THE ALPHA WHO HATED ME - Chapter 40: Chapter 40

**Evangeline's POV**
The cut on my palm burns as I press it against the oak tree. Blood drips between my fingers, mixing with the rough bark. I'm supposed to be practicing grounding techniques, but something else is happening. Something Maeve didn't teach me.
Green light flows from my hand into the tree. The dying leaves above my head suddenly burst with color, autumn brown shifting to summer green. The bark under my palm feels warm, alive, grateful.
I yank my hand back like I've been burned. The light fades, but the tree remains changed. Young. Renewed.
Blood drips from my nose, warm and metallic. The ground beneath my feet trembles for just a moment, like the earth itself is responding to what I've done.
"What did I just do?" I whisper to the empty forest.
My wolf stirs, but her voice doesn't sound like mine anymore. It sounds older. Deeper. Like she's speaking from the bottom of a well that's been dry for centuries.
*You remembered,* she says simply.
"Remembered what?"
*Who you are. Who we were before the world forgot us.*
The words send shivers down my spine. Before the world forgot us? What does that mean?
I wipe the blood from my nose with the back of my hand, staring at the red smear on my skin. This isn't normal. This isn't what happens when wolves heal. This is something else entirely.
I stumble backward, my heart hammering against my ribs. The moonstone dust Maeve gave me sits heavy in my pocket, but I don't reach for it. Part of me wants to understand what's happening, even if it scares me.
The forest around me feels different now. More alive. Like every leaf and branch is humming with energy I can suddenly sense. Birds call to each other in languages I shouldn't understand, but somehow I do.
*Danger coming from the south,* says a crow overhead.
*New scents by the old den,* warns a fox in the underbrush.
*The young one awakens,* whispers the wind through the trees.
I press my hands against my ears, trying to block out the voices. But they're not coming through my ears. They're coming through something deeper. Something that connects me to every living thing in this forest.
"Stop," I beg. "Please stop."
The voices quiet, but I can still feel them there. Waiting. Watching.
My wolf paces closer to the surface of my consciousness, and I realize she's not just bigger than she was before. She's different. Ancient. Like she's been sleeping for a thousand years and finally woke up.
*You're frightened,* she observes.
"Of course I'm frightened. I just made a dead tree come back to life."
*Death is just another form of sleep. And sleep can be broken.*
The casual way she says it makes my stomach turn. Like bringing things back from the dead is normal. Like I should know this already.
"I don't understand any of this."
*You will. When you're ready.*
"Ready for what?"
*The last time our bloodline awakened, the world burned.*
Her words hit me like ice water. The world burned. Because of someone like me.
"What do you mean?"
But she doesn't answer. Instead, she shows me something. A vision that unfolds behind my closed eyelids like a movie playing in reverse.
I see myself, but not myself. A woman who looks like me but older, wearing clothes from another time. She stands in a circle of stone, much like the grove where Maeve took me, but different. More ancient. More powerful.
The sky cracks like glass above her. Her wolf burns with silver fire. A sword of roots and bone hangs in her hand, pulsing with the same green light that flowed from my fingertips.
She raises her hands, and light pours from her fingertips. Not just healing light, but something that makes the very air shimmer. Around her, people kneel. Not in worship, but in reverence. In recognition.
They're calling her something. A name I can't quite hear.
Then the vision shifts. I see fire. Death. People running and screaming. The woman who looks like me is fighting something dark, something that writhes and claws and hates with a fury that makes my soul ache.
She's losing.
The sky bleeds red. The earth splits open. And through it all, she keeps fighting, even as the darkness consumes everything around her.
She's losing.
The vision ends abruptly, leaving me gasping on the forest floor. My wolf retreats deeper into my mind, suddenly quiet.
"What was that?" I demand. "Who was she?"
*Our ancestor,* comes the soft reply. *Many generations back. The last of her kind.*
"The last of what kind?"
*The last like us.*
The words hit me like a physical blow. The last like us. Not just different, but the end of something. Something that ended with fire and death and people screaming.
I push myself to my feet, my legs shaking. The tree I touched still glows faintly green, its leaves rustling in a breeze that doesn't touch anything else. Evidence of what I've done. What I am.
But I'm not alone. Something watches from the shadows between the trees. I can't see it, but I can feel its presence. Ancient. Patient. Waiting.
My wolf tenses. *We're not alone anymore.*
"What's watching us?"
*The awakening calls to many things. Not all of them are friendly.*
A chill runs down my spine. Whatever's out there, it's not human. Not wolf. Something else entirely.
I start walking deeper into the forest, trying to ignore the feeling of eyes following my every step. The water inside is crystal clear, but when I look into it, I don't see my reflection. I see images. Flashes of things that haven't happened yet.
A great fire burning across a field. People I don't recognize standing in a circle, their faces turned toward the sky. A war between creatures of light and shadow. And through it all, a voice whispering words I can't understand but somehow know are important.
*The time of choosing approaches,* the voice says. *The bloodline must not fail.*
I jerk away from the fountain, my heart racing. The images fade, leaving only my own frightened face staring back at me from the water.
"What did I just see?"
*Prophecy,* my wolf says simply. *The threads of what might be.*
"Am I supposed to understand any of this?"
*Understanding comes with time. Power comes with acceptance.*
"Acceptance of what?"
*Of what you are. Of what you're becoming.*
I want to argue, to demand real answers instead of riddles. But something in her tone stops me. She's not being mysterious to annoy me. She's being careful. Like there are things I'm not ready to know yet.
The walk back to town feels like walking through a dream. Everything looks the same, but I see it differently now. I can sense the life force in every tree, every blade of grass. I can feel the emotions of the animals hiding in the shadows. I can hear whispers of ancient stories in the wind.
By the time I reach my small apartment, exhaustion hits me like a wave. But it's not the tired feeling of a long day. It's something deeper. Like my soul has been stretched and pulled and reshaped.
I collapse on my bed, still wearing my dirt-stained clothes. My wolf settles deeper into my consciousness, but I can feel her there. Waiting. Watching. Ancient and patient and full of secrets.
"What's happening to me?" I whisper to the darkness.
*You're waking up,* she replies. *After centuries of sleep, our kind is waking up.*
"Our kind?"
*The ones who came before. The ones who will come after. The ones who hold the balance.*
"Balance of what?"
*Everything.*
The weight of that single word settles over me like a blanket. Everything. Not just my life, not just my problems, but everything. The whole world, somehow balanced on the shoulders of someone who can barely control her own emotions.
I close my eyes, trying to process it all. The healing power. The voices of animals. The visions of prophecy. The ancient presence of my wolf.
And underneath it all, a growing certainty that my life will never be normal again. That whatever I'm becoming, it's bigger than anything I imagined.
Sleep comes slowly, filled with dreams of fire and light and voices calling my name. But not the name I've always known. Another name. Older. More powerful.
A name that tastes like moonlight and feels like coming home.
When I wake in the morning, the first thing I see is my reflection in the mirror across the room. But for just a moment, it's not my face looking back. It's the woman from the vision. The ancestor who died fighting something dark.
She smiles at me, sad and proud and full of hope.
Then she's gone, leaving only my own confused face staring back.
But her words echo in my mind like a promise and a warning combined.
*The bloodline continues. The circle closes. The prophecy begins.*
I don't know what any of it means. But I know, with a certainty that chills me to the bone, that my ordinary life is over.
Whatever I'm becoming, whatever these powers mean, whatever ancient legacy flows through my veins, there's no going back.
I am the last of my kind.
And somehow, that makes me the first of something new.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, for the first time in weeks, I feel something that might be hope.
Or maybe it's just the wolf in me, ancient and wise and finally, finally awake.