Chapter 10

Des jumped forwards as the shadowy fog rose up around him again. In an instant, he'd transformed and stood tall as a black wolf with liquid darkness pouring from his body. Serena transformed too and charged. They clashed together in the middle, rearing up and snapping at each other's faces. He had size and muscle to his advantage but she was able to use her experience and her slight frame to slip past his guard and land a vicious bite to his neck. Unfortunately, she was only able to sink her teeth into the outer flesh, missing his windpipe. He yelped and let out a growl. Suddenly, a black fog rose up around them. Serena could feel it burning her skin through her fur. It was like an acidic gas which forced her to retreat. She returned to human form, coughing and spluttering.

Now realising that she had to be more careful and that she should probably attack from range, she realised the time had come. She dropped into a lower stance, her eyes burning with untamed rage, waiting for Des to make a move. He moved faster than she anticipated, his claws coated in shadows that solidified around them to extend their reach. She couldn't move aside quick enough and just barely avoided serious damage, seeing a glint of gold as the bottom button of her jacket was sent flying. Letting out a furious growl, she summoned the energy she'd kept suppressed for so long. A blast of green light fired out from her left hand, looking like it was about to hit Des. To her amazement, the beam passed straight through him. His body was forced back into human form and seemed to split apart in the middle of his stomach, his form bending around the light to avoid it. He re-materialised fully, but she could see she'd still done some damage. While unable to phase him into crystal as she had with Fayveer and his cockroach of a beta wolf, the light itself had actually hurt him.

With that in mind, Serena went on the offensive. She knew the same trick wouldn't work twice, so this time she slammed her fist into the ground. Crystal spikes erupted through the floor, the candle light in the room reflecting off them in all directions. Des hissed with before letting out a powerful scream that seemed to blast right through Serena, extinguishing all the candles and turning all the crystals in the room to ash. There was no doubt about it. He had definitely practised almost to breaking point with his powers. And all for the chance to kill her.

"You're running out of people to die for you, Segolia!" Des stood to his full height, darkness once again pouring off him like liquid. "There can be no greater dishonour than using innocents as a meat shield."

"Says you who just likes to spill blood!" Serena spat. "Your words mean nothing. Let's finish this like the wolves we are!"

"As you wish." The two ferociously engaged again. Learning from what Des had done earlier, Serena surrounded her own hands in crystal, the green glow serving to weaken Des slightly. In response he reformed the shadow claws he'd used earlier around his own hands and they met again, clashing with a wanton bloodlust. In the process, Serena's second jacket button was sent flying and she sustained several cuts and bruises. Des was having much less bother, though. She swiped viciously at his legs and stomach, but that damned ability of non-corporeality he'd mastered just seemed to be able to circumvent everything she could throw at him. It was literally a case of trying to fight something she couldn't touch. But she knew her new display of power was unnerving Des. Since she'd promised never to use her phasing power again or even touch the idea of Wolfblood sorcery, he obviously hadn't expected her to have been still revising the rites and rituals in Willem's old book. She knew that would leave him with only one option: kill her before she found a way to damage him.

Des didn't disappoint. He summoned the dark energies around him and unleashed them towards her. Tendrils of thin, shadowy rope tore their way through the ground, their minimalist appearance belying their danger. But they were something Serena knew well.

As they arced towards her, she projected her own energy in front of her to create a reflective barrier. It was the only weakness of the tendrils: reflection. They attacked anything they saw. Such was the nature of darkness. Des' reflection was projected off the barrier as they hit it. They recoiled in a motion disturbingly in-synch yet akin to a living serpentine creature. Together, working like a hive mind, they turned to face their new target. There was nothing Des could do to stop them as they attacked him. As Serena expected, he was backed into a corner. That meant he had to resort to his final gambit. Instead of retreating, he jumped forward into the corrosive ropes of inky shadow, grabbing Serena's wrist as he did.

"It's over, Segolia!" he screamed, his voice revealing the true agony the darkness was capable of bringing. In his final act, he incanted the spell of life-essence transfer just as she'd expected. She clamped down her mental defences as she felt his consciousness begin to tear into hers so viciously that it brought her to her knees. It became a battle of wills, both of them fighting for control of her body. Neither was willing to cede any ground and more than once she pushed him to the edge of her mind. But try as she might his own mastery of his abilities meant she just couldn't quite push him over the edge and expel him entirely.

Suddenly, the battle was interrupted. An unseen force, pure of mind and strong of will, burst up between them from some unknown depth. It threw Des away like it had shot him from a sling and Serena saw him land roughly back in his own body, a stunned look crossing his face.

"No!" he screamed, slamming a disintegrating fist into the ground. "How? A second presence? Amn'ra said nothing about this! And why was I able to return to my own body?"

"Amn'ra lies to anyone he doesn't trust." Serena told him. "But only slightly. The punishment for failure is to feel every second of your body's destruction. Your spirit will then be left floundering powerlessly adrift in the ether. You'll lie in the dark with your secrets until death takes you."

"But how did you summon a second presence?" Des glared at her, trying to rise and finding out his legs had begun to break down too. At that moment, he noticed where he'd torn her jacket. The two missing buttons let it drift open from just below her breast line to reveal the shirt she'd been sleeping in at Amy's house. Her stomach showed the slight hint of a curve. That was when realisation finally crossed Des' face. He hadn't been trying to possess one body. He'd been trying to possess two linked together. "No!"

"Yes." Serena's gut twisted. She'd wanted Damien to be the first to know. The reason she'd really gone to the wild pack. The real reason she'd returned so early. The reason that virtually everyone had treated her like she was made of glass since her return. The second other person whose fate was dependant on the outcome of this battle. And saying it out loud finally made it real. "No one else is dying today, you disgusting supremacist! I'm pregnant!"

Author's Note: Okay guys, this is going to be a short note tonight as it's late where I am. I'm posting this chapter tonight and then I'll be updating the final chapter and epilogue together as always. I've uploaded the documents so they'll be going live first thing tomorrow. Due to some problematic life events, I have not been able to do anything for Halloween this year both in real life or in a writing sense. However, both this story and Ghosts of the Past are horror themed and the latter is the next one I will be uploading. I apologise for not continuing Waning Moonlight as was the plan. I plan on cracking on with that throughout the rest of this year and into 2021 if need be. I will get it done and it will be uploaded at some point even if it's not Halloween when it happens.