ARIA'S POV
"We have to run. Now."
Kaine grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door. Through our bond, I feel his panic mixing with my own terror.
Damien has a detonation crystal. If he uses it, everyone dies—including us because of the stupid ritual connection.
"Wait!" I dig my heels in. "How do we even find him? The eastern border is huge!"
"I can track him through the bond." Kaine's eyes glow silver. "The same connection that will kill us can lead us to him."
We race through the fortress halls. Warriors scramble everywhere, preparing for the dawn attack. They don't know about this new threat—the enemy already inside our walls.
Thane meets us at the main gates. "I've got twenty warriors ready to—"
"No," Kaine interrupts. "Too many people will spook him. He'll detonate immediately. Just us."
"That's suicide!"
"Everything about tonight is suicide." Kaine shifts into his Lycan form—the massive, terrifying beast that should scare me but doesn't anymore. He kneels. "Get on my back, Aria. We'll move faster."
I climb onto his back, gripping his fur. The moment I settle, he launches forward into the night.
Trees blur past. Cold wind stings my face. Through the bond, I feel Kaine following an invisible thread that connects us to Damien. The thread pulses with Damien's hatred and pain and desperate need to destroy everything.
"Why would he do this?" I shout over the wind. "He wanted my power. Why throw it all away?"
Kaine can't answer in this form, but through the bond, I feel his thoughts: *Because he'd rather die than see you happy with someone else. Some wolves are just broken that way.*
We run for twenty minutes before Kaine slows. Ahead, a figure stands at the edge of a cliff, holding something that glows with sick green light.
Damien.
He looks terrible. His clothes are torn from his escape. Blood drips from wounds on his arms. But his eyes—his eyes burn with madness.
"I knew you'd come," he calls out. "Couldn't resist saving me, could you? Because if I die, you die."
Kaine shifts back to human form. I slide off his back, my legs shaking.
"Put down the crystal," Kaine says calmly. "We can talk about this."
"Talk?" Damien laughs, and the sound is broken. "What's there to talk about? You took everything from me. My mate, my power, my future. The ritual connected us, but it gave YOU her abilities. I'm left with nothing."
"You did this to yourself," I say, finding my voice. "You rejected me. You abused me. You tried to steal my power by force. Every bad thing that happened is because of choices YOU made."
"I made mistakes!" Damien's hand tightens on the crystal. "But I was going to fix them. I was going to make you Luna. Give you everything. And you chose HIM instead—a monster who's killed hundreds!"
"He's never hurt me," I say quietly. "In two days, he's shown me more kindness than you did in four years."
"Because he wants something from you!"
"Maybe. But at least he's honest about it." I take a step forward. "Damien, please. Put down the crystal. If you die, I die. Is that really what you want? To kill me?"
For a moment, something human flickers in his eyes. Regret, maybe. Or the memory of what we could have been if he'd made different choices.
Then it's gone, replaced by cold determination.
"If I can't have you," he says, "no one can. At least this way, we'll be together in death."
He raises the crystal.
"NO!" I scream.
Power explodes from me—not the Moon's Chosen command, but something deeper. Something that comes from pure desperation.
Silver light wraps around Damien, freezing him in place. The crystal stops inches from the ground.
I stare at my hands in shock. "How did I—?"
"The bond," Kaine breathes. "You're using my power through our connection. We can share abilities now."
Through the silver light holding Damien, I feel his struggle. He's strong—alpha strong. I don't know how long I can hold him.
"Kaine, what do we do?" My voice shakes. "I can't hold this forever!"
"We need to break the ritual connection. Separate the three of us so his death won't kill you." Kaine moves closer to Damien. "But the only person who knows how is—"
"The Moon Priestess," a familiar voice says.
We spin around. The Priestess stands behind us like she appeared from nowhere. Her moon-eyes glow in the darkness.
"I felt the ritual bond activating," she says. "Sloppy work, that ritual. It connected all three of you when it should have only connected two."
"Can you break it?" I beg, my arms trembling from holding Damien. "Please?"
"Breaking it is possible. But it requires a sacrifice." The Priestess looks between us. "One of you must give up something precious. Something you can never get back."
"What kind of sacrifice?" Kaine demands.
"That depends on who volunteers." The Priestess walks in a slow circle around us. "If Damien sacrifices, he must give up his alpha power forever. Become omega—the rank he despises most. If Aria sacrifices, she must give up her Moon's Chosen abilities. Return to being powerless. If Kaine sacrifices—" She pauses. "—he must give up his immortality. Become mortal with a human lifespan."
My heart stops. Those aren't just sacrifices. They're life-destroying choices.
"I'll do it," Damien says suddenly. Through my silver bonds, I feel his sincerity. "I'll give up my alpha power. Just save them. Please."
I stare at him in shock. "Why would you—?"
"Because I loved you once. Really loved you, before pride and fear twisted it into something ugly." His eyes meet mine, and for the first time in years, I see the boy who was my mate before everything went wrong. "I can't undo the pain I caused. But I can do this one good thing. Let me do this, Aria. Let me save you."
Tears burn my eyes. Part of me wants to hate him forever. But another part—the part that remembers hoping he'd love me back—feels something break and heal at the same time.
"The choice is made," the Priestess says. She touches her staff to the ground. "Damien Silvercrest, you sacrifice your alpha power to break this bond. So it shall be."
Light explodes from the staff.
I feel the ritual connection snap. The thread linking me to Damien dissolves like smoke. Through my bond with Kaine, I feel the same separation happening to him.
We're free.
But Damien screams as his alpha power is ripped away. He falls to his knees, the crystal rolling from his hand. I catch it before it hits the ground.
When Damien looks up, his eyes are no longer alpha yellow. They're plain brown. Human. Powerless.
"It's done," the Priestess says. "The bond is broken. His death will no longer affect you."
Damien stares at his hands like he doesn't recognize them. "I can't feel my wolf. I can't feel anything. What am I now?"
"Omega," the Priestess says simply. "The lowest rank. Just like Aria was."
The irony isn't lost on anyone.
Kaine picks up the detonation crystal carefully. "Guards will take you back to your cell. You'll face trial for your crimes. But because you saved Aria's life with your sacrifice, I'll speak on your behalf. You won't be executed."
Damien nods numbly. He looks broken in a way that has nothing to do with physical wounds.
Warriors arrive to escort him away. As they lead him past me, he stops.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "For everything. I know it doesn't fix anything. But I'm sorry."
I don't know what to say. So I just nod.
When he's gone, I collapse against Kaine. The crystal is safe. The bond is broken. We're alive.
"It's over," I breathe. "Finally over."
"Not quite." Kaine's voice is grim. "Dawn is in two hours. The army still comes. Two thousand wolves who want us dead."
Right. The war. I'd almost forgotten about that.
"But first," Kaine says gently, "you need to eat. When was the last time you had a real meal?"
I can't remember. Days ago, maybe? Back in Silvercrest, omegas ate scraps after everyone else finished.
"Come." Kaine takes my hand. "Let's get breakfast. Then we prepare for battle."
The word "breakfast" sounds strange. Foreign. Like something that happens to other people, not to me.
But Kaine leads me back to the fortress, to his private dining room where food waits on the table. Real food—bread and eggs and fruit and things I've only dreamed about.
"Sit," he says, pulling out a chair.
I sit because I don't know what else to do. Kaine sits across from me and starts filling a plate.
"How much do you want?" he asks.
The question confuses me. "I don't understand."
"How hungry are you? What do you like?" He looks at me curiously. "You get to choose, Aria. That's how meals work."
Choose. That word again. The word I'm still learning means something different now.
"I don't know what I like," I admit quietly. "Omegas ate whatever was left. We didn't get choices."
Kaine goes very still. Then he sets down the plate and looks at me with those ice-blue eyes that see too much.
"Tell me," he says softly. "Tell me what your life was really like."
And somehow, sitting in this quiet room with food I'm allowed to eat and a man who actually wants to listen, the words start flowing.
I tell him about scrubbing floors until my hands bled. About eating moldy bread because that's all that was left. About sleeping on a thin mat in a basement with rats. About the beatings and the mockery and the constant reminder that I was nothing.
With each word, the temperature in the room drops. Frost spreads across the walls. Kaine's eyes glow brighter.
"How long?" he asks when I finish. His voice is deadly quiet. "How long did this happen?"
"Seventeen years. From when my parents died until the mate bond snapped with Damien."
"And then?"
"Then it got worse. Because I hoped it would get better, and hope makes everything hurt more when it's crushed."
Kaine stands abruptly. His chair crashes backward. Power radiates from him—my power and his combined, making the whole room shake.
"They will pay," he says. Each word is a promise. "Every single wolf who hurt you will answer for it. I swear this on my life."
"Kaine—"
"No." He looks at me, and I've never seen anyone so angry. "You deserved safety. Love. Protection. And they gave you torture instead. That debt will be paid."
Through our bond, I feel his rage. But underneath it, something else. Something that feels like—
The door bursts open.
Sera runs in, her face white with terror. "My king! The scouts just returned. The army isn't coming at dawn."
"What?" Kaine demands.
"They're already here. Three thousand wolves, not two thousand. They've surrounded the fortress." Sera's voice shakes. "And they brought something worse. They brought the Vampire King."
My blood turns to ice. Vampires hate both werewolves and Lycans. They've stayed neutral for centuries.
"Why would vampires join this fight?" I whisper.
Sera meets my eyes. "Because Elder Marcus promised them something in exchange for their help. He promised them you, Aria. The last Moon's Chosen. They want to study your blood to create daywalking vampires. And they're willing to burn down Ashenfort to get you."