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Something inside me shattered.

Not slowly  all at once, like glass hitting stone. I dropped to my hands and knees as the breaking spread through my chest, and before the coven could pull another drop of magic from my body, she took over.

My wolf rose.

I thought she would attack. Lunge at my aunt, tear through the spell circle, do something aggressive and loud. But she didn't. She lowered her head, planted her paws, and growled  low and deliberate and furious. The lightning running through my fur answered her, crackling and snapping until the sound built into something deafening. Then it burst outward, expanding into a glowing sphere around me, swallowing their magic before it could touch me again.

"Nobody said she could shift!" The young witch stumbled backward, voice cracking over the roar of electricity.

Wind rose from nowhere  not sweeping toward me but pushing away from me, scattering the witches' purple sand across the ground and carrying with it the last traces of blue dust. All that remained of the cursed stone. Gone.

"That is not a regular shifter." The male witch's voice was shaking.

My wolf huffed. Good.

"Is the curse broken?" my aunt shouted.

"Yes, but"

"Then keep going!"

But two of the witches had already abandoned their posts, stepping away from the ruined circle without looking back. The male witch followed, retreating one careful step at a time.

Pandora's patience snapped.

"Fine." Her voice dropped into something cold and bottomless. "I'll finish this myself."

One clawed hand reached toward me. The other carved a fresh sigil into the air.

Dark magic shot toward my lightning shield  and didn't bounce. Didn't dissolve. It reversed completely, turning back toward her like something alive and furious. And right behind it, my shield exploded.

The force of it shook the earth. Trees bent sideways as if caught in a hurricane. The expanding wave of lightning swallowed the rebounding magic mid-air and the two forces collided with my wolf's power crashing into my aunt's spell, bleeding into a deep and violent red.

The other witches threw themselves flat, hands over their heads.

Pandora didn't get the chance.

The explosion hit her straight on. Her scream existed for only a second before the lightning swallowed it whole.

The boom that followed knocked me end over end. I landed hard on my back, scrambled upright, shook myself off.

When I steadied on all four paws the world had gone completely still.

Pandora hadn't moved.

The young witch crawled toward her slowly, reached out with trembling fingers and nudged her shoulder.

Nothing.

Silence pressed down over everything. The trees had straightened back into place. The only sounds left were my own panting and the steady thud of my heartbeat  proof that I was still here. Still alive. The lightning had gone quiet in my fur, and I realized something else had gone quiet too.

My packmates.

They were standing free, each of them ringed by scorched black earth where the flames had been. No more fire. No more chains of smoke and heat holding them in place.

Three growls split the silence at the exact same moment.

Lucien had already shifted back to human form, but the moment Cassius and Rowan streaked past him in their wolf forms, something snapped behind his eyes. He dropped back down and ran with them. The witches barely had time to scream before three sets of jaws descended on them.

"Selena?" Luca's voice reached me through the bond, careful, fragile, like he was afraid of what answer he might get.

"We're alive," I told him, already moving toward my aunt's body.

My wolf senses confirmed what my eyes already suspected. No heartbeat. No breath. No warmth.

Around me the witches were fighting back with what fire they had left. The lightning in my coat sparked immediately in response, coiling through my fur, ready.

"The witches?" Luca's voice steadied, growing stronger now.

Rowan answered that question before I could. One shake of his jaws and the male witch crumpled. The young witch turned on Lucien with a burst of witchfire  he knocked her off her feet before the flame fully left her fingers. Her scream didn't last.

"My aunt is dead," I said.

The words felt like they belonged to someone else. I watched the last of it happen from somewhere far away inside myself, like I was standing behind glass looking out.

My body felt wrecked. Something deeper than bone felt broken. I wasn't sure healing could reach whatever had cracked open inside me tonight.

Is my magic already gone  before I ever learned what it could do?

"Your mates are past the point of stopping," Luca warned. "If you want one alive for answers, now is the time."

I looked around.

"Too late," I said simply. "They're all dead."

"Selena." His voice sharpened. "Stay with me. Are you hurt?"

"They broke something, Luca."

"The seal," he said, gentling immediately. "You told me they were trying to unseal your magic. What form are you in right now?"

"Wolf."

Lucien, Cassius, and Rowan turned toward me  blood dark in their fur, eyes bright with the aftermath of battle. When Lucien threw his head back and howled, the sound tore through the night and I howled back with everything I had left.

Nobody touched what was ours and walked away from it. Not witches. Not anyone. The Howling Evergreen protected its own.

"If you shift back to human you might be able to"

"Your father owes us answers, Luca," I cut in.

"The second I heard you were in danger I got in the truck," he said. "I'm already past Elder Forest territory. I can turn around, but"

"No." The decision settled inside me like a stone dropping into still water. "I need every one of my mates beside me. The Howling Evergreen doesn't get split apart again. Not ever."

"Then I'm coming to you. In a few days  I'll make sure no one's following me first. Nothing is keeping me away from you, Selena. I swear on everything I have."

"Are you okay, moonbeam?" Cassius pressed close, and the other two closed in around me  warm and solid and present.

I stared at what remained of my aunt.

"I don't know," I said honestly.

She had been my blood. My family. She had tried to hollow me out and leave me empty, and she hadn't cared whether I survived it. My parents had given their lives keeping me safe  and she had thrown that sacrifice away like it meant nothing. Her hunger for power had been the only thing that ever mattered to her.

I felt no grief for her.

And that absence of grief frightened me more than anything else that had happened tonight.

For the first time, a thought crept in that I had never allowed before. What if searching for my sister was a mistake? What if I found her and she looked at me the way Pandora had? What if she blamed me too?

That single thought was enough to break what little was still holding me together.

I sank down, resting my head between my paws.

The night stretched out long and heavy above me. My mates settled in close on all sides, silent and steady, keeping watch while I fell apart.

Letting me grieve the things that never got the chance to be.