“You’re not losing me,” Nebula murmured thickly. “You’re setting me free, and I’ll always be with you.”
“I love you,” I choked out, tears pouring down my cheeks. I barely registered my mates putting their hands on me in support.
“I love you, Pandora, and thank you for doing this for me,” his disembodied voice echoed through the tunnels, wrapping around my heart with a suffocating kind of strength.
My magic surged, wrenching from my mouth in large clouds. It covered Nebula’s skull, covering the dark magic festering there—along with his soul.
Nebula didn’t cry out, but I felt his agony, the tearing of his soul from its cursed prison. The dark magic didn’t want to let him go. It was a brutal, merciless severing to tear the curse from his soul. His essence writhed, tangled in the dark magic that fought, clawed, and refused to let him go.
But I didn’t give it a chance. My magic devoured the dark essence, gulping it down in hot, burning waves. It filled me, and my power destroyed the dark magic and the curse like it was nothing.
My body convulsed as Nebula’s soul crashed into mine, an explosion of searing light detonating inside my rib cage.
I gasped, my vision blackening at the edges as his power merged with mine, fusing into the very fabric of my being, filling my reserves in a permanent kind of way. My veins pulsed with raw energy, tripling, surging beyond anything I had ever known.
But none of it mattered because Nebula was gone.
Tears blurred my vision. A broken sob tore from my throat as I clutched his empty, soulless skull to my chest. It was cold now—a mere remnant of someone I loved deeply.
“He’s free,” I choked out, my voice splintering under the weight of my grief. “Sybil can’t use him anymore.”
“You gave him peace.” Hunter pried Nebula’s skull from my shaking hands, his own fingers trembling as he tucked his skull away in his bag. “I’ll keep him safe.”
Grimsworn exhaled, his glowing eyes scanning me with something between awe and wariness. “You’re powerful, Pandora. More than ever. Nebula seems to have literally given you his power in a way familiars only can do with their witches or warlocks when they pass on. You may even be stronger than your father now. Perhaps almost on par with me.”
My tears streamed faster down my cheeks as my throat burned.He was with me still—in some way.
Bram’s hand landed gently on my shoulder, love and comfort stemming from his matebond. “You freed him.That’swhat matters.”
Skel turned his face away as his hand shook on my back. “It’s what he wanted,” he croaked.
Reed’s voice was quieter than the rest, but just as thick with sadness. “He did it for you. For all of us.”
Dex clenched his fists, his jaw tight with fury I resonated with. “Let’s make sure his sacrifice wasn’t in vain. We have to kill the dark magic bitch.”
I wiped my tears, inhaling sharply, pushing past the ache lodged deep in my soul. “Yes,” I rasped, pushing the agony vibrating my soul back. “We end this tonight.”
Together, we turned to the temple doors and pushed them open.
Dark Veil was going to be dismantled. Tonight.
55
PANDORA
The Temple of the Veil was an ancient catacomb lined with bones and engraved with dark magic sigils and circles. Flickering black candles hung on the walls, casting dripping, flickering shadows as the cracks in the walls oozed dark magic.
Sybil Shaw stood at the center of a massive dark magic circle, surrounded by hooded cultists chanting in a low, thrumming tone that seemed to echo through the very walls, forcing more and more dark magic out. Beneath her, she straddled a crack in the floor that was filled with dark magic, almost like it was a portal linking the Veil to Kalista.
My heart rate spiked as I noticed it.
At the center of the dark magic circle before the portal started was an altar holding a bloodstone, which glowed with an intense, pulsing crimson light—a bloodstone thathadto be Grayson Haven’s. It wasdrenchedin dark magic. There was no soul in it at all, just a harborer of volatile dark magic.
“Welcome to the show, Bones and friends!” Sybil reached over the altar and pulled out the bloodstone as it pulsed with the blood of Grayson, the dark magic from the broken rejected bond between Grayson and Wren and the dark magic Sybil must’ve infused it with. “I honestly thought Rod and his friend would’ve killed you and your mates by now.”
“Shadowheart’s dead and so is Hemlock,” Dex spat, anger vibrating off him as his shadows curled around us.
“Clearly, I’ve overestimated him and underestimated you and your mates,” she cackled. “Oh, well. I have higher hopes for this.” She held the bloodstone up for us to see. “I was thrilled when the rejected bond was broken, and I felt it when dark magic was used to do it five decades ago. The pretty little arctic fox just wanted to be free from the egotistical arctic wolf—but she and her witchy friend didn’t know I’d been in wait for anyone else to use a dark magic ritual that would backfire enough dark magic into the world that I could start Dark Veil.”
