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197
"She was already trembling beneath our touch, her body betraying every secret she tried to keep."

Her skin seemed to glow under the silver moonlight, soft and warm against my hands as I traced every curve like she was something sacred. Cassius moved closer, his darker hands cupping her chest gently while his lips found her neck. I kept my focus lower, my fingers sliding through her slick heat as quiet gasps broke past her lips.
She tensed.
"Easy," I breathed against her ear. "The night is long. We are not in a rush."
She melted.
Her breathing grew unsteady as Cassius teased her further, his mouth working slowly down her throat. I wanted nothing more than to sink into her completely, but I held back. She had not bitten me yet, and until she did, I would wait. What I refused to wait for was hearing her fall apart.
"That's it, moonbeam," Cassius murmured softly.
His teeth grazed her earlobe at the same moment I commanded, "Show Rowan what he does to you."
He stepped back so she could see her newest mate still standing in wolf form, watching.
Her hips moved against my hand, her body chasing what I was giving her. I locked my arm around her, pulling her flush against my chest so she could feel exactly how much I wanted her. Every roll of her hips, every broken breath   I felt it all.
"Come for us, princess."
She shattered.
A wild cry tore from her throat as her whole body shuddered, her back pressing hard into my chest. Cassius closed his mouth over her, and I felt her clench tight around my fingers as the wave crashed through her.
The scent of her heat wrapped around us like a fever.
When it passed, I brought my fingers to my lips and tasted her slowly.
"You are incredible," I growled low.
The moment I loosened my hold, she pulled free. She moved onto her hands and knees, glancing back at me over her shoulder with a slow, teasing smile. Her lips parted like an invitation   and I went still, my hand resting against myself as I waited for her word.
But then Rowan growled.
We all turned.
I expected him to finally shift back into his human form. Instead, he walked away from us, his back turned, tail low. My chest tightened as Selena went rigid, her disappointment bleeding into me through the mate bond like a wound. But in the same breath, something else hit me through the pack bond.
Cold. Heavy. Unmistakable.
Pure hatred.
Rowan snarled   a deep, vicious sound   and turned to face the dark stretch of wildlands ahead. "Something is wrong."
I stepped in front of Selena immediately.
He bolted across the clearing toward the tree line. Then the darkness split open. A crackling ball of blue flame screamed out of the forest and lit up the entire clearing in an eerie glow. Rowan leapt sideways to avoid it, but the fire hit the ground between us and rose into a blazing wall   cutting him off from the rest of us completely.
"Rowan!" Selena's voice broke on his name.
From the shadows, a group of witches stepped forward in a line, their hands already moving, casting spell after spell. The blue fire circled him, climbing higher and higher until the massive wolf disappeared completely behind the flames.
"Hand over the half-breed," one of them called out, her voice sharp and cold. "Do that, and we might let the rest of you dogs walk away."
A growl ripped out of me before I could stop it.
No one gave orders to the Howling Evergreen. And no one   was taking our mate from us again.
Still, I reached through the pack bond and sent an urgent call to Bea and Ivar. I did not hide my fear as I sent it. Witches were a wolf shifter's oldest enemy, and I needed them to feel that in their bones. They were too far for words, but fear traveled fast. I hoped it would be enough to make them move.
Selena went completely still beside me.
"Pandora." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Leave them out of this."
A woman stepped forward from among the witches   older, composed, her eyes already glowing with the build-up of ancient magic. The corners of her mouth curved upward.
"How lovely to see you, niece." Her gaze swept over us without an ounce of warmth. "Surrender now, and your lovers keep breathing." She tilted her head slowly. "Or refuse   and we will make an evening of it."
Selena pov
"There are moments when the world slows down just enough for you to feel every terrible thing happening at once."

This was one of those moments.
The blue fire moved like something alive, wrapping itself around Rowan in a tight, merciless ring. I watched him shrink from the heat   and my chest cracked open. He had survived witchfire once before. What it had done to him then still lived behind his eyes. Now it was back, and I could not reach him.
The circle sealed shut.
He yelped as the flames kissed his tail, and then the fire climbed so tall and so fast that he vanished completely behind a wall of blue.
Gone.
On my left, Cassius had already shifted and was running straight at the witches. On my right, Lucien scrambled for the bag he had dropped earlier when he caught me mid-fall. Inside my chest, my wolf stopped being rational. Her mate was surrounded. Her mate was afraid. She wanted blood.
"You will not touch her," Lucien snarled.
He stood bare and unshaken as he raised the weapon and fired.
The blue flame didn't care.
It shot back at him like it had been waiting, cracking up the length of his arm in a searing line. The sound he made was not something I ever wanted to hear again. His shot missed by miles. He stood frozen, staring at his own arm as the fire continued to crawl and flicker across his skin.
The gun hit the ground.
He shifted, forcing the witchfire out, then let out a low, broken howl and pushed forward anyway, limping toward the witches on three working legs.
My throat tightened so hard I could barely breathe.
I was not going to stand here and watch all of them burn for me.
"Let them go!" I screamed at my aunt.
Then I did the only thing I had left to do.
I stepped forward   away from every hand that could have caught me   and stood completely alone in the open clearing. No cover. No protection. Just me.
Pandora walked toward me unhurried, like she had already won. Behind her, her coven kept chanting in unison, arms lifting together as a second circle of blue flame roared up around Cassius. He bunched every muscle and tried to jump clean over it.
The fire threw him back like a wall of solid stone.
His scream scraped across every nerve I had, and a sob broke free from somewhere deep in my chest before I could catch it.
"Stop!" My voice cracked. "Stop it right now!"
They didn't even look at me.
A third circle rose around Lucien   boxing in the limping alpha just a short distance from the others. Three circles. Three mates. All burning.
"Now then." Pandora tilted her head with the patience of someone who had rehearsed this. "Where is that fourth one hiding?"
As if the question had reached him somehow, Luca's voice slipped quietly into my mind.
"Selena. Talk to me. What is going on?"
"We have company," I said grimly. "Pandora brought the whole coven. The others are trapped. She says she'll release them if I "
"Do not finish that sentence. Do you hear me? You do not surrender. You are stronger than this   fight, Selena."
I swallowed. "He isn't here," I told my aunt plainly.
What came back through the bond was not the steady, composed Luca I knew. His voice frayed at the edges.
"I should have been with you. I never should have let you "
"Then you would be in a fire circle too," I cut him off. "This is better."
"I am coming. I swear to you, I will get there. But Selena "
"You are days out," I said quietly. "And the territories between us would slow you down even more."
"If they take you "
"You will find me. You always do." I exhaled slowly. "But right now I need both hands free."
I closed the bond down to a whisper and reached for the blanket on the ground, wrapping it around my shoulders. Then I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and walked toward my aunt like I was not terrified.
Behind me, Lucien called my name. I heard it   but I couldn't let it reach me. Not with the fire roaring and my own heartbeat hammering so loud it filled my skull.
"How?" I asked, stopping a few feet short of her. "How did you find us?"
Ellie's warning flickered through my memory. The object. Find what she used to bind your magic. I kept my eyes on Pandora but tracked her coven in my peripheral vision. They were burning something deliberately into the ground behind her, a shape, a pattern. I didn't know what it meant yet.
"Scrying, darling." She said it like it was obvious. "And you have made enemies far more talkative than you realize. I wanted you to tear apart the Frost Fang and Bloodfang agreement   that was the assignment." Her arms folded slowly. "Instead you have been unraveling arrangements that matter far more to the future of our people. I don't entirely agree with them either   but that was not your choice to make."
She had expected Luca to be beside me. She had counted on it. And suddenly the pieces locked together.
"This is about the broken engagement," I said. "Luca's father told you we were coming back to Moonblood."
Luca's own words came back to me like a ghost: He cannot use me as a weapon if I am out of reach. I told him we were going to Moonblood.
"That arrangement is finished," Pandora said smoothly. "It no longer serves us. As long as the wolf packs keep tearing at each other's throats, which they have always been eager to do, our kind climbs higher. Our reach grows wider."
The words were clean and political. But I remembered the way her voice had changed when she mentioned my father before. This was not a strategy.
This was old pain wearing a polished mask.
"Why?" I asked. "Why do you hate them so much?"
The mask slipped.
"Because wolves stole my brother from me!" The words came out raw and ragged, her arms snapping wide, and I stumbled back on instinct   muscle memory from the last time those hands had reached for my power. "We were not twins, but we may as well have been. He was my whole world growing up."
"And I am what he left behind," I said, steadier than I felt. "His daughter. Your blood." I glanced past her at the coven still working in the dirt. "This is not justice. This is grief."
"The circle is nearly finished," one of the witches announced.
She couldn't have been much older than me, a stark contrast to the rest of the coven, who all seemed to share my aunt's age.
"What's all this supposed to do?" I demanded, watching her closely.
She answered me with nothing but a dismissive snort, turning away to focus on her work. Her hands moved with practiced ease, pouring violet-colored sand across the floor in a deliberate, calculated design. When the pattern was complete, she set a tiny blue stone at its heart.
The moment that stone touched the cross of violet sand, something deep within me recoiled. That's it. That had to be the anchor, the very thing binding my power, burying it somewhere I couldn't reach.
"Simple." Pandora's lips curled into a smile that didn't belong on a human face, her features bathed in the cold blue light of witchfire. "We're going to bleed your magic dry." She lifted one finger like a professor correcting a foolish student. "My mistake last time was going after your power while your curses still held. It takes a full coven to shatter a curse   so tonight, everyone gets a share of what comes out."
I shook my head slowly. "Last time didn't end the way you planned."
Honestly, I was buying myself seconds. My packmates were down, wounded, unable to move. Luca was days away. No one from Moonblood could pinpoint our location, and there was no pack bond strong enough to lead anyone here in time. My magic was still sealed. Even if the coven broke the curse and I somehow reached my power first, I had no idea how to use it.
Still, I kept my voice even. Calm. "What makes tonight any different?"
Pandora tilted her head, almost as if the answer pained her. "Last time, I was trying to keep you alive."
That bought me one advantage   if they hadn't witnessed me shift, they didn't know what I was fully capable of. I could transform and go straight for Pandora's throat. But her coven would retaliate without hesitation, and burning us all alive seemed exactly like something they'd enjoy.
"After you pulled that gun on me, sweetheart…" She lifted one shoulder, casual as ever. "I stopped caring about the condition you end up in. Honestly, it's a kindness. Wolves and witches were never supposed to bleed into each other."
"Spell circle is ready." The young witch's voice rang out like someone announcing a party game. "Time to break a curse!"
Her excitement made my stomach turn. I was nothing but a lab subject to her.
"By all means," I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
I had wanted my magic   but not stolen from beneath me before I could ever touch it.
"Relax, little mage." One of the male witches flashed a grin that held nothing warm in it. "It'll sting   but only for a moment. After that?" He spread his hands. "You won't feel anything at all."
"That power is mine," I snarled.
"Not much longer," my aunt said softly, stepping forward toward the circle like she was walking to something sacred.
I steadied myself and glanced back at my packmates. Through the pack bond, Lucien's desperation hit me like a wave. I could feel him pacing, favoring one paw, trapped inside the magic barrier. A hollow ache spread through my chest. I wished I'd had the chance to claim them all. Truly claim them.
Then I caught myself. Claiming a mate meant that if I died, the bond's collapse could drag them down with me   toward madness, then toward nothing. I wasn't just fighting for myself anymore.
"I'm sorry, Luca," I breathed inward, pushing the words through whatever invisible thread connected us. "They're breaking the seal. It isn't going to be clean."
"Hold on, my warrior wolf. I love you. I am right there with you." His words were brave. But underneath them, I felt the tremor he was trying to hide. He was pouring out a confidence he didn't possess.
"Your father warned them," I murmured aloud, almost to myself, watching the other witches trace glowing symbols into the air. It felt like watching someone open a door that should have been mine to walk through.
"He'll answer for it," Luca swore. "Selena   fought them. Make every second cost them something."
"You're right." I rolled my shoulders back and started to prepare for the shift. "I don't lie down. Not for anyone. I've walked out worse than this."
But before the change could take hold, the circle blazed to life.
Every witch stepped back from its edge in unison, turning to face me. The glow caught their faces in a sickly amber light, and one by one, their feet lifted off the ground. The blue stone pulsed   so bright it nearly blinded   and then the pain arrived, enormous and merciless, driving me straight to my knees.
Something inside me broke open.
From that raw, ragged place, I felt my power start to pour out   not like water, but like blood. Like something vital being pulled from a wound while the coven drank it in.
A scream tore out of me before I could stop it. My hands clawed at my chest. The blanket pooled at my feet. Around me, the air filled with the howling of my mates   desperate, helpless, furious.
And the blue stone began to crack apart.
They shattered the curse and lifted the seal   but in the same breath, they were already siphoning the magic that lay beneath it, stealing it before I could so much as reach for it. The fracture inside me widened, threatening to split me entirely.
My wolf slammed against my inner walls, small and frightened.
And that's when it hit me.
I wasn't only a mage.
I was a shifter. And shifters mended themselves in their other form. If I could transform now   even if it meant sealing my magic away again   maybe I could close this wound before it swallowed me whole.
The blue stone blazed so fiercely its shape had completely vanished inside the light. Each witch seemed to stretch and grow as my stolen power filled them. But I had remembered something they hadn't accounted for.
Shift.
The word rose through me. I couldn't tell if it came from my mind or from my wolf. Maybe it didn't matter.
It was the only move I had left.