Snehvolk wolves are being taken down, barely scraping through the demons’ attacks. We're hanging on by a fine thread thanks to Rissa and Yvonne and their magic, but they're already becoming exhausted and won't hold on any longer.
The demon’s claws dig deeper into my throat, the pressure closing my windpipe until I can’t breathe. I thrash, shift halfway, thinking I can get out, but the strength drains from my limbs before I can finish. The stench of the demon's burning smoke fills my nose, thick and oily, choking the air, like the smell of defeat.
I close my eyes, surrendering to this defeat if death means an escape from the vicious grief in my chest. I already howled it out, but it did nothing to take this gaping hole out of my being.
Willow is suspended in the air, covered in magic, having taken the potion with the lethal amount of wolfsbane in it. I know how this ends. I just wish she'd listened to me.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, tears pushing through the corners. I know why she did—it seemed like the only way to save us all—but I can't forgive her for not giving me a heads up.
One last embrace.
One last kiss.
This should be my last breath.
It escapes my lips, and just as I'm about to sink into the throes of darkness, a bright light surges, forcing me to snap my eyes open.
It starts as a pulse, a lively heartbeat—Willow’s heartbeat—before it expands into the most powerful force field we've ever experienced in Girdwood.
The glow builds behind her, a shimmer of molten gold seeping from her pores until she’s no longer just Willow Barker, she’s something divine, something ancient, something otherworldly. Her hair floats around her like a halo of sunlight, her eyes burning brighter than any moon. The demon holding me pauses, almost…afraid as it turns its eyes toward her.
Every creature on the battlefield stops, wolves, witches, and demons alike, and my heart stops with them.
“Willow…” I rasp mentally, a paw reaching toward her as best I can. The demon snarls and crushes my throat with a tightening claw just as the largest one rises in the air to face Willow.
My vision blurs, the edges darkening, and I can’t move, can’t breathe.
But I can see her.
Her arms are spread, face tilted toward the sky as the light grows stronger, pulsing in waves that ripple through the snow and soil. The air hums with the vibration of power—her power—a power so majestic that no witch has ever wielded before.
Aurora, Rissa, and Yvonne have gathered behind her, hands joined, their voices rising in that same ancient chant that first tore the ground apart. Their magic flares emerald and silver, merging with Willow’s gold until the entire clearing glows like the inside of a sun.
I feel the demon tremble on my neck, even as its leader roars in my eardrums.
“This is your end, Willow Barker…the end of you and the Snehvolk pack,”the demon levitating in front of her bellows, its sinister speech echoing all around the clearing. “You cannot win.”
Willow's eyes flicker to mine, and there's a leaded weight of sadness and grief in them when she sees me pinned down by a demon. She looks up then, as if drawing strength from the moon, her eyes menacing in gold when she turns her face back to the demon.
“You are wrong, demon!”Her voice pulses through the mind link and can be heard everywhere. “This isyourend!”
My heart skips a beat because I just heard a voice again—a voice I thought I'd never hear again, a few moments ago. The ground begins to quake beneath me, the snow hissing and melting under Willow’s feet. The gold light permeating from her skin condenses, rising from her body, twisting into a thick column that pierces the clouds above. The air folds inward, reality itself bending under the weight of her magic.
Then the sky splits.
A tear opens above her head like the ground split before, but it's nothing like the ragged holes the demons crawl through. It's a clean, circular rift of light. Inside it, shadows writhe and scream.
It's the main portal to the underworld.
The pull is immediate and violent, a roaring wind dragging everything toward that opening.
The demons begin to scream and screech.
The one strangling me howls and releases its grip, clawing at the ground as it’s dragged backward. I collapse, gasping, clinging to my wolf form to brace myself against theforce. My claws gouge the frozen soil, snow whipping around me in a cyclone of light and ash as the demons are pulled like they're being drawn by a magnetic force.
One by one, the demons are torn from the battlefield, their bodies twisting, their shrieks echoing through the mountains as they’re sucked into the portal. Their forms disintegrate, black smoke unraveling into the nothingness on the other side.
All except one.
