A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 302: Awakening

The cavern throbbed with golden light as Kieran heaved heavy sighs...but the evil laughter stopped.

Their mother’s eyes narrowed...

calculating, amused...

before she turned her attention back to Karl.

Her hand hovered above him again

like a conductor preparing the final note.

Karl’s breath hitched in terror...and instead of showing any attempt or sign of resistance... he closed his eyes...

Kieran moved instantly...like a flash of golden ,

a shield cutting through the shadows...and his arm slammed between his mother and brother.

"DON’T TOUCH HIM AGAIN!I MEAN IT, WOMAN...DON’T PUSH MY LIMITS ANYMORE..."

He snarled, light rippling across his skin like living fire.

Her head fell back as she laughed out loud. "That’s the plan, Kieran... That’s the plan...All this...just to push your limits, my boy... "

But then suddenly something happened.

Karl flinched.

Not from her. She hadn’t done anything yet.

It was from him. Kieran’s glow was doing something to him.

His back arched... his ribs hollowing as if something inside him was collapsing.

Then he whispered...

Soft. Small. Broken.

"Don’t save me, Kieran...you can’t..."

Kieran’s head jerked back towards him, eyes widening.

Karl curled inward, knees to his chest, hands gripping his own arms as if trying to hold himself together.

"I don’t deserve it...besides it’s useless...my seconds are numbered..."

His voice shook.

Shook like a child confessing his guilt.

"...you shouldn’t waste your strength...you will need it..."

Slowly...like time itself hesitated...black dust began to rise from his skin.

At first a trickle.

Then a thin smoke.

Then...

Pieces of him

lifting

floating

disintegrating.

"Karl...?"

Kieran breathed, reaching out.He looked at his brother, unsure where to touch him... how to not cause him pain. In his haste he pulled out the Guardian’s axe from his back with a single pull.

Karl smiled. Their mother gasped, then smirked like a mad scientist at some intriguing discovery.

Kieran’s hands hovered all around his body. "Karl... what do I do... how can I make this stop?" Kieran looked genuinely helpless.

Karl’s face tightened with shame.

He shook his head violently. "No...don’t touch...don’t touch at all..."

But Kieran grabbed him anyway.

Only to feel flesh slipping like sand between his fingers.

"NO...KARL NO...NO..."

Kieran’s voice cracked open.

He clutched harder, arms trembling, golden veins brightening as he tried to anchor Karl’s fading form... But perhaps it did quite the opposite than help... in one way... in another, maybe it relieved him. ..

The air shook and Karl’s spine bent back as if something...someone...was peeling him away from existence.

Their mother sighed pleasantly.

"Finally. He is coming undone.Done for good...but what a waste...he wasn’t simply built the same like you Kiera...took after your father...weakling...."

Kieran roared, golden flames bursting from him in waves. "SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH WOMAN! "

But Karl only shook his head, sobbing through a dissolving mouth.

"Don’t... waste yourself... brother...don’t waste your energy...I know you too borrowed from this bitch to save your family...she is a master in trickery..."

Autumn’s scream ripped through the chamber.

"KIERAN...STOP IT! STOP IT...YOU WILL LOSE YOURSELF TOO...I CAN SEE YOUR POWER DWINDLING...PLEASE STOP...!" After a momentary pause, as if to gauge her selfishness she added. " We have to get Freya out of here too... I need you, Kieran. I can’t do it alone."

Kieran looked at her...and in that one second of looking away...

Karl’s body slipped through his grasp.

Like smoke sliding between desperate fingers.

Kieran gasped, reaching back...but his hand closed on nothing.

NOTHING.

The golden aura around him flickered violently...

snapping

cracking

stuttering

as if his heart itself had fractured.

"Karl!"

Kieran’s voice shattered.

Karl’s face...fading to ash...lifted just enough to look at him...

His eyes were wet.

Human like almost.

Haunted.

So terribly wanting.

"I wanted to be good..."

His voice was barely a breath.

"...just once..."

The last of him crumbled upward, merging with the shadows.

Karl smiled...

small, trembling...

as he vanished like dust in a dying sunbeam.

"...brother..."

"...just once..."

And then he was gone.

Kieran collapsed to his knees.

For a few moments he just sat there... burning...bleeding power...roaring in silence...and the next, he was cradling Karl’s dissolving essence, his hands shaking violently as dying golden sparks slipped through his fingers like sand.

"Karl...brother...you did well...not bad...not bad at all..."

His voice cracked like breaking glass.And he sobbed. The mighty Alpha... sobbed.

Karl’s remaining ember flickered once.

Twice.

Then dimmed.

A heavy gloom of a darker shade swallowed the surrounding.

Kieran’s breath hitched.

His throat closed.

His body folded protectively over the fading ash as if he could shield it with his overwhelming grief and guilt alone.

Behind him, their mother’s jagged unhinged laughter filled the space... it wouldn’t let him grieve in peace...

"Oh, look at you..." she cooed, stepping closer, her bare feet dragging across the stone like bone against bone.

"My precious little boy... breaking...so unfit for someone like you...grief is for the weaklings...you were meant to rule the world...weaklings disappear like stars come morning..."

Her fingers...long, too thin, too pale...slid along the empty air where Karl’s soul had been moments before.

She sighed with mock sorrow.

"Such fragile boys."

Kieran trembled.

Autumn took a step forward, but the air around Kieran twisted, warping with murderous energy.

"Kieran..." she whispered.

He didn’t hear her.

Or maybe he did, but grief had already drowned everything else.

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding as his power crawled over his skin in molten gold.

The mother tilted her head, watching him with delighted hunger.

Then, slowly, intentionally...

She stepped on the last glowing ashy fleck of Karl’s ember.

Crushing it.

Kieran’s vision went white.

Autumn screamed, "WOMAN!"

But it was too late.

The moment her foot landed, her smile widened.

"Does that hurt you, my son?"

Kieran exploded upward...pure rage, pure agony...his aura blasting outward in a shockwave that ripped cracks across the chamber walls.

He lunged.

She vanished.

Reappeared behind him.

Nails raked across his back, slicing through skin and soul.

She was trying to provoke him...pull the monster out...destroy what remained of him.

And it worked... To some extent...

He spun, golden power spiraling violently, slamming his arm into her ribs. Bones shattered.

She staggered... then froze.

Blinking.

Astonished.

A wicked grin spread across her face.

"Oh, finally."

And she laughed.

Not sane at all.

A sound like knives dragged over a coffin lid.

Kieran’s body heaved with fury, but before he could strike again...

Her laughter cut off mid echo.

Her smile twitched.

Her limbs jerked.

Then...CRACK.

Her spine arched backward at an impossible angle.

The air went still.

Her shadow peeled away from her feet like black oil, rising, writhing, stretching taller and taller behind her.

The chamber plunged into abyssal darkness.

Slow motion.

Breathless.

Soundless.

"You are only seeing my skin," she whispered, voice layered...echoed...too old..malicious.

"Let me show you my truth."

Her flesh split like dissolving smoke.

Her form unfurled upward...towering, grotesque, yet magnificent somehow.

A multi eyed, shadow woven empress of despair.

Eyes blinking open across her body...hundreds...each dripping void.

Her mouth expanded, fracturing into too many spirals, too many teeth.

Her presence pressed against their skulls, their bones, their memories.

Autumn stumbled back, choking on pure terror as she clutched Feeya closer to herself.

Only Kieran’s golden aura kept her from swallowing them whole.

The monstrous empress hissed, every eye widening on Kieran.

"Come, little sun," she purred.

"Burn for me."

Kieran stepped forward, power crackling off him like molten lightning...unstable, furious, heartbroken.

He glanced at Autumn.

His voice was a quiet, broken whisper:

"If I lose myself... don’t come near me."

Autumn’s throat closed.

"WHAT?!Kieran..."

He didn’t turn.

He stepped closer to the curse of a mother, golden light barely holding the darkness back...

Golden cracks crept along his skin

...like something inside him was trying to break free...like his body was too small for the storm he was holding back.

Autumn’s breath trembled.

He didn’t look back.

Not once.

The empress of despair tilted her many heads...every eye blinking at a different rhythm.

"Ohhh, that grief..."

Her voice slithered around him like smoke.

"So sweet. So ripe. So ready for harvest."

"Say another word," Kieran growled, "and I will tear every one of your eyes out."

Her laughter rippled through the cavern, shaking dust loose from the ceiling.

"So feral. Just like your mother..."

Autumn felt the air drop ten degrees.

His hands curled into fists...

fists shaking

fists glowing

fists ready to end a universe.

The chamber shrieked with a sound that wasn’t sound at all... like claws dragged across fate.

Kieran didn’t breathe.

Autumn did.

Barely.

"Kieran, STOP...DON’T LISTEN TO HER...!"

But he stepped closer.

Closer.

Golden light roared up his spine, burning hotter than fury...

hotter than grief...

hotter than anything he had ever allowed himself to feel.

Even the Empress recoiled.

Just an inch.

But it was enough.

Kieran’s eyes were no longer eyes.

They were molten suns.

"Tell me more of your sweet nothings woman," he said, voice trembling,

"so I know how to kill you."

The Empress’s mouths curled.

"Oh, my sweet boy..."

She raised a hand.

A dozen hands.

A thousand shadows rose behind her like blades.

"Then burn for me."

She slammed her hand down.

The cavern detonated into darkness.

Autumn screamed...

"KIERAN!!"

She threw herself back, shielding Freya as a tidal wave of shadows rushed toward them.

Kieran lifted his arm...

A blinding, golden column erupted from him, splitting the darkness like thunder tearing the sky.

Light collided with shadow.

Shadow collided with light.

The explosion was instant...

A shockwave blasted everyone off their feet.

Autumn skidded across the floor, clutching Freya to her chest, tears streaking down her cheeks.

"KIERAN...LISTEN TO ME...WE NEED TO GET OUT...!!"

But all she could see was..

Golden light.

Black void.

And Kieran’s silhouette...barely standing.

His knees shook.

His chest heaved.

His eyes blazed, but flickered.

And then...

Something inside him broke.

CRACK.

A sound like a soul splitting.

The golden aura around Kieran surged...

Then reversed... .

Like something was pulling it inward.

His whole body jerked...

"KIERAN?!" Autumn cried.

But he didn’t hear anything.

His power was being sucked back into something behind him.

Something neither Autumn nor the Empress had noticed.

A rift within.

Tiny at first.

Then growing.

Growing too fast.

A tear in reality...

black, swirling, hungry...

...pulling at Kieran’s golden essence.

His eyes widened in horror.

He dug his claws into the ground, anchoring himself.

The Empress leaned forward, dozens of eyes widening in fascination.

"Oh," she whispered,

"so that is waking up."

Kieran’s body jerked again as energy ripped from him.

Autumn choked.

"Kieran...WHAT IS THAT?!"

He turned his head toward her...

Barely.

Just barely.

And whispered,

"My curse..."

Then the rift roared...

and dragged him backward.

The Empress lunged.

Autumn screamed.

Kieran reached out...

Gold cracking off his skin...

Trying to grab onto anything...

Anyone...

As the rift swallowed the light around him.

And then...

it closed.

With him inside.

The cavern fell silent.

Autumn collapsed forward, trembling.

The Empress straightened slowly...

smiling with all her mouths.

"Well," she whispered, delighted,

"that is going to be fun..."