As if the words themselves had teeth, the void shifted.The cold nothingness around them cracked, light bleeding through.At first, it was only sparks—the acrid bite of gunpowder in Jacob’s nostrils, the metallic tang of blood coating his tongue, the ghost of fire in his lungs.The shadows of screams pressed in and then the darkness tore away entirely.
The battlefield erupted around them, vivid and merciless.Mud, blood, smoke, the thunder of muskets—all of it so real Jacob’s heart seized in his chest.It wasn’t a dream.It wasn’t a memory.It was as though the Fates themselves had pulled them back to the very moment everything had gone wrong.
Through the haze, Jacob could see Libby’s golden hair flashing as she ran and could hear her desperate cries over the chaos.The sight cut him open, raw and sharp.She was there—terrified, defiant, still fighting to reach them.And Matthew was there too, hands weaving death from air.
And then—another sound, faint but devastating.Sobbing.Not Libby’s.Softer, nearer, threading through the clash of the past.Willow.Jacob’s chest clenched as he realized their mate was seeing this too, bearing witness as the memory tore itself open.Her grief was braided into Libby’s cries, her pain folding into the battlefield like it belonged there.
“Jacob,”Liam’s voice was raw with disbelief,“this isn’t just memory.She’s here.With us.”
He felt it too.The echo of Willow’s presence, overlapping Libby’s anguish, like two lifetimes colliding.“She’s asleep,”Jacob whispered hoarsely,“and it’s nearly sunset.Our realities are blurring.She’s watching through us.The Fates are making her see.”
Willow’s sobs tangled with Libby’s cries as she burst from the trees: “No!Oh Goddess, please, I beg of you, don’t let this happen, please!”Her plea shook the very air.Jacob felt Willow flinch at the rawness of her own voice layered into Libby’s, as though past and present selves cried together.
The clearing was carnage—shifters and warlocks clashing, the dead strewn across the ground.Jacob and Liam fought, human still, forced from their wolf forms by the oppressive magic.Matthew waited among his councilors, his hands weaving dark red light, the stench of fire and death thick in the air.
Libby sprinted toward them, shouting, but too late.The killing spell split in two midair, striking both brothers in the back.The agony ripped through Jacob again, his body arching, his arms flung wide.Liam fell beside him and through the haze of pain Jacob heard Willow scream with Libby: their names, ripped from two throats across centuries.
They hit the ground.Libby’s hands scrabbled desperately to turn them over, her tears falling hot onto their skin.Willow’s sobs echoed her keening wail: “No!Goddess no!”The grief was unbearable, doubled and tripled until Jacob thought it would tear the world apart.
Libby laid her hands on them, whispering, “I will find you both, in the next life, I promise you.”Willow whispered it with her, voice breaking, as if the vow had lived in her bones all along.
Matthew’s footsteps pounded closer, his voice like venom: “This is your doing, Elizabet.This war could have been avoided if you had simply done as you were supposed to.Your father made an oath to me on the day of your birth, and you disgraced his memory when you thought you had the right to give yourself to these dogs.”
Libby rose, defiant through her tears.“The Fates made it clear I was destined to be mated to Liam and Jacob.My father turned his back on that as well.”
“You were not meant for these mongrels!”Matthew roared.“You are part of a larger plan.With our bond, I will become invincible!”
Libby spat her truth back: “There can be no bond with you!My bond with Jacob and Liam was formed the moment we met.And it was consummated two days ago.I am theirs forever.I will never be yours.”Willow’s sob turned fierce with pride, her spirit twining with Libby’s.
Matthew’s rage boiled over, his hand cracking across Libby’s face.She reeled but refused to fall, glaring at him with defiance that made Jacob’s dying heart swell.
Then came the curse.Words intoned with blood and hate:
“Hear me o lord, bind this woman to me,
With all that I am, this is what I decree!”
Jacob watched on helplessly as the tears streamed down her face.Although she screamed in horror, deep inside, she made no sound.
“With her death here and now, our time will begin,
With blood of my blood, the wheel of fate I will spin,”
Matthew removed a blade from the holder on his hip and sliced open his left hand.A steady stream of red flowed onto the ground beneath him.
“Blood of my blood, for it is my will,
Our lives be entwined, until my curse is fulfilled.”
Jacob felt Willow scream silently beside Libby, trapped in the spell’s grip.
Matthew’s blade gleamed as he raised it, his eyes burning with madness.“You may try to rid yourself of me, Elizabet, but I will never release you.You belong to me.”
Libby’s last words were fire: “I belong with Liam and Jacob!”
The blade swung and Willow’s cry shattered the vision as darkness swallowed them whole.
Jacob and Liam reeled, watching the memory through Willow’s sobs, her grief braided into Libby’s defiance.It was not just a vision—it was a wound and their mate bled with it even now.
