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I found Logan in the town square, surrounded by a crowd of laughing supes, blood running from his forehead where he’d hit the ground after tripping over nothing. He couldn’t get up. The curse had made his legs useless, jelly, unable to support his weight.

He looked at me through the crowd, his eyes hollow with humiliation, and I felt my heart shatter.

My mother had done this. And I was going to stop her.

No matter what it cost.

Chapter Nine

I was drowning in humiliation.

Ten nights since the Halloween gala. Seven nights of stolen hours, whispered confessions, and pretending the High Priestess wasn’t winding up to ruin our lives. Three days since my legs had failed in the town square and Carolina had helped Mack get me home. Three days since I’d shut her out, somehow made everything impossibly worse.

The curse had evolved beyond mere clumsiness. It had become something darker, more insidious, more cruel. My legs worked randomly, unpredictably. One moment I’d be standing, balanced and careful, and the next they’d buckle beneath me without warning. I’d spent the last seventy-two hours in my apartment, too ashamed to face the world, too broken to try.

Mack’s check-ins came twice a day. I answered just enough to keep him from breaking down the door, assured him I was feeding, and lied about how well I was managing. The sensor outside stayed quiet. Apparently, the curse could keep dismantling me without producing another dramatic surge.

I’d crawled to the bathroom. Crawled to the kitchen. Crawled to my bed like an infant, dragging my useless limbs behind me while my dead heart hammered with humiliation I couldn’t escape.

Carolina had been texting. Calling. Pounding on my door at all hours.

I’d ignored her. Every message, every call, every desperate knock. I couldn’t let her see me like this: paralyzed, helpless, less than I’d ever been. I couldn’t bear for the woman I loved, the witch who’d chosen me, to watch me crawl on hands and knees while she stood powerful and whole.

What kind of mate was I? What kind of man?

I lay on my couch at 2 AM, staring at the water stains on my ceiling, cataloging my failures. The curse had taken everything: my pride, my dignity, my ability to stand beside her as an equal. And now it was taking my last reason to fight.

I heard the lock click.

Not a knock. Not a demand. Just the soft snick of the deadbolt turning, the creak of the door opening. I’d given her a key that first week, when she’d been coming over with blood and books and comfort. Until now, she’d respected my demand to be left alone. Hearing her use it broke something inside me.

“Logan?” Her voice came from the doorway, pitched low with worry and something else.

Determination.

“Go away.” My voice was rough, scraped raw from three days of barely speaking. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

I heard her steps crossing the room, felt the air shift as she knelt beside the couch where I lay. She didn’t touch me. Not yet. She just hovered there, close enough that I could smell her: jasmine and ozone, wild and perfect as always.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said. “When you wouldn’t answer your phone, when you stopped responding to texts, I thought...” She paused, her breath catching. “I thought she’d gotten inside. That she’d done something worse. That I’d find you...” She couldn’t finish.

“You found me,” I said bitterly. “The broken vampire. The pathetic, paralyzed disaster. Is this what you wanted to see? Is this what you chose when you picked me over everything else?”

“Stop it.” Her voice was fierce now, sharp as broken glass. “Don’t you dare do that. Don’t you dare make my choice into something foolish because you’re hurting.”

I turned my head to look at her. She was beautiful even like this: pale and exhausted, her red hair wild around her shoulders, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. But determined. God, she was determined.

“I can’t even stand,” I said, the admission tearing out of me. “How can I be your mate when I can’t even stand beside you? When I can’t walk? When I can’t...”

“I found a chance,” she interrupted.

I stared at her.

“I’ve been in my mother’s private library for three days,” she continued, her words rushing out. “Digging through books she thinks I don’t know about. Forbidden texts. Ancient rituals. I found a way that we might be able to break the curse, Logan. Tonight. Permanently. If we’re willing, and if we move before she realizes what we’re doing.”

“How?” My voice was barely a whisper.

She drew in a deep breath, her hands trembling where they rested on her knees. “True love can challenge the curse, but there’s a stronger way.” Her eyes met mine, dark and serious in the dim light. “Consummation. The full mating ritual. When the bond seals, the magic will recognize us as true mates in every sense. For that instant, it should overwhelm the curse and expose the anchor feeding it. If we sever the anchor before my mother feels what’s happening, the curse dies permanently.”