<h4>Chapter 176: Caleb’s Patience</h4>


    <strong>CALEB POV</strong>


    I caught Lily’s hand just as she was about to smash the dark rock against the wall.


    "Wait," I said gently, wrapping my fingers around hers. "Breaking it might make things worse."


    Her whole body was shaking with rage and confusion, but she stopped trying to destroy the crystal. That was progress. Three months ago, when her emotions were totally gone, she would have just stared at the thing with empty eyes. Now she was feeling enough to want to break it.


    Even if that feeling was mostly anger and fear.


    "It’s talking to me, Caleb," she whispered, her voice cracking. "That thing is in my head, calling me mother, and I don’t understand any of it."


    I could hear the fear rising in her voice. The pack meeting had broken up in chaos after Luna gave her terrible news, but I’d stayed with Lily. Someone had to keep her grounded while her world fell apart again.


    "Let’s sit down," I offered, guiding her to a chair. "And let’s figure this out together."


    Lily clutched the rock tighter, and I could see tears starting in her eyes. Real tears. The third feeling she’d felt since her sacrifice - grief - was still so new that it overwhelmed her sometimes.


    "I can’t be a mother," she said. "I would remember having a child. Wouldn’t I?"


    I wanted to give her easy replies, but I’d learned over the past few months that lying to Lily didn’t help anyone. She needed truth, even when it hurt.


    "Maybe not," I said carefully. "Elder Iris’s research referenced time distortions around the Triple Moon prophecy. Maybe this child lives in a different timeline, or maybe your memories were blocked somehow."


    Lily looked at me with such lost confusion that my heart ached. She was trying so hard to feel again, to be human again, but every new feeling brought new pain.


    "How do you do it?" she asked suddenly.


    "Do what?"


    "Stay so cool when everything is falling apart. The humans want to kidnap me, this void creature ims to be my son, Luna’s bringing messages from our enemies, and you’re just... sitting here being patient with me."


    I almost smiled at that. If only she knew how patient I’d had to learn to be.


    "Because rushing won’t help," I exined. "When you disappeared into that void space three months ago, I wanted to charge in after you immediately. Brock wanted to tear apart worlds to find you. But Aiden made us wait and n."


    "That’s different."


    "Is it?" I asked. "You’re rebuilding yourself piece by piece, Lily. Love first, then protectiveness, now sadness. Each feeling makes you more whole, but it also makes you more vulnerable. If I pushed you to feel everything at once, you might breakpletely."


    She was quiet for a moment, turning the crystal over in her hands. The void energy inside it pulsed like a heartbeat.


    "What if I’m not strong enough?" she whispered. "What if I can’t handle being a mother to something like that?"


    Before I could answer, the crystal red with bright dark light. Lily gasped as her eyes rolled back in her head, and suddenly she wasn’t in the room with me anymore.


    I could tell because her body went stiff and her breathing changed. She was having some kind of vision, and there was nothing I could do but wait and watch over her.


    This was the hardest part of loving someone who was still healing. Sometimes she went ces I couldn’t follow, and all I could do was be there when she came back.


    Minutes passed. Lily’s face went through different emotions - confusion, sadness, fear, and something that might have been recognition. Whatever she was seeing, it was important.


    Finally, her eyes snapped back to normal and she looked at me with wonder and fear.


    "I saw him," she breathed. "My son. But Caleb, he’s not a child anymore. He’s old. Older than Elder Iris, older than our pack."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Time moves differently in the void," she exined, her wordsing fast. "What felt like a day to me was ages to him. He’s been alone in that nothingness for so long that he forgot how to feel anything except loneliness."


    I felt a chill run down my spine. "So when he transforms people..."


    "He’s trying to bring them to the void with him so he won’t be alone anymore." Lily’s voice was full of sadness. "He doesn’t understand that he’s hurting them. He thinks he’s saving them from pain."


    "Just like you thought you were saving us when you sacrificed your emotions."


    She nodded, tears flowing freely now. "He learned it from me. From watching me choose emptiness over feeling."


    I reached out and wiped away her tears, marveling at how much more present she seemed with each feeling she reimed. "So what do we do?"


    "I have to go to him," she said. "Not to fight him, but to teach him what I’m learning. That feeling pain is worth it if you also get to feel love."


    My heart stopped. "Lily, no. You’re not strong enough yet. You’ve only just started feeling again."


    "But if I wait, how many more people will he transform? How many will Luna and the humans hurt trying to catch me?"


    She had a point, but the thought of losing her again made me desperate. "There has to be another way."


    "Maybe there is," she said slowly. "What if I don’t go alone?"


    "I’lle with you," I said instantly.


    "Not just you. All of us. The whole pack." Her eyes were getting brighter as the idea formed. "What if instead of one person teaching him about emotions, we showed him what a real family feels like?"


    Before I could reply, we heard screaming from outside. We ran to the window and saw something that made my blood freeze.


    Daniel, the pack member who’d been caught by the humans, was walking into our clearing. But he wasn’t alone. Behind him marched dozens of our own pack members, their eyes nk and empty just like his had been in that cage.


    The humans hadn’t just controlled Daniel. They’d been controlling others too, pack members we thought were safe.


    "How many?" Lily whispered.


    I counted quickly. "At least thirty. Maybe more."


    As we watched in horror, the controlled pack members made a perfect circle around the Alpha house. Then Daniel stepped forward and spoke in a voice that wasn’t his own.


    "Lily Carter," he called out. "The Human Defense Corps thanks you for making this so easy. Your pack members have been such helpful spies."


    Lily gripped my arm. "They’ve been spying on us through our own people."


    "That’s not the worst part," I realized, my stomach sinking. "If they can control our pack members, they can make them fight against us."


    Daniel raised his hand, and all the controlled wolves began to shift into their wolf shapes. Their eyes stayed empty and dead, but their teeth were very real.


    "Come out peacefully," Daniel continued, "or watch us tear apart everyone you love."


    Lily looked at me with desperate eyes. "The crystal is getting hot. The void creature ising too. We’re about to be stuck between the humans and my son."


    And then, just to make everything worse, Luna’s voice echoed across the clearing.


    "I’m sorry, Lily! I had to tell them! They have my parents!"