A Gift from the Goddess

Chapter 69

Chapter Sixty–Nine 

‘Reach for it... 

‘Stretch... 

I dug deep within myself, searching where I had felt that familiar energy first stem from. Before it used to always feel like it was just out of arm‘s length, as if only the tip of my fingernail could graze it, but now it felt as though I needed several more appendages just to get anywhere near it. 

But it was there. I had to believe that it hadn‘t just been my imagination. 

Stretch just a little further...‘ 

But then I exhaled quickly in release, panting from the strain it had caused to my body. 

I‘d been sitting on my bed practising ever since arriving back at my guest lodgings. However, since starting over an hour ago, there had been little to show in progress. 

I knew there had to be a trick to this, some sort of internal cue to summon it. Elder Luke had mentioned that this energy was something that could be trained but I was now trying to accomplish it with a severe handicap. So naturally, a part of me was kicking myself for not learning this prior to the collar. 

I threw myself backwards on the bed, laying down in defeat. This was becoming infuriating, not to mention exhausting. How was I meant to practice something if I couldn‘t even begin to grasp it? This 

stupid energy that was a byproduct of my curse. 

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried again once more, digging as deep as physically possible. 

Grab it already. It‘s there. It‘s literally right there.’ 

Just grab it! 

... And then I felt it. 

My eyes immediately flew open as I felt the energy weakly pulse inside me. 

Just a dim flickering. Not much, but just enough to know it was there. 

‘HOLD IT. 

| gritted my teeth, fighting against all the different forces working against me... the collar, my now weaker body, the pure effort required to just utilise the energy itself... but it wasn‘t enough. 

| exhaled once more in release, heaving at the air around me. 

It was gone. Gone just as quickly as it had shown itself. 

But I couldn‘t discredit the noticeable differences and how they were definitely better when compared to my past experiences. There was no dizziness... no nosebleeds… no nausea. Not yet at least. It was mostly just aching and exhaustion from the attempts. 

What had been the trigger? My frustration? ...Emotion? I supposed that made sense. All the times it had come to me in the past were under circumstances of higher emotional investment. But would knowing that actually make it any easier? 

For now, I just needed to repeat this over and over again until I trained my body to grasp it on will, each time trying to hold it for a few seconds longer. 

And so, even though I knew how much it was probably going to hurt, I smiled at the excruciatingly slow grind ahead of me. 

How naive of me to think that at one point i‘d thoughi squats were bad 

“What the hell happened to you?” Aletic asked the next morning, eyeing off my appearance 

1 yawned but managed to bow my head in greeting per protocol 

“Good morning,” I said sleepily. “I didn‘t get much rest. Sorry for all of the fuss.” 

“I thought you were dead,” he said with all seriousness 

I‘d ended up staying up all night practising, pushing myself to my limit, before finally passing out sometime in the early morning My exhaustion had been so bad though that an attendant had to enter my guest lodgings with a master key after I‘d failed to answer the door. Apparently. Alenc had nearly smashed it down from knocking and had thought something had happened to me 

In actuality, I was just dead to the world sleeping. 

“I‘m sorry,” I repeated, though this time trying to make it sound more genuine. 

He sighed but his shoulders didn‘t relax. “It‘s fine. Grab your stuff and let‘s get going.” 

I wondered whether this had scared him off from ever bringing me with him again but I went back inside t o pack without questioning it. Truthfully, I wasn‘t even sure if I ever wanted to go to another meeting like this again but knew it was best not to push my luck whilst he was like this. I could tell that what I‘d done had really struck a nerve with him. 

little since the morning but my sleepless night was quickly catching up to me. Every inch

energy left to resist, I eventually drifted off to sleep in

a voice called out to me.

didn‘t want to move, my eyelids heavy with

up,” it repeated. “We‘re

to

on. You can sleep inside,” he said, unbuckling

of my reluctance siemmed from weighing up whether it would be better to stay in the car as opposed to returning to my

members stared as we entered but I did my best to ignore them. All of them probably had a plethora of questions that I didn‘t care to answer. Instead, I followed silently behind

happen when I went back in there? Would I never want to leave again?

door off sceptically. I felt sick inside just thinking

came up behind me and placed a

in the morning. Hopefully, he won‘t care whether you remain in the Luna quarters and we can get

Chapter Sixty Nine 

Aleric‘s fault, his presence probably wasn‘t making the situation any

room, these walls of no importance. And yet they held more weight over me than I‘d ever dare to admit aloud. Why was it that this place continued to drain me more than anything else these days? Ironically, it felt as though

am not her and I will not

door open then and took a second to take it all in. The overly familiar scenery, scents,

far

there was no way I was going to let a room

was to get stronger. And it had

a room, then Thea, then maybe a revolution. Hopefully, within all of that, I could also prevent an apocalypse in the process. It was just baby steps. Should

to Aleric, my tone dismissing him. “I‘ll be okay from here.”

up whether he should insist on staying or not, but he finally nodded, accepting my request.

his hand on the door. “Have a good rest and I‘ll see you tomorrow.”

I‘ll start thinking you have no friends,”

“Unfortunately, just one

This trip had been a nice reminder of what it felt like to speak freely again.

I‘m not going there.‘

thoughts quickly and threw my bag down by the

there was one thing that she*, my past self, had been right about, it was that getting involved with someone romantically had ended up being a mistake. I‘d been broken already once and had stupidly dragged myself back into that pit of pain willingly. Just for a touch, a

whispered to the mirror on the wall, my eyes narrowing. “I‘m telling you that you were

reply and only silence greeted me. It was nice not having her fogging up my head anymore but I wasn‘t under any false pretence. Even though my make–up covered up the

of exhaustion, I knew it was time to train. No good wasting time with my looming birthday only months away

physical training, even though I was fully aware that I would still remain weak no matter how much I worked out. But even a strong human was still better than

Chapter Sixty Nine 

harder of the two. The one that drained me more than just

had started the night before, slowly holding the energy inside me for longer periods of time. And whilst it may have only been a few seconds,

too much sometime after dark. I‘d had two nights of minimal sleep and my body was already overworked thanks to the new discovery I‘d found

so, with barely any strength left inside... I passed

That is until I was suddenly awoken by the sound of my front door clicking open, a creak groaning out a sit swung open.

flew open and instantly went to check the time via the clock on

the morning. Why would anyone be

If this was an attendant then they were about to have hell to pay for waking me without good

called out.

Silence. 

“...Aleric...?” 

the sound of someone‘s footsteps

was bad. This

I crouched down and held my breath, trying desperately to listen to the darkness around m e. But I knew the unfortunate reality was that they would be able to see me easily with their better vision. Hell, maybe they could even hear the

What were

anyway. Order them to stand down? No, that option was way too risky and would

his room, he would be able to hear

inhaled as much as I could

“ALE–.” 

hand suddenly came from out of the darkness and clamped my mouth quickly shut, a wall of muscle encircling around my body. He‘d appeared from thin air; my senses having failed entirely to alert m

his grip, hopelessly fighting against him, but I knew it was pointless. By even werewolf standards, this guy was built impossibly large. Maybe even larger

hell was this guy?

binding my mouth from making any further attempts to call for help. There was nothing I could

Chapter Sixty–Nine 

shoulder without any

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