Shout-out to the very special Raichyl_TinyTAnima for the name idea used in this chapter. <3

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‘Neoma, Neoma, Neoma,’ the voice of the river rushed in her ears, and then she was spit out onto the earth.

Zoe coughed and coughed, forcefully puking up all of the water she had taken in from the river. When it was all finally out, she collapsed onto the ground, sucking in deep breaths of the glorious night air. She could breathe. She was out of the river. It was a miracle. But how had it happened? And… and where was she?

She turned over onto her back to see the sky, and she realized she was in a clearing… with a roaring bonfire at her side. She gasped and sat up, looking around in a panic. Whose bonfire was this? Where was she now? What danger would she have to face here?

“And who, my dear, are you?” a lilting male voice startled her, and she whipped her head around to the sound. There was a small male lycan with shoulder length golden hair staring at her with an amused smirk.

She was behind the Hallowell pack house. She was back! Somehow she had gotten back, but… how was that even possible?

“Graeme,” she gasped, trying to get back up on her feet, but there was no strength left in her body after that fight with the river.

“Your name is Graeme? What a coincidence. That is our Alpha’s name,” Calix chuckled, pleasing himself with his own humor.

“I need to—I need to speak with him,” she panted, giving up and leaning back on her elbows.

“Of course,” Calix assented. “Must I carry you? Or can you walk on your own?” With his hands folded in front of him, he stared down at the drenched female who looked like she had been washed up from the Gulf of Maine.

Zoe glared at him. Why was he so calm and proper? Couldn’t he see this was an emergency? Didn’t he know that their alyko were missing?

“What is your name?” she asked, a bite to her tone that he found amusing.

“I am Calix,” he bowed politely.

“Calix, can you tell me where Graeme is? Or Greta? Or… or Lucas?” She panted.

Calix sighed and pulled out his phone. It was amusing to find a drenched young female next to the pure fire so late on Samhain, but now she was making him work.

“Zoe?!” Lucas called from the back doors of the pack house.

He was in different pants and a t-shirt, leaning against the doorway and clutching his side like it was painful. But once he confirmed it was her who was sprawled out on the ground beneath Calix, he ran—pain forgotten—and slid next to her side, only wincing a bit as he did.

“How did you know I was here?” she gasped, her one non-swollen eye going wide with how quickly he was next to her.

“I was up in medical staring at the fire,” he explained. “I saw you… you just…” he glanced up at Calix who was staring at them with a mild look of annoyance on his face.

Perhaps Calix had not seen her appear out of thin air, and who knows how the male felt about alyko. He glanced back down at Zoe who was still in her dress, although it was torn, and somehow she had managed to get soaking wet. And she smelled of blood. She must have gotten injured as well.

“Give me your jacket,” Lucas demanded of the male next to them. If he annoyed Calix enough, he knew he would leave.

“What? Me?” Calix scoffed, turning around to see if there was anyone else in the area Lucas may be addressing.

“Yes, Calix. Give it to me,” Lucas extended his hand.

Calix groaned and rolled his eyes as he took off the jacket he was wearing. It smelled like the bonfire anyway. Once he passed it to Lucas, he sauntered away to see what else needed to be attended to after the Samhain festival. Lucas could deal with the rug rat.

Lucas wrapped the jacket around Zoe who had started trembling violently. The adrenaline had worn off, and she was exhausted and freezing. At some point she had either given Zagan’s leather jacket back to him or lost it… she couldn’t remember now. The events of the night were a blur.

“Goddess, Zoe, how did you get wet? What happened?” Lucas asked, tilting her chin up to look at her face. “Did he hurt you? How did you get free?”

She let out a heavy exhale. Finally she was somewhere safe. She was safe.

She took a deep breath, readying herself to tell him all that had happened, but then the relief of being here—just of seeing the friendly face of someone she could trust—brought a wave of tears crashing over her, and she ducked her head to avoid his eyes.

Lucas drew her into his chest and sighed. “You are safe now,” he breathed, throwing a prayer of thanks up to the Goddess that somehow she had escaped the vampire. “We aren’t going to let anything happen to you again, I vow it.”

He picked her up off the ground as she clung to him, crying quietly in his arms. When he initially found her in the dungeon, she seemed lost and discarded and lonely, but there was always something false and guarded about her back then. Now she was open and vulnerable and so genuinely broken. It made him ache for her, for a way to help fix it.

“Have you decided on a new name yet?” he teased as he carried her back through the pack house, trying to lighten the heaviness of whatever she had gone through that she wasn’t ready to discuss yet. “Can I call you Oola?”

She sniffed and chuckled, wiping some of the tears away as she stayed curled up under his chin.

“Neoma,” she whispered, remembering the name that the river had given her when she was swept away in it.

“Neoma,” he repeated, nodding his approval.. “I like it.”