Bound by night, the beast shall die,
No more howl beneath the sky.”
Saffron let her own magic rise, golden threads spilling from her fingertips, weaving themselves unseen into the black tapestry of his curse.She whispered her own words through her tears, rhyming with grief, her voice at a counterpoint.
“By blood and bone, by grief and flame,
The line shall sleep, but not in shame.
Latents live, though wolves may fall,
The blood endures, it answers all.”
She bound the spell with her grief, her blood, the jagged edges of her pain, forcing her essence into it so that it could never fully belong to him.She twisted it, bent it, carved a loophole into its heart.Wolves who already bore their forms would fall tonight, but the latents would live.Their blood would carry on until the curse was broken and Libby and her wolves found each other in another life.The line would endure, though dormant.
Her eyes caught a movement—Matthew pulling a talisman from his cloak, holding it aloft.The stone, a druid stone, pulsed with dark energy as the Council’s voices rose.
“Through the stone, the path is mine,
To future days beyond this time.”
His form began to blur, phasing out of this age.Terror struck, but Saffron reached further into her magic, threading herself into that stone, binding part of her will to it.She wove her own counter-spell with shaking voice.
“Stone may guide, but it shall bind,
Carry me forward, soul entwined.
If he endures, then so shall I,
My will resists, it will not die.”
If it aided him in another age, it would also carry her defiance, her tether, her silent war.She poured every last shred of herself into the weave, vowing that if the stone endured, so too would her resistance.
Her final voice rose in broken rhyme.
“With blood I bind, with grief I see,
In life or death my mates with me.
Our souls entwined, forever free,
As is my will, so mote it be.”
The ground shook.A scream ripped through the night as the curse took hold.Ryan staggered, eyes wide as if the light had been ripped from him.Alaric followed, his great frame folding silently to the ground.Both of them collapsed at her feet, their bodies lifeless, the bond between them tearing from her soul like flesh from bone.
“No!”Her cry split the night.She dropped to her knees, gathering their faces in her hands, kissing their cooling lips, her tears falling unchecked.She had chosen this.She had damned herself.And still, the pain was unbearable.
Her knife was in her hand before she knew it, the sharp edge kissing her skin.Better to follow them.Better to end this agony.Her hand trembled as she raised the blade to her heart.
And then the world stilled.
Moonlight spilled across the battlefield, though the sky was dark.The Goddess herself appeared before her, cloaked in silver radiance, her gaze tender and terrible all at once.
“You would take your life,” the Goddess said softly, “when you have already given everything?”
Saffron’s breath hitched.“They are gone.My mates.My heart.What is left for me?”
The Goddess’s hand brushed her cheek, cool and strong.“Your strength.Your sacrifice.You wove yourself into the curse to save the future of shifters.That choice was not unnoticed.But your task is not done.Walk this earth, Saffron.Endure the centuries.When the curse is broken, when the balance is restored, you will be reunited with them.And their future will be yours again.”
