The Luna's Escape

Chapter 6 - A Vision

Jasmine

…I grimace against the sharp light pinching my temples, cupping a hand across my forehead to lessen its stab. The light recedes, leaving a vivid forest in its wake, brutal in its clarity. A yellow dress swirls around my legs, caught in a summer breeze, and a slight tug pulls on my hand. I glance down to be greeted by a young boy, large, innocent and impossibly vibrant green eyes staring back at me with sandy curls, a sun-kissed gold under the summer warmth. Nothing around him shimmers or changes, and nothing shifts, remaining solid in his appearance. There isn’t a single thing I know about him except that I love this little boy with all my heart.

The wind picks up, whipping my curls forward and obstructing my view. A hand pulls them away from my face, but it certainly doesn’t belong to a child. Instead, the boy at my side now stands as a man, no older than twenty. His hair has darkened to a rich, curly caramel, the colour accentuating his striking emerald irises. Those eyes are Dominic’s in every shade and fleck, only brighter from his wiccan blood. The rest of him… the man could pass as a double of my father, down to the subtle, crooked smile.

This is my son…

I grip my flat stomach upon the realisation, a stray tear slipping, which he wipes away. He’s more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

He pulls my hand, walking backwards towards two paths that unfurl through the forest, the trees parting to reveal their destination. My son splits into two, each vanishing down their respective fork in the road.

The path to my left is straight; not a bump or hurdle, or even a stray leaf, litters the surface. The more I focus on it, the more its pristine state ruptures and chips away, leaving it coated in blood and shrouded in darkness. At the end stands Dominic beside our son, the sweet, lopsided smile on my boy replaced with a frown, hardening the soft angles of his face to severe lines. Dominic reaches out his hand to me, demanding I take it. His words are muffled, as if spoken underwater, but I know that tone of his, having been on the receiving end many times.

I back away, knowing what lies down this easy-to-cross path that hums with an ominous crackling air.

The right-hand path radiates warmth, wrapping me in its kind arms. This course is no easy feat to navigate. It winds up a steep hill, filled with crags, shafts and a rift that can only be passed with a leap of faith. But at the end of this gruelling gauntlet of pitfalls stands a man I have never met yet would recognise anywhere – the man who looms in my visions, my dreams and, more recently, my daydreams. My secret green-eyed man. For the first time, his image is crystal clear. Each strand of his chestnut waves, every silver and jade fleck of his eyes and all the intricacies of his sleeve tattoos that coil around his thick arms are defined, not a blurred edge as I had become accustomed to.

My son stands next to him, and it’s as if the man doesn’t care that my boy isn’t his blood. The two appear the perfect picture of father and son, exuding kindness and compassion. My green-eyed man offers out his hand to me, an open invitation to join him if I so desire. He calls my way, but his voice, too, is muffled and under a blanket of water. Regardless, his soft baritone undercurrents weave their magic. He doesn’t demand my compliance. He simply waits for his patience to be rewarded… if only I take the first step.

The moon goddess shows me my choices through Gaia and the definitive outcomes of each.

I choose the easy path and remain? Then Dominic’s destruction will corrupt my son. But if I take the dangerous path filled with hardships and find my green-eyed man, would he be my son’s salvation? Would he be mine?...

…“—smine, can you hear me, angel? Jasmine, come back to me.”

I sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, until my lungs burned under the oxygen they had been denied. My head split in two and pulsated with serrated throbs, making the job of keeping my eyes open a difficult task. A metallic tickle flowed under my nose and coated my tongue when I wet my lips, leaving a dark smear on my hand when I wiped it away, barely discernible in the darkness.

“Here, I’ve got you.” Dominic brushed a corner of soft fabric to erase the blood. From what? I didn’t know. “I caught you before you hit the floor. It was a vision, wasn’t it? A strong one.”

I nodded, regretting it the instant a tight band of pressure squeezed my head in a vice.

“Where… what time is it?”

“We’re still in our bedroom.” And he spoke the truth, right outside the bathroom door from where I was flung into my vision. “You were only out for less than a minute.”

A minute?

He could have said hours, and I would have believed it – days even. When strong visions such as these hit, I could be unconscious for the better part of a day. And this premonition? It was the strongest I had ever faced. The clarity and the finite detail of either outcome meant one thing. One of these futures was set and would happen, with nothing to prevent it. Which one was entirely dependent on my choice.

“Put your arms around me, and I’ll get you to bed.” Dominic lifted me like a feather, cradling me to his red-hot skin and sitting me across his lap on the mattress. “Do you need to see a doctor? Are you hurt? You were shaking like a seizure. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“No… that’s normal for a strong vision.” I remained as still as possible and leant into my arm draped around his neck, my voice a note shy of a whisper. “I saw him.”

“Him? Him who, angel? Not someone wanting to cause us harm again?” A growl edged his voice.

I shook my head, swallowing hard to give me pause on what to divulge. The vision he referred to was one of my first here, not of the future but of a person’s past.

I had been within the pack for no more than eighteen months, still eager to please the people who had saved me and starry-eyed over the Alpha, who treated me like his cherished love. I accidentally bumped into a guard, which triggered a flash of a vision of him speaking in secret with two others. The clandestine meeting seemed odd, and I held no reservations about spilling it to Dominic, not knowing any better at the time. He said he pried the information out of them – I didn’t ask how – and they were executed for plotting to turn the pack against him, us. It was my first glimpse at pack brutality, but it was their way.

He told me he was so proud of his little wiccan, calling me his angel sent from the moon goddess. It solidified me in the packs’ eyes as a powerful Luna; what I lacked in physical strength, I made up for in other ways. I was proud of myself too, proving that I was more than some young girl who needed protecting and coddling and that the powers I hated could do good. If I had known then what I know now, I could’ve helped those men create the change desperately needed.

The only other premonitions I’d had while here were small, shimmering and changing ones that lasted only a heartbeat. Like watching the back of myself as a man wrapped his arm around me – who I assumed was Dominic – as the landscape shuffled through a variety of sceneries. Or the one of me sweeping my hands through a wildflower meadow, where my clothing cycled through a variety of styles but the wildflowers remained. It wasn’t a meadow I recognised, and not one I could find anywhere in Tundra River.

“Do you mean him?” Dominic broke my inattention, spreading his large palm over my abdomen.

“I saw our son, as a child and as a grown man. He’ll have your eyes.”

I deliberately omitted the rest. The confirmation that his heir would be born was enough to erase any other questions he may have harboured.

“My son… Jasmine.” His lips crashed to mine whilst caressing my stomach, right where my womb resided. “I love you more than anything… and our son. How am I ever gonna let you leave my sight now?”

He chuckled like it was a joke, but all it did was highlight the problem my vision failed to answer for me.

I had to run; that wasn’t up for debate. My son could not be brought up by his father. Running would present dangers for my baby, no matter how my vision showed he would be safe. A non-wolf mother carrying a wolf’s pup, and an Alpha’s at that, would pose risks during my final trimester. I had to trust my vision and have faith that this was all part of the dangerous path I had to choose and traverse.

But this left the how. The premonition foretold the consequences of my choices, with little indication of how to execute it.

Thanks, moon goddess.

Was it too much to ask for some guidance?

A hint?

Anything to show me how, in Gaia, I was expected to escape an Alpha who never let me out of anyone’s sight?

*

*

*

3 months later

The afternoons were when my morning sickness loved to make its debut, like clockwork at 4 p.m. each day. It was encroaching upon that time as I knelt over my hiding spot in the far corner of the living room, forcing me to pause for a minute so I didn’t spew and ruin the modest cache I had built.

In the three months since my vision, I had drafted the roughest of escape plans. It required immeasurable patience to build up a discreet collection of reserves, mainly paper money, in the only place I had found that wouldn’t draw Dominic’s eye – or so I hoped. The living room of our home had two bay windows with lounging benches and padded cushions covering them. Both were meant to be fixed in place. One had a board in its centre where the screws had lost their grip in the wood, allowing it to be lifted with some encouragement.

I found it while scouring the house in the few minutes I had alone. When I failed and found nothing, I grew frustrated and threw myself down on the window bench, the one that always creaked. It made me wonder, so I grabbed a thin knife and pried at the board, taking care not to scratch or chip a piece away. I won the small fight and discovered a tight but usable stashing spot. Dominic never used the benches once, not in the four years I had lived here.

Each week, following my scheduled checkup with Dr. Knox to ensure that my health was fine, I asked to do a little window shopping to give me ideas for the baby’s nursery. Dominic was all too happy to indulge my nest building, either sending a troop of eight guards to accompany me or going with me himself. On days featuring the latter, I had to concede to my cover. On days where it was the guards, I would withdraw a little money at a time to hide away, using the rest to buy as few items as possible so I had something to show for my ‘shopping trips’.

My first ultrasound was three days ago, the first time I got to hear the rapid flutter of heartbeats coming from my healthy little boy. He was difficult to locate, but with a little prodding and poking, the doctor found the quick thuds. It also reminded me that time was ticking and my waistline was growing, a little mound swelling where it had once been flat. Escaping this pack with a newborn would not happen, and the larger my belly grew, the more cumbersome everything would become.

Trying to sneak across the border on my own would get me nowhere other than caught. What I needed was someone to take me across the borders to the nearest human town with public transport, and I needed them to do it all without knowing my intentions… if only it were as easy to put into action. It may have to be a plan I made up as I went along.

I counted up the money I had so far, including the small wad withdrawn today, to keep the ongoing tally straight in my head. Two thousand dollars. I wasn’t sure how long it would last me; it just had to last long enough for me to get as far away from this place as possible.

Just as I stacked the bills neatly to put in an old sock and stash away, the front door opened and closed with a thud. In my startlement, the money flew out of my hands and rained down on my head like a damned ticker-tape parade to celebrate my idiocy.

…No!

He was meant to be working all day, first in training and then in his office at the pack house.

I zeroed in on the large tablet left in the open on the coffee table… oh Gaia, Dominic had come back for it.

Swallowing the vomit, threatening to make its appearance from fear and pregnancy, I hurried to gather the money scattered around my lap, shoving it into the sock as fast as the material would allow. I was on the verge of tears, trying to think of a plausible excuse that would explain me kneeling on the floor, gathering up money into a secret hiding spot. All my mind could think of was screaming and spinning in circles.

The door opened as the first tear escaped down my cheek, a third of the bills remained scattered on the wooden floor and my fist crammed what I could into their makeshift bag.

“Oh, hi Luna.” Conan, the young Gamma, appeared at the door’s edge, his bright smile faltering with confusion. “I didn’t know you were home— What are you doing?”

Dominic’s Gamma… it may as well have been the Alpha himself. The accusation in his tone was no figment of my imagination, either.

“I-I…” I stammered, always a winning argument for innocence. “What are you doing here?”

Yes, Jasmine, pick a fight with a wolf almost a foot taller than you and twice as wide with muscle.

Conan Moses, the native Alaskan Gamma, was no older than me at the age of twenty-two, but he dwarfed me in his size. He was young and keen to prove himself despite his age, having been granted his position only a year ago… and he adored Dominic for mentoring him personally.

His dark eyes, verging on black, flitted between the stack of money in my hands, the cash strewn out and the board prised up from the window seat.

“Dominic left his tablet, and I said I’d pick it up for him.”

Common sense dictated I should be soothing him, saying this wasn’t what it looked like, or begging him not to tell Dominic and swearing him to secrecy.

I didn’t.

What I did instead was remain rooted to my spot like a deer caught in headlights, wide-eyed and dumb, with all suspicion mounting. The lead weight keeping my stomach firmly lodged in my rear was about to lose its power and hurtle my afternoon morning sickness like a jet stream.

“Don’t you dare mind-link him.” I finally found my spine and my voice, rising to my feet on queasy legs.

“Why should I liste—”

“Because if you do,” I cut him off, summoning every measure of bravery I wasn’t sure I still possessed, “I’ll tell Dominic you distracted one of my guards to makeout with him in secret, leaving me unprotected at home.”

His feline eyes, once sharpened in threat, now widened in panic. “N-no I di—”

“Rafe, Tessa’s older brother. I saw you. And if you tell Dominic about this, I’ll make sure he knows about you.”