Chapter 84: A Stand for Life

After hearing the guard’s words, I closed my eyes briefly, letting the reality settle in. When I reopened them, I was still in the field where the executions were unfolding. This was no dream, no figment of my imagination. The weight of the situation pressed down on me with every breath. Nick—whoever or whatever had brought me here—was not a mere hallucination. He had been real, as real as the terror swelling in my chest. I shook my head, struggling to make sense of everything. Today had been a nightmare. From the horrific assault to discovering that I was mated to a cruel Alpha, to finding unsettling pictures of me in the late Alpha's mother's room—now, to being led by some kind of mysterious entity. What had Nick truly been? A ghost? A spirit? An apparition sent to intervene in my fate? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but none of it mattered right now. The signs had all been there. I had just been too fixated on saving Jeremy to notice. **First, Nick had known about Jeremy.** Ho