Epilogue
The city pulsed below, neon and noise painting the dawn, but on the rooftop of Ursula’s warded building, time itself felt paused.Saffie leaned against the railing, curls whipping in the wind, mismatched eyes gleaming with starlight and shadow.Ursula handed her a glass of wine, her expression a fragile balance of triumph and grief.
“To victory,” Ursula said softly.
Saffie accepted but her throat tightened around the words.“To survival.”The toast left a bitter taste, like ash, but she drank anyway.They clinked glasses, the sound sharp in the silence that followed.
“You should be celebrating,” Ursula pressed gently.“Marcus is gone.The curse is broken.Shifters are returning.Balance is on its way back.”
Saffie laughed, a hollow, brittle sound.“Celebration?You think that’s what this feels like?”She set the wine aside with trembling fingers.“Do you have any idea what it cost me to do this?To weave myself into the curse, to counter it just enough to drag us forward through centuries?”
Ursula’s eyes softened.“I know it cost you your mates.”
Memory carved through her chest like a blade.Saffie’s arms wrapped around herself as if she could hold her heart inside.“They were everything to me.In 1813, I had them.My bond.My heart.I had to let them die, Ursula.I had to stand there as they blessed me to do it, knowing I would live lifetimes without them.Do you know what it is to kiss someone goodbye, knowing it’s forever—not because the fates said so, but because you chose it for the sake of others?”
The rooftop was quiet but for the hum of the wards.“Every time I close my eyes, I see them falling.Their blood on my hands.Their voices promising me strength when mine was already gone.”Her voice cracked, jagged as glass.“I didn’t just lose them once.I’ve lost them in every lifetime since.Because I knew what I had, I knew what I was missing.That’s the curse, Ursula.Not what Marcus did.What I did to myself to keep the world alive.”
Ursula reached out, resting her hand on Saffie’s arm.“I never had it.I can imagine, but I never knew.You loved.You lost.That is harder than never knowing at all.”
Saffie turned toward her, words trembling on her lips—but Ursula was gone.The chair sat empty, only the wineglass left behind.The night wind bit harder, wrapping Saffie in solitude.She hugged her arms tight.“The battle may have been won,” she whispered, “but the war has only just begun.”
****
Miles away, in a crampedQueens apartment, two brothers stumbled from their separate bedrooms into the narrow lounge, breathless and shaken.Isaac and Nolan King looked to each other for help, but tonight the fire burned differently.It consumed them.
Agony ripped through muscle and bone.They collapsed to the floor, gasping, clutching each other as claws burst from fingertips and spines cracked into new shapes.Clothes tore as bodies remade themselves.Isaac’s scream broke into a howl, Nolan’s answering it with a low, feral note that rattled the windows.
Two massive wolves—grey as storm clouds—stood panting in the wreckage of their living room.Their eyes glowed with golden light, recognition striking them like lightning.They weren’t just brothers.They were shifters.And they had just awakened to a truth older than time.
Mist coiled around them, thick and silvered, carrying the scent of moonlight.The lounge dissolved and they found themselves standing beneath an endless night sky.The Goddess of the Moon, veiled in light, stood above them, her presence heavy with power and promise.And through the veil came two figures—broad-shouldered, strong, familiar in a way that struck deep into marrow.They were Ryan and Alaric King.
Isaac knew the truth in his bones—he had been Ryan in another life and Nolan, his brother beside him, had been Alaric.Past lives remembered, souls reborn.The love and loyalty they had once carried for their brothers and their mate still burned inside them, unchanged by centuries.Their voices rolled like thunder in the mist.
We gave our lives for you.For all who would come after.Protect what was nearly lost.Find her.Protect her.She is yours as you are hers.
Nolan’s breath hitched, his wolf straining toward the vision.Her?His mind filled with an image—wild curls, mismatched green and gold eyes, a smile that ached with recognition.Saffie.
Ryan’s voice was edged with sorrow.She was ours once.Our coven elder.She stood against the curse when none of us could.To protect balance, she severed herself from us and had to watch us die, our wolves ripped from us while she lived on.Do you know what that does to a soul?To walk centuries without the arms of your mates, without their warmth, knowing they gave her their blessing to survive?She carries that wound even now.
Isaac’s fur bristled, anger lancing through his chest.She’s been alone this whole time?His wolf howled low, vibrating with grief.We’ve felt her in our dreams, but we never knew it was pain we were hearing.We never knew she was real and that she was waiting for us to find her.
