Chapter 8 Marcus's Guilt
"I knew."
The words fell out of my mouth like stones, heavy and damaging. Luna spun around to face me, her eyes wide with shock as the dark shapes moved closer outside the cottage windows.
"You knew what?" she whispered.
"About the soul-bond. About what you are. I've known since the day I found you." My hands were shaking, and I put them in my pockets to hide it. "I'm sorry, Luna. I'm so sorry."
The hurt that crossed her face nearly brought me to my knees. "You KNEW?"
"Marcus," Damon growled, his Alpha voice dangerous. "What exactly did you know?"
I couldn't look at either of them. Three years of lies. Three years of trying to be the good guy while keeping the truth from the woman I loved.
"The night I found you in that hallway," I said to Luna, my voice barely audible, "it wasn't an accident. The soul-bond was pulling me toward you. I could feel Damon's emotions bleeding through our link - his desperation, his need to find you. That's how I knew where to look."
"Oh god," Luna breathed.
"I told myself I was protecting you," I continued, the words pouring out now that I'd started. "Damon had just announced his engagement. You were pregnant and scared. I thought... I thought if I could just love you enough, maybe the magic wouldn't matter."
"Love me enough?" Luna's voice cracked. "Marcus, did you ever love me at all? Or was it just the bond making you think you did?"
That question was like a knife to my chest. "Both. Neither. I don't know anymore."
The terrible honesty hung in the air between us. Outside, Aria was still staring at the approaching darkness with those too-old eyes, but I couldn't focus on the danger when Luna was looking at me like I'd just destroyed her world.
Which I had.
"You let me believe I had a choice," she said softly. "For three years, you let me think I was choosing to be with you."
"Because I wanted it to be a choice!" I burst, my careful control finally snapping. "Do you think this was easy for me? Knowing that the only reason you could love me was because of some old magic? Wondering every day if you'd still want me if the link was broken?"
"That wasn't your decision to make," Damon said coldly.
"Really?" I spun on my cousin. "And what would you have done? Told her the truth and watched her run again? At least I was there for her. At least I helped raise Aria."
"With lies," Luna said, and the pain in her voice made me want to disappear.
"With love," I corrected desperately. "Whatever else was true, Luna, I loved you. I love you. That part was never fake."
"How can I believe anything you say now?"
Before I could answer, Elder Moonwhisper grabbed my arm with surprising power.
"There's no time for this," she said quickly. "The Devourers are here."
Through the window, I could see the dark shapes more clearly now. They looked like ghosts given form, but wrong somehow. Too long, too twisted, moving in ways that hurt to watch.
"What are Devourers?" Luna asked.
"Creatures from the spaces between realities," the Elder explained quickly. "They feed on life itself. And your Reality Shifter power just rang the dinner bell."
"How do we fight them?" Damon demanded.
"We don't," Elder Moonwhisper said grimly. "We run."
But as she spoke, the cottage door burst inward. One of the shadow things flowed into the room like liquid darkness, and where it touched the furniture, everything simply... stopped existing.
"Aria!" Luna screamed, lunging for her daughter.
I responded without thinking, throwing myself between Luna and the creature. The thing's touch hit my shoulder, and pain like nothing I'd ever felt shot through my body. It wasn't just pain - it was the sensation of being erased, of my very life being drained away.
My healing power kicked in immediately, fighting against the dissolution, but I could feel myself losing.
"Marcus!" Luna's voice sounded far away.
That's when something impossible happened. Luna's hand touched my back, and suddenly her Reality Shifter power was flowing through our soul-bond. Not just to me, but through me to Damon, forming a circuit of energy that made the Devourer screech and retreat.
"The Tri-Soul bond," Elder Moonwhisper gasped. "It's not just connecting you - it's amplifying Luna's power."
"Is that good or bad?" Damon asked, helping me stand.
"I don't know," the Elder admitted. "This has never happened before."
More Devourers were coming through the broken door. Luna grabbed Aria, who was surprisingly calm for a three-year-old facing monsters.
"We need to get out of here," I said, though my shoulder still felt like it was melting.
"There's nowhere to go," Elder Moonwhisper said. "They've surrounded the cottage."
That's when Aria spoke up in her strange, adult voice.
"Mommy can make us go somewhere else," she said simply. "Like she did with all the other people."
"I don't know how I did that," Luna said hurriedly.
"You do," Aria insisted. "You just have to want it enough."
Another Devourer flowed through the window, reaching for us with tentacles of pure nothingness.
"Luna," I said quickly, "whatever you're going to do, do it now."
She closed her eyes and grabbed both Damon's hand and mine. The soul-bond flared to life, and I felt her power growing, reality bending around us.
But something was wrong. Instead of transporting us to safety, I felt us being pulled in multiple places at once.
"Luna, stop!" Elder Moonwhisper shouted. "The Devourers are interfering with your power!"
Too late. Reality shattered around us like broken glass.
When the pieces settled, we were standing in what looked like the same house - but everything was wrong. The furniture was different. The windows showed a sky that had two moons.
And Elder Moonwhisper was gone.
"Where are we?" Damon asked.
Aria looked around with those knowing eyes and smiled.
"We're in the place where mommy's other choices live," she said happily.
"What does that mean?" Luna whispered.
That's when I heard footsteps on the porch. The door opened, and I felt my heart stop.
It was me. Another version of me, but older, scarred, wearing clothes I'd never owned. Behind him was another Damon, and another Luna - but this Luna was holding a baby that wasn't Aria.
"Finally," the other Marcus said sadly. "We've been waiting for you."
"Waiting for us?" our Luna asked.
"To help us fight the war," the other Damon stated. "In this world, we lost. Everyone we loved is dead, and the Devourers won. But now that you're here..."
He smiled, but it wasn't a nice smile.
"Now we have a chance to steal your world instead."


























