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Jacqueline’s face twisted with rage. “You ungrateful...”

“I’m done.” Carolina grabbed my hand, her grip tight and warm. “Come on, Logan. We’re leaving.”

“Carolina, don’t you dare...”

But Carolina was already pulling me toward the door, her steps quick and certain. I stumbled after her, the curse striking as we reached the threshold. My boot caught the edge, and I nearly fell, but Carolina caught me, held me up, kept me moving.

“Don’t look back,” she whispered. “Just run.”

We burst into the night, hand in hand, running from one of Arrhythmia’s most powerful witches, and I knew with absolute certainty that this was the moment everything changed.

We weren’t hiding anymore.

And there was no going back.

Chapter Eight

I didn’t go home that night.

After the gala, after grabbing Logan’s hand and running from my mother, after the most terrifying and liberating moment of my life, I couldn’t face the coven house. Couldn’t face my mother’s rage. Couldn’t face the questions, the accusations, the inevitable punishment.

I persuaded Logan to go home while I looked for a way to help him. Then I went back to the public library. Mother knew we’d met there, but the rare books were our best lead. I slipped through a side entrance, muffled my magic, and gave myself an hour to search before I moved on.

The rare books section was dark at midnight, but I didn’t need light. I had spells for that, small magics my mother considered beneath her attention, the kind of practical witchcraft that had always been my refuge.

I pulled volume after volume from the shelves. Curse-breaking. True love’s kiss. The intersection of vampire and witch bonds. Everything I’d been taught to ignore because it was “sentimental” or “fairy tale nonsense.”

My mother believed in power. In strength. In crushing your enemies before they could crush you. She’d never believed in love.

The more I read, the more I understood the text we’d found together. The bond could challenge the curse, but we still had to sever its coven anchor. A mating rite might give us enough power to reach it. Power we would have to raise together.

Through chosen, mutual love.

I slammed the book shut, my hands shaking. This was impossible. Dangerous. Everything I’d been raised to reject.

And yet.

I thought of Logan’s face when he’d nearly kissed me. The way he’d looked at me like I was the only thing in the world. The way he’d stood up to my mother even knowing what she could do to him.

He wasn’t clumsy or foolish. He was brave. And kind. And suffering for a mistake he’d made a year ago, when he was scared and overwhelmed and new to this life.

My mother had destroyed him for that. For being human in a moment of inhuman transition.

And I’d let everyone else laugh while I kept my head down.

The guilt hit me like a physical blow. I’d heard stories of the clumsy vampire stumbling around town, knocking things over, making a fool of himself. I’d heard the jokes, the whispers, the cruelty. I’d known it was wrong. I’d been too afraid of my mother to intervene, and keeping my distance had spared me from learning how much he was suffering.

Never let myself feel what I was feeling now.

The bond hummed in my chest, warm and insistent, pulling me toward him. I knew where he lived, a small apartment over the laundromat on Fifth Street. I knew he was probably there now, alone, wondering if he’d just signed his own death warrant by running with me.

I should stay away. For his safety. For my own.

Instead, I found myself walking through the dark streets, my heart pounding, my mother’s voice screaming in my head about duty and tradition and consequences.

I knocked on his door at 2 AM.

He answered in sweatpants and a faded T-shirt, his dark hair messy, his eyes wide with surprise. “Carolina?”