Moonless

Chapter 42

AN; Thank you so much for the 695 votes and 3788 reads! We are steadily creeping towards that 5,000 marks!:D Anyways hope you all enjoy this chapter.
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Mom raced down the stairs. Behind us, I could here dad's footsteps hurrying after us.

I  looped my arms tightly around her tightly in terror. I was afraid of what would happen if I let go.

When she reached the bottom she turned down the hallway towards the door. But before she could run towards it, dad leaped down the last couple of steps to the attic and landed with a loud boom in front of us.

My mom took a couple of steps backward with me clutched to her chest and stopped.  Meanwhile, dad stared at me like he was really mad at me. I buried my face into the smooth gray fabric of mom's dress to hide from those eyes.

"He will not have her!" she said angrily. I will hide her, I will send her away. Whatever I need to do!"

"You will do no such thing!" My father yelled. "We have spited him. We must repent for what we have done!"

"And what have we done!?"

The hallway grew silent until the only thing I could hear was mom's heavy breathing in my ear.

"Because you tried to betray him, Helen," he said softly. "Don't think I haven't heard you talking to the spirits of the woods? I tried to ignore it because  I love you, but that love clouded my judgment and now we are made to pay the ultimate price!   He must have found out, so he doomed our daughter!"

My mother's grip on me tightened. "She is not doomed! Do you know why I talk to the spirits!? Because they are trying to warn our pack about Him. He is pure evil and He only grows stronger the more children we sacrifice to him. He will destroy Red Crescent and much more if we do not stop giving Lunera children to him!"

"Shut up!" my dad screamed and I began to cry. "Stop talking! We still have another son that is not eight yet! Do you want to curse him too!?"

"Daddy? You woke me up because you are yelling!" Ian's voice floated through the air, as if on cue.

I lifted my head to see that he now stood in the white hallway behind dad, holding his stuffed wolf in one hand. He rubbed his sleepy brown eyes with his free hand. His door to his bedroom was wide open beside him.  I also spotted Liam standing at the top of the steps to the attic.  His face had pales and his eyes were golden, so were mom's and dad's too.

"Liam!" my mom said. "Take Ian back to bed and stay there with him!"

"What about Everlee?" he asked. "Is she going to be given to the dark one?"

"Stay out of this Liam! Just do what your mother says!" dad barked without taking his eyes off me. Liam scampered down the rest of the stairs, almost falling at the end in his haste. He paused for a moment, and looked back and forth between the two of them, before he scooted past dad, grabbed Ian and pulled him into the bedroom, and shut the door behind them.

"Give me her!" Dad moved towards us, his arms outstretched.

I screamed when he tried to yank me from her arms.

Why was daddy doing this? I didn't want to go to the Dark One! I knew I could change into a wolf, if...

Mom abruptly flung me behind her and lunged at daddy. I went skidding across the floorboards and slammed into the door to the bathroom.

Stars danced in front of my eyes, but they cleared just in time to see mom knock dad down to the ground before she turned back to me. She ran towards me, picked me off the floor, and shoved me inside the bathroom, before locking the door behind us."

"Mom..." I sobbed while I laid on the cool tile floor, the same floor my mother had died on.

I was seventeen and I was Everlee Crest, but I was almost Aurelia.

"Aurelia?" someone said softly and I shot off the floor and onto my feet. I came face to with Annie and a tall, muscular boy with her same color eyes and hair, minus the curls. And gripped tightly in his hands was a shotgun.