Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 375

Aurora’s P.O.V

The thing towered over them, skeletal limbs, back arched, mouth stretched unnaturally wide to reveal jagged, dripping teeth. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in someone’s fist. I screamed their names—I don’t even remember whose name I screamed first, but it seemed like they couldn’t hear me at all—so I ran.

I ran with everything in me, my feet crunching over dry leaves and brittle twigs, not caring if the sound alerted that shadowy…beast. I had to get to them. I had to protect them. I didn’t care what it was, or how impossible it looked—I had to stop it.

But then—

I felt it. A force. Like a hammer slamming into my back.

My body was airborne for half a second before the earth greeted me cruelly. My knees buckled under me, my hands shot out instinctively to break the fall, but all they met were sharp, unforgiving rocks. I skidded—my skin tore. The searing pain shot up my arms, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. My head hit next. Hard.

The impact rang through my skull like a bell being struck. Everything dimmed. The world shifted sideways. Black dots danced in my vision like mocking shadows.

I groaned, the breath knocked out of me, and tried to push myself up, but my arms gave out beneath me. I tasted blood—metallic and warm—and something inside me screamed that I wasn’t alone. That someone had pushed me. That it hadn’t been an accident or some freak stumble.

My eyes fluttered open, and through the blur and tears, I looked up.

And then I saw her.

At least, I thought it was her.

Avery.

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

She stood just a few feet away, unmoving, her hair matted and tangled like she’d clawed through the earth itself to get here. Her head tilted slightly as she looked down at me. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes—it was something cold, something wrong. Her lips curled back slowly into a grin that split her face far too wide. Her eyes—God, her eyes—they glowed, an unnatural, venomous green, like someone had set fire to emeralds from the inside.

It was Avery, and yet it wasn’t. Everything in me recoiled. My breath caught in my throat, and I realized I couldn’t speak. My mouth opened, tried to beg for help, to scream, to say her name—someone’s name—but nothing came out.

My body trembled. My arms scraped uselessly against the rocks as I tried to scramble backwards, but I barely moved an inch. The pain in my skull pulsed heavier. The black dots multiplied.

She took a step forward, her boots crunching the rocks just as mine had. Her smile widened.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to run.

I wanted to disappear.

But all I could do was lie there, helpless, the world darkening with every heartbeat as whatever-that-was loomed closer.

I knew I shouldn’t have come here. Every fiber in my body screamed at me to turn around, to run, to do something—but I didn’t listen. And now, here I was, trembling in the middle of this suffocating silence that wrapped around me like smoke, thick and unrelenting. My breath hitched as I backed away slowly, even though u was hardly moving. The forest, once familiar, now felt like it was watching me, trees leaning in as though they were part of this nightmare.

I didn’t want to name it…but her eyes…they were now the same color as that of Lucas.

I was just imagining it, right? No…this couldn’t be real…couldn’t be…

No!

My pulse slammed against my ribs as she began to walk toward me—slowly, with a predatory calm, like she had all the time in the world to destroy me.

“You really thought you could get away?” she asked, her voice eerily similar to Avery’s, but twisted. Warped like it had been dragged through pain and fury. “You pathetic little thing…”

I stumbled backward, my hands shaking. “You’re not her,” I whispered, voice cracking like broken glass. “Avery would never—”

“Never what?” she sneered, cutting me off, her steps unrelenting. “Hurt you? Break you? Watch you cry like a worthless traitor?” She chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “You destroyed what we built. Centuries, Aurora. Do you even comprehend the magnitude of what you’ve done?”