Celeste's POV
I slammed the door in Damien Ashcroft's perfect face and locked it.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely turn the deadbolt. Murdered. Mom was murdered. The shadows across the street were getting closer. My magic was screaming at me to run, fight, do something—
"Celeste, please." Damien's voice came through the door, calm and controlled. "I can protect you, but you have to let me explain."
"Go away!" I pressed my back against the door, breathing too fast. Silver light crackled around my fingers. "I don't know you. I don't trust you. And I definitely don't believe—"
Glass shattered somewhere in the back of the shop.
I spun around, magic flooding through me in a wave of panic. Someone was breaking in through the storage room. The figures from across the street—they weren't waiting anymore.
"Celeste!" Damien pounded on the door. "Let me in! Now!"
I couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. More glass breaking. Footsteps. Multiple people moving through my shop in the dark.
I threw open the door.
Damien rushed in, his own magic blazing to life—dark purple energy that made the air crackle. He shoved me behind him just as three people in black masks burst through the storage room doorway.
What happened next was terrifying and beautiful.
Damien's magic hit the attackers like a hurricane. Purple light exploded everywhere, slamming them backward into shelves. Bottles crashed to the floor. My protection spells activated automatically, creating barriers of silver light that trapped the intruders against the walls.
It was over in seconds.
"Who sent you?" Damien's voice was ice-cold. He walked toward the closest attacker, power radiating off him in waves that made my teeth hurt.
The masked figure just laughed. Then bit down on something.
"No!" Damien lunged forward, but too late.
The attacker's body went rigid, then crumpled. Dead. Poison, probably. The other two did the same thing before either of us could stop them.
Three corpses on my shop floor. Just like that.
I stared at them, my brain refusing to process what just happened. "What—why would they—"
"They'd rather die than be questioned." Damien turned to face me, his expression grim. "That's how serious this is, Celeste. Someone wants you dead badly enough to send assassins with suicide orders."
My legs gave out. I sat down hard on the floor, right there next to the counter where Mom died sixteen years ago. This couldn't be real. This had to be a nightmare.
But the silver blood I coughed into my hand said otherwise.
Damien crouched beside me, his scary-dangerous face softening. "You're sick. The curse—you're in the final stages, aren't you?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't do anything but stare at the blood on my palm, glowing faintly in the darkness.
"Six months," he said quietly. "You said six months. That's how long you have to find your soulmate and transfer the magic."
"How do you know about that?" My voice came out as a whisper.
"Because your mother came to my father for help sixteen years ago. She was trying to break the curse." His jaw tightened. "And he refused her. Sent her away. She died three days later."
The pieces started clicking together in my head, and I didn't like the picture they made. "Your father. He's on the Arcane Council."
"He was. He's dead now." Damien stood up, offering me his hand. "But before he died, he told me the truth. Your mother discovered something—a way to break the curse permanently. The Council didn't want that. They wanted the Thorne magic to die with your bloodline."
I took his hand and let him pull me up. My whole world was spinning. "So they killed her?"
"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." He looked at me with an intensity that made my breath catch. "And I'm going to help you break this curse before they kill you too."
The shop door burst open again.
I threw up a shield on instinct, silver light exploding between us and whoever was coming through. My magic was running wild, fed by fear and anger and too many emotions at once.
"Celeste! It's me!"
That voice. I knew that voice.
I dropped the shield.
Theo Sterling stood in the doorway, his doctor's bag in one hand, his phone in the other, looking absolutely terrified. His brown hair was messy like he'd been running, his shirt buttoned wrong, his kind eyes wide with panic.
"Thank God," he breathed. "I've been calling you all night. You missed coffee this morning and I got worried, and then I felt—" He stopped, staring at the three dead bodies on my floor. "What the hell happened?"
"It's complicated," I started to say.
Then I saw the shadow move outside the window.
Fast. Impossibly fast. A figure dressed in black, watching us from the street with the stillness of a predator.
Adrian Blackwell.
The witch hunter who was supposed to kill me three years ago. The man who'd been secretly protecting me ever since, lying to his entire family, risking everything to keep me alive.
And right now, he was staring at Damien Ashcroft like he wanted to tear him apart.
"Celeste." Theo grabbed my arm, his touch gentle but urgent. "You're bleeding. Your nose—"
I wiped my face. My hand came away silver.
"I'm fine," I lied.
"You're not fine!" Theo's voice cracked. "You're getting worse. The tests I ran last month showed—"
"What tests?" Damien turned sharply. "Who is this?"
"Dr. Theo Sterling." Theo stepped between us, putting himself in front of me like he could protect me from a warlock prince with nothing but his human body and stubborn courage. "I'm Celeste's friend. And you are?"
"Damien Ashcroft. And I'm trying to save her life."
"By filling her shop with corpses?"
They stared at each other, tension crackling in the air.
The shadow outside moved again. Closer.
Adrian was coming.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Three men. Three choices. Choose wrong and everyone dies. The clock is ticking, cousin. —V
Vivienne.
My hands went numb. My cousin knew about Damien, Theo, and Adrian. She knew about the curse. And she was planning something terrible.
Another text came through. This time, a photo.
It was me from tonight, taken through my shop window. And written across it in blood-red letters:
180 DAYS
"Celeste?" Theo touched my shoulder. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I looked at him. Then at Damien. Then at the shadow outside that was definitely Adrian, watching, waiting, protecting me from dangers I didn't even know existed yet.
Three men. Three impossible choices. And someone who wanted me dead was counting down the days.
My phone buzzed one more time.
Let the trials begin.