The enraged male was bright red, gasping for air with his eyes bulging when August realized she was holding her breath. She was holding her breath, and the air seemed to freeze its movement around them. There was no way she was responsible for that. Was there?

She tore her eyes away from the male clawing helplessly at his throat on the ground in front of her and saw Sage and the woman struggling without air as well. August released the breath she had been holding and ran to check on the young boy who began gasping for air on all fours. He seemed to be able to fill his lungs again.

"Oh Goddess, Sage, are you alright?

" she cried, her hands shaking as she tilted his face up. He took in deep breaths, still gasping to bring the lost air back, but he nodded to her question.

"I did this,

" she whispered, and she looked around to see the couple huddled against each other, coughing and sucking in deep breaths of air.

Despite being the target of his anger moments ago, the female had chased after her mate to see if he was alright. She now raised her eyes to August with a new terror in her eyes. Terror directed toward August.

"They were right. You are a witch!

" the female's voice sliced through the distance between them.

"You almost killed us.

"

"I—I didn't mean it. He was…

" she trailed off, turning her attention to the male still struggling on the forest floor. Apparently he had gotten the worst of the oxygen depravation, and the female bent over him desperately.

"Sage, I'm so sorry,

" August breathed.

How could she have done something like that? She could have suffocated them. And she honestly didn't even know how it happened.

August found herself backing away from the three of them as they struggled to recover. She was dangerous like one of those alyko in the stories from the council's files. This was what she had feared. She was going to hurt them—she was going to hurt all of them. Sage could have suffocated right in front of her.

"I'm sorry,

" she whispered, and then she turned and ran.

She was running in the forest again—this time from herself.

A blur of autumn colors whipped by as August continued to run, unaware of what direction she was even headed in. How could she be expected to lead a pack when was dangerous like this? How could she even just teach pups art when she had this potential for serious harm? No one would dare trust her now, and they shouldn't. She didn't trust herself.

Andreas' words were sloshing around in the well of her mind, which was filling now. It was filling, and she was at the bottom.

A powerful witch. One who was a danger to the pack.

She had thought the elders were wrong about her and the alyko. It was unjust and wrong what they had done to the alyko who were here before, but perhaps they were right about her. Tears spilled from her eyes, cascading down her cheeks as the wind blew them back into her hair.

They were right. They were right about her all this time. She was dangerous. She didn't belong here.

"Luna!

" she heard Sage's voice call aloud somewhere behind her. The small boy was following her—the pup she had hurt and that she knew had been through so much already as a stray.

She ignored him and kept running—from him, from the title, from anyone else she could hurt. She was finally free to run, and now she wasn't going to stop.

Maybe she could go home. Maybe she could reach her mom. Moms always made it better, didn't they? If not her mom, who else was there? But the hopelessness of that thought was abyssal. Because she knew her mom couldn't help her, and there was no one else. No one else but the mate that she had to save from herself.

And then suddenly the ground was gone from beneath her, and she gasped, reaching to grasp at anything to stop the fall. Her hands dragged along the roots of a tree that were jagged, extending out over the air where its ground used to be.

August managed to grab onto one of those roots to keep from falling, but now she was dangling over an unknown height with burning hands. She couldn't look down to see how far it was, and her legs instinctively swayed back and forth trying to find the ground that wasn't there.

"Luna!

" Sage cried above her.

"Sage!

" she called back.

"I'm so sorry.

"

She heard him sob above her somewhere, and the sound plucked at her heart.

"I didn't meant to hurt you,

" she whimpered.

"You didn't. Luna, you didn't,

" he cried.

The burning in her hands was too much, and she just… let go. Gave into the fall. Because that was all that was left.

She expected the fall to be longer—to be able to look up at the sky and feel the rush of air surrounding her. Maybe she would have a few poetic moments where her life flashed before her eyes. But instead, she ended up on her ass in the mud.

She stood, unimpressed by the anti-climatic end, and looked up at the tree roots that formed a lattice a few stories above her head. Sage's green eyes peered down between them.

"I have to leave, Sage. I hurt you. I will hurt others,

" she called up to him. He shook his head in disagreement, but she turned to continue on her way.

Sage scanned the area for an easy path down to reach her, but the only quick route was to fall the way that she had. He bent over, panting now with his hands on his knees. Luna was stubborn.. And she was going to end up in big trouble if he didn't find a way to stop her.