My mother’s smile thins, becoming something sharp and pitiless. “Not a price. A choice.” Her gaze shifts from Raze to me, locking onto my face with intensity that makes my depleted magic stir weakly in response. “To stay with him, Roxanne, you must fully embrace what you are. No more half measures. No more clinging to humanity like a security blanket you’ve outgrown.”
My heart slams against my ribs hard enough to bruise. The air in my lungs suddenly feels too thin, each breath coming shallow and quick as understanding crashes over me in waves. She’s not talking about accepting that magic exists or learning to use the power I’ve inherited through her bloodline. She’s not offeringme a choice between staying and leaving, between this world and the human one I left behind...
She’s talking abouttransformation.
Fundamental, irrevocable, the kind of change that rewrites you down to the cellular level and leaves nothing of what you were behind except memory and regret.
“You want me to become a witch,” I force out through a throat that wants to close around the words. “Full magic? Immortal? Leave humanity behind completely?”
“Yes.” The confirmation lands without hesitation or softening. “The magic flowing through your bloodline is ancient, powerful, but diluted by mortal ancestry. If you choose to stay, if you choose him…” she gestures toward Raze, still crouched beside me, fire and ice warring beneath his skin, “… I’ll perform the ritual that should have been performed at your birth. You’ll become what you werealwaysmeant to be.” She pauses, letting the weight of it settle, letting me comprehendexactlywhat she’s offering and what it will cost. “But understand, daughter. There isnocoming back from this. You’ll watch every human you’ve ever known age and die while you remain unchanged. You’ll see centuries pass like seasons, empires rise and fall, the world transform beyond recognition around you.” Her ancient eyes hold mine without mercy or comfort. “You’ll become something other than human. You will be…forever.”
The silence that follows presses down like a physical weight.
Around the room, the club brothers watch with expressions ranging from sympathy to understanding to the kind of grim acceptance that comes from living through this exact situation themselves. They know what immortality costs, what it means to exist outside mortal timeframes, to watch everything you’ve ever known crumble into dust while you endure.
Scar’s red eyes meet mine, five centuries of vampire existence written into his gaze, knowledge about exactly what this lifeentails. Wreck’s hollow stare carries the weight of wendigo hunger that never ends, never satisfied, stretching into forever. Even Ash, Luna, and Ivy, the women who’ve lived for lifetimes already, watch me with a mixture of sympathy and recognition.
They understand what I’m choosing.
What I’m giving up.
What I’ll become.
Raze’s grip on me loosens fractionally, giving me space to step away if I need to, his entire body rigid with tension that speaks to barely contained emotion. When he speaks, his voice comes out rough, scraped raw by something that sounds uncomfortably close to grief. “You don’t have to do this. I can find another way. There’s always—”
“No.” The word cuts through his protest before he can build momentum, firm and certain despite the trembling starting in my hands. I push myself to be more upright on the sofa, ignoring the way my body protests the movement, the way exhaustion claws at the edges of consciousness, demanding rest I can’t afford yet. “There’s no other way. You know that. She knows that.” I glance at my mother, seeing acknowledgment in her ancient expression. “This was always where we were heading.”
“Roxy…” He starts again, and I hear the fear underneath the frost, the terror of being responsible for this choice, for fundamentally altering what I am because of what we’ve become to each other.
I reach up, pressing my palm against his chest, feeling fire and ice spiral together beneath my hand in patterns that speak of balance hard-won and fiercely protected. My magic responds despite its depleted state, stirring weakly but present, recognizing something in him that resonates with the power flowing through my bloodline.
“I chooseyou,” I tell him, pouring every ounce of certainty into the words, making sure he understands this isn’t a sacrificeor surrender but a genuine choice made with open eyes. “I choose this life. I choose this family.” My voice strengthens as conviction settles into my bones like recognition of something I’ve always known but refused to acknowledge. “I’m not losing you because I was too afraid to let go of something I left behind the moment I walked into this clubhouse and saw your flame dying in that crystal dome.”
His breath catches, frost and fire both surging beneath his skin in visible patterns.
“I was never meant for a normal life,” I continue, the truth of it resonating through every word. “I spent years chasing wild places and dangerous situations because something inside me knew I didn’t belong in the human world. I just didn’t understand why until now.” I step closer despite my body’s protests, closing the distance he tried to give me. “I belong here. With you. With them. In this world of monsters, magic, and impossible things that shouldn’t exist but do anyway.”
Around the room, the brothers go perfectly still, witnessing something that matters in ways they won’t articulate but will remember.
Scar speaks first, his voice carrying the weight of someone who’s lived through empires rising and falling, who’s watched centuries blur together until individual years become meaningless. “Immortality is both a gift and a curse, little witch.” Red eyes hold mine with brutal honesty, refusing to soften the reality of what I’m choosing. “The years blur. People become ghosts. You’ll lose more than you can imagine.” He pauses, ancient knowledge weighing each word. “But if anyone can handle it… you can.”
I hold his gaze for a long moment, acknowledging the truth in his warning and the weight underneath it. Then I turn back to my mother, squaring my shoulders despite exhaustion pulling atevery muscle and the bone-deep fatigue that wants to drag me under.
“Do it,” I tell her, my voice steady despite my heart slamming against my ribs hard enough to crack bone. “Perform the ritual. Make me what I should have been from the beginning.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ROXY
My mom studies me for several heartbeats, ancient eyes searching for doubt, hesitation, or any sign that I don’t fully comprehend the magnitude of what I’m choosing. Her gaze dissects me with clinical precision, weighing conviction against fear, measuring certainty against the very human instinct to cling to what’s familiar even when it no longer fits.
But I meet her stare without flinching, magic stirring stronger now despite its depleted state, responding to my conviction with the first genuine surge of power I’ve felt since collapsing the portal.
Finally, slowly, she nods once. “Very well.”
She moves to the center of the room with grace that suggests she’s existed long enough to forget how humans walk, each step deliberate and weighted with purpose that transcends simple movement. Her hands lift, fingers beginning to trace patterns in the air that leave glowing sigils in their wake, symbols that predate language forming in the space between her palms.
The temperature doesn’t drop or rise, but power builds with each gesture, ancient magic responding to her call in ways that make the air vibrate with potential. The brothers shift uneasily, instincts screaming warnings about forces beyond their comprehension gathering in their space, but none of them move to interfere.
