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135
Kieran's POV
We made it abour twenty yards before the earth itself bucked and groaned.
A pulse rolled down from the ridge like thunder hitting a lake; the mud turned to iron under our feet, then glass, then nothing.
We went down hard. My shoulder hit rock. My ears rang. When the world clicked back into place, I was on my back, shadows coiling defensively around me.
Maeve stood above us.
Not Maeve.
It was the beast wearing Maeve’s face, cut from stormlight. Maeve’s mouth, soft and cruel. Her now auburn dark hair. Eyes that weren’t eyes at all but two eclipses eating a sun.
“Kieran,” she said, and this time the voice was hers. It shook. Don’t. Please... don’t come any closer. She’ll use you. She’ll use us both.
“I’d rather be used than live without you,” I said. It wasn’t noble. It was true.
Brinley staggered up, blood slick down her cheek. “Let her go.”
“That’s the plan,” Valeriese purred. Her gaze slid to Rowen. “But not tonight.”
Brinley’s hand found mine, small and shaking. Rowen’s shoulder pressed against the other. The bond hummed—our three notes braided into a chord that rang through my bones. A vow without words. A promise..
Valeriese’s eyes flickered. For a heartbeat, green-gold flared under all that storm. "Guys"… Maeves voice broke through.
“We're here,” I whispered.
The eclipse swallowed the color whole. “Shame,” Valeriese said pleasantly, and lifted her hand.
The world turned to knives.
Wind razored past, slicing banners to ribbons, peeling wards off stone in long, screaming strips. A dozen witches went down, hands still outstretched, blood misting where their sigils burst backward into them. The lycan line buckled. The wall groaned.
“Back!” Lucian roared from the parapet. “Reset the second—”
His voice cut off like a string snapped.
For a heartbeat, every sound disappeared. Even my pulse went silent.
"Kieran."
Quiet. Clear.
"Don’t be a hero" Maeve whispered. "Live. Please."
The bond flared so hot I dropped to one knee. “I’ll live and be yours and be a hero if that’s what it takes.”
She laughed, real, breathless, the sound I would let kill me. It broke into a sob. I’m trying. I swear I’m trying—
Valeriese yanked her back like a dog on a chain. “Enough.”
Her shadows slammed me flat onto the ground. Brinley cried out in pain, and Rowen went silent in the way that meant ‘not dead yet’ and ’very angry’.
I rolled to my side my vision doubled. The ridges around us blurred. The storm brightened, and the ground lurched again.
For a second, everything slowed, the way it does in a fight when the next decision will break you or save you and you don’t get to know which until after.
Rowen wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “We can’t reach her right now.”
“I know.” The words hurt more than any cut. “But we can cut her army from under her.”
I pulled a curtain of shadow in a clean, hard sweep across the hounds; Brinley and Rowen hit the line where it funneled them, wolves tearing through choked throats and blind eyes. The vampires dropped the last of the crows. The mages netted antlers and wrenched the lightning away so it bit dirt instead of flesh.
Through it all, Valeriese watched us.. Bored. Beautiful. Patient.
“You’re bleeding the field,” she said, almost gently. “You can’t do it fast enough. You can’t do it forever. She is mine and you will not get her back and if you do ,she will not be the Maeve you all loved. She wont remember you. ”
“I only need to do it long enough,” I panted, “for her to remember that she loves me more than you hate me.”
She cocked her head. “Don’t flatter yourself PUP. Theres no winning this war. .”
My mouth was dry. “Yes there is. Becasue Love always win and you wouldnt know that.” I gritted through my teeth.
When the ridge shivered and the storm bent low, I looked up again. She stood there, a monster wearing my girls skin. and I made a promise that didn’t need gods to hear it.
“I’m coming,” I said, voice ragged. “You asked me not to be the hero. Fine. I’ll be the problem. YOUR problem. ”
Onyx purred dark and pleased. Good boy.
I lifted my hands. Shadows rose around me
And I unleashed everything I could.
\------------
Lucian’s POV
The screams of battle echoed below the walls, steel and shadow clashing in endless cacophony, but my mind had gone somewhere else.
This wasn’t just a prophecy.
I stared at the field, Maeve cloaked in shadow, and I finally saw it. Not as an Alpha. Not as a Leader but as her dad.
History was repeating.
I had read the old records, brittle parchment buried deep in the Council vaults, written in hands that shook with fear more than reverence. They had called it Valeriese's fall. They said she burned so bright she threatened to set the world aflame. That she needed to be caged.. Killed.
and my daughter… was walking the same fate.
The Council had made sure of it.
You’re smart, aren’t you?
My blood went ice. That wasn’t my wolf.
It was her.
Not Maeve. Not my daughter.
Valeriese.
You’re piecing it together, she purred. But it’s too late, Alpha. Too late to matter. She was damned from the start two prophecies. BOTH ending in her death,
I clenched my jaw. “Get out of my head.”
Why? Her laughter was cruel. I see her memories, she whispered, low and intimate, and my chest ached. All the times you could have been there for her this year. The moments she begged for someone to see her, and you ignored her.
“Stop,” I rasped.
You failed her, Alpha. Over and over. I wear her skin now, but it was you who hollowed her out long before I arrived.
The truth of it burned. Gods, it burned.
You want to blame prophecy, Valeriese murmured. You want to blame fate. But it was never either of those, was it? It was choice. Your choice.
My knees buckled. I sank against the stone, the sounds of war fading to a hum, all drowned out by her words.
You could have known her, she said. You could have loved her openly, fiercely, and maybe she would not have looked for comfort in the shadows I offered. But you didn’t. You failed as a father. Miserably.
Suddenly shadows wisped around the ground and All I heard was screams untill I heard nothing.