical blow.

Elder Iris - the woman we’d all trusted, the woman Lily depended on - was working for the enemy.

And I was trapped in a room with her, with no way to warn anyone that our most trusted advisor was a traitor.