Chapter 9 Celeste's Secret Laboratory

Donovan's POV

The woman’s body felt like a bag of sticks in my arms. She was so light. The name she whispered, “Malachi,” hung in the cold air of the basement. Sierra stumbled back, her face as white as a sheet. Her eyes were wide, looking at something that wasn't there. I saw the terror in them, a terror so deep it made my own blood run cold. It was not her fear. It was old. It was Celeste’s.

"Get her out of here," Liam said, his voice low and rough. He gently took the dead woman from my arms and laid her on the stone floor. He covered her with a blanket from a nearby shelf.

I put my hands on Sierra’s shoulders. She was trembling like a leaf in a storm. "Sierra. Look at me."

Her eyes finally focused on mine. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t seem to know she was crying. "I saw him," she whispered. "The man from the memory. The “friend” who had a knife."

My gut twisted. Celeste wasn't killed by an enemy. She was betrayed.

Konstantin, the vampire, had not moved. He was staring at the wall, his red eyes narrowed. "The Old Tongue," he said to himself. "She spoke the words of opening." He walked over to a section of the stone wall that looked just like the rest. He ran his pale fingers over the rocks. "Celeste was clever. She would not have put all her secrets in one place."

Sierra pulled away from me and walked toward the wall, as if in a dream. She stopped a few feet from Konstantin. She looked at the stones, her head tilted. "There's a song," she said softly. "In the rocks and I can almost hear it."

She reached out a shaky hand and pressed her palm flat against the cold stone.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a soft blue light glowed from the cracks between the stones, tracing a pattern I hadn't seen before. It looked like a complicated knot. There was a low grinding sound, like mountains moving. The whole section of the wall slid sideways, disappearing into the darkness. It opened up a new room which seemed hidden.

The air that came out smelled of dried flowers, old paper, and something that made the hair on my arms stand up. It was the smell of magic.

"This was her private laboratory," Konstantin breathed. "I never thought I'd see it."

I pushed Sierra behind me. "Stay back," I growled. I didn't trust this place. I just didn't trust any of this. I took a step into the darkness, and the room lit up. Glowing crystals on the walls pulsed with a soft, white light, showing us everything.

It was not like the cold, metal room with the glass tubes. This place was warm and full of strange things. Books were stacked everywhere, their pages filled with writing I couldn't read. Charts of the stars and the moon were pinned to the walls. Jars filled with colored liquids and dried herbs sat on wooden shelves. In the center of the room was a large wooden table, covered with strange tools made of silver and dark wood. It was a witch's workshop. It was Celeste’s heart.

And on the center of the table, under a clean glass dome, was a jar.

It was bigger than the other jars. It was filled with a clear, yellow liquid. And inside it, something was floating.

I walked closer, my boots silent on the stone floor. Liam was right behind me. Sierra and Konstantin stayed by the door. I peered through the glass, trying to understand what I was seeing.

It was tiny. It was so tiny, it had small arms and legs curled up tight. It had a head with eyes that were closed. It was a baby that had not been born. It was perfectly preserved, floating in that yellow liquid like it was just sleeping.

My breath hitched. My heart felt like it had stopped. I knew, deep in my bones, what I was looking at. A small, silver chain was wrapped around the bottom of the jar. On it was a tiny plaque. I leaned down to read the small words carved into it.

“Our Hope. Celeste and Marcus.”

Marcus!

The name hit me like a punch to the stomach. Marcus was my Beta. He was my friend and my brother. He had been for years.

A sound tore out of my throat. It was not a human sound. It was a roar of pure pain and anger. The wolf inside me, the one I kept chained down, broke free. Heat flooded my body. My vision turned red at the edges.

"Donovan!" Liam shouted.

But I couldn't hear him. All I could hear was the roaring in my own head. My hands clenched into fists, and I brought one down on the table. Wood splintered, jars flew into the air and smashed on the floor, spilling their colorful contents. The smell of a hundred different herbs and magics filled the air.

I grabbed a shelf and tore it from the wall. Books and glass rained down. I was a storm. I was a hurricane of grief and rage. This room was her secret. This room was her lie. And I wanted to destroy it. I wanted to break it into a million pieces.

I turned, my eyes wild, looking for something else to break. I saw the table, the one thing I hadn't completely destroyed. The glass dome over the jar was cracked, but the jar itself was still there. It held the baby.

A growl ripped from my chest, so loud it shook the glowing crystals on the walls. I raised my fist to bring it down, to smash the jar and the lie it held into nothing.

"Donovan, stop!"

A small hand grabbed my arm. It was Sierra. She was standing right in front of me, her eyes wide with fear, but she was not backing down. Her fingers were a small, warm spot on my burning skin.

"Please," she whispered. Her voice cut through the red haze in my mind. "Don't. This is all we have left of her.

I looked from her terrified face to the jar. I looked at the tiny, sleeping form inside. My fist was still raised, trembling with the force of my anger. The wolf inside me screamed to finish it and destroy the pain. But looking at Sierra, at her hand on my arm, I saw not the past that had been a lie, but the present I had to protect.

My anger didn't just go away. It collapsed. It left a giant, empty hole in my chest. My arm dropped to my side. The strength left my legs, and I fell to my knees in the middle of the wreckage of Celeste's secret life. I put my head in my hands, and for the first time since I was a child, I felt the hot sting of tears burn my eye

s. The lab was in ruins around me. And I felt like I was, too.