But calculation.
“Then the world would have learned why dragons once reshaped continents,” she says evenly. “But I didnotforesee you losing yourself.”
Scar shifts, his red eyes flicking between them. “That’s onehellof a gamble, witch.”
Her gaze slides to him briefly. “All evolution requires some level of risk.”
Scar rolls his eyes with a huff. “Fuck, now I remember why I despise witches!”
Raze steps forward, slow and deliberate, power coiling tight beneath his ribs instead of exploding outward. “You used Roxyto change me,” he says, voice rough with something that isn’t just anger. “You usedall of us!”
“I positioned you,” she replies again, softer this time. “Because the prince would never have revealed his hand otherwise. And because you would never have awakened what sleeps in your blood without something worth protectingmorethan your own rage.”
His breath leaves him in a slow, measured exhale. Fire settles beneath his skin, and ice draws inward, quiet and contained.
Balance holds.
“Next time…” he says quietly, each word deliberate, “… you ask before you turn my life into a prophecy.”
For the first time, her smile isn’t distant.
It’s approving… and a little wary.
“Perhaps…” she says, violet-gold light fading around her hands, “… you havefinallybecome someone worth negotiating with instead of controlling.”
I stare at her, seeing her clearly for the first time in my life. Not through the lens of abandonment and years of estrangement, but with the understanding that comes from perceiving the scope of her existence. She operates on timescales that make human emotion seem fleeting and inconsequential, manipulating centuries like chess pieces to achieve outcomes she’s already foreseen.
She turns to me, tilting her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were never meant to connect like this, Roxy.”
“But I did,” I say quietly, finding my voice despite exhaustion pulling at consciousness. “I fell in love with him. Broke your carefully constructed plans. Madeeverythingcomplicated.”
Her smile deepens, carrying satisfaction underneath approval. “Yes… you did. And in doing so, you forced him to achieve balance faster, under more extreme circumstances, than I could have orchestrated through centuries of carefulmanipulation.” She glances between us, ancient power recognizing something that defied even her predictions. “You became the catalyst he needed. And he became the purpose you were searching for… even if you didn’t know it yet.”
“You used us.” Raze’s accusation cuts through the moment, frost exploding across the floor in jagged patterns.
“I gave you bothexactlywhat you needed, even if I didn’t fully understand it,” my mother corrects without flinching. “A chance to become more than what you were. To evolve beyond the limitations of curse and mortality into something greater.” Her gaze settles on me again, and this time there’s genuine emotion underneath the ancient authority. “You’ve proven yourself, daughter. Both of you have.”
The room goes quiet except for the ragged breathing of wounded brothers and the crackle of Raze’s fire and ice grinding together beneath increasingly thin control.
Then she speaks again, and her words change everything. “The curse is lifted.”
The words land with the weight of absolute finality, reverberating through the clubhouse in ways that have nothing to do with volume and everything to do with the fundamental shift in reality they represent.
Raze goes utterly still beside me, the kind of motionless that suggests shock so profound it temporarily overrides even dragon instinct. His hand on my face trembles fractionally before he catches himself, frost and fire spiraling together beneath his skin in patterns that speak of disbelief warring with desperate hope.
“What?” The word comes out rough, scraped raw by three centuries of carrying a curse he never thought would lift.
“You’ve mastered yourself,” my mother says, her voice carrying the resonance of ancient magic, recognizing completion. “Fire and ice in balance. Rage and peace coexist. And now you’ve tempered the voidfire within you. You’re nolonger the dragon who burned villages and drowned in fury.” She takes another step closer, power rippling outward with the movement. “You can wield elements at will. Transform freely. You are no longer bound by my magic.”
Around the room, the brothers exchange glances laden with cautious disbelief. Scar’s red eyes track between the witch and Raze with five centuries of vampire cunning, weighing her words for deception and finding none. Wreck shifts against the far wall, hollow gaze fixed on their president with something that might be hope flickering behind the hunger. Even Maul’s Werewolf form settles fractionally, muscles no longer coiled for immediate violence.
They want to believe this is real.
We all do.
But three hundred years of curse and consequence have taught Raze to question gifts that seem too perfect, too complete, too much like salvation offered without cost.
“There’s always a price,” he says, his voice carries the bitter weight of experience. Fire flares beneath his skin, brighter now and stronger, as if testing the boundaries of what the witch claims he can do. “What do you want?”
