Hugo meowed indignantly and Willow laughed.
“Oh really?You think sass will get you extra?Nice try, fuzzball.”
The tiny cat meowed again in reply and Liam caught Jacob’s grin.
“She talks to him like he understands every word,” Jacob said, shaking his head.
Liam smiled, a warmth spreading through him that had nothing to do with magic.“Maybe he does.”
The clink of bowls and Willow’s lilting laugh drifted toward them.Liam closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it.When she walked in, carrying the easy grace of someone who had already claimed both his soul and his brother’s, he nearly forgot how to breathe.Her beauty wasn’t just physical—it was the quiet strength in her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw and the softness she offered despite everything she had endured.
She sat between them without hesitation, slipping her hands into theirs.Liam felt the world settle inside him.Jacob shifted closer, their mate pressed warm and real between them.Ursula watched from the armchair across the room, her smile touched with joy, sorrow and something else Liam couldn’t quite name.Longing, maybe.Or memory.
Hugo padded in a moment later, leaping up onto the windowsill and curling against the glass, tail twitching as he stared at the city lights beyond.The quiet tableau broke only when Willow spoke.
“The curse,” she quavered.“We need to talk about it.”
Ursula nodded and, with a flick of her fingers, summoned the words as though plucking them from memory.She recited slowly, each syllable thick with weight:
“Hear me, O Lord, bind this woman to me,
With all that I am, this is what I decree.
With her death here and now, our time will begin,
With blood of my blood, the wheel of fate I will spin.”
Liam’s jaw tightened, but Ursula kept going.“Matthew cut his hand.The blood sealed it.And then—” she lifted her chin, eyes hard.“—there was more.”
Her voice dropped into a cadence not entirely her own, as though she were channeling the echo of that night:
“Blood of my blood, for it is my will,
Our lives be entwined, until my curse is fulfilled.”
Ursula sent them a sad smile."Here is where he killed you, Willow.But there was more to it."Liam looked at his brother and his mate and they shared the same shocked expression he had no doubt was on his face.There was more?
Ursula continued:
“No mortal man shall end my life,
Nor blade nor bullet nor beast in strife.
With each rebirth my power remains,
Across all lives, my will sustains.
And should this curse endure unbroken,
All shifter spirits shall be stolen.
No howl nor claw, no wolf shall rise,
An end to beasts beneath the skies.
Their strength undone, their souls set free,
As is my will, so mote it be.”
