Chapter 67 Three things

Chapter 67 Three things
Sera’s Pov

My mother's silence gave me the clarity I needed.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Tears burned before I could stop them.

“I can’t—” My voice broke. I shoved the chair back hard. “I can’t sit here and listen to this.”

I ran down the hall, past closed doors, until I found one that opened into a bare side room, empty shelves, cracked window, nothing but floorboards and dust. I slammed it shut and dropped to my knees.

The door opened again almost at once.

“Sera.” Damien’s voice was low. He closed it behind him and came down beside me. “Look at me.”

“Don’t.” I pressed my hands over my face. “Don’t tell me it’s going to be fine.”

“I’m not telling you that.” He pulled my hands down gently. “I’m telling you I’m here. Right now, with you.”

“They keep lying to me and I have to be the one to face the consequences.” The sob tore out of me.

“I know.” His thumbs brushed the tears from my cheeks. “I heard every word.”

“Why?” I stared at him, shaking. “Why are you choosing to stay when everything I thought I was just cracked open?”

“Because it’s you.” He didn’t look away. “You are my mate. The girl who runs when it hurts and still lets me find her. The one who fights even when she’s breaking. That’s who I stay for.”

My breath hitched. “I’m scared, Damien.”

“I know you are.” He rested his forehead against mine.

“I….” The word came raw. “I need you. I need to feel something that isn’t this.”

He kissed me. Slow at first, then deeper when I opened for him. My hands fisted in his shirt. He lowered us both to the bare floor, never breaking the kiss.

“Here?” he murmured against my mouth. “On the floor?”

“Yes.”

I pulled his clothes. He helped, shoving them aside until nothing separated us. I straddled him and sank down in one long motion. The stretch forced a broken sound from my throat. His hand covered my mouth at once.

“Quiet,” he whispered. “No one else gets to hear your sound, only me.”

I nodded teasingly. He kept his palm on my lips as I began to move in slow rolls of my hips that let me feel every inch of him. His other hand gripped my waist, guiding, steadying.

“That’s it,” he said, voice rough. “Take what you need. Use me.”

I rose and dropped again, harder. The floorboards pressed into my knees. I didn’t care. A whimper tried to escape, he pressed firmer over my lips.

“Feel me, ugh.” he ordered softly.

I rode him faster, chasing the building pressure. His free hand slipped between us, fingers circling my lower area that made my thighs tremble. Another sound rose, he swallowed it with his palm and a low growl.

“Keep going,” he said. “Stay right here, on my cock, looking at me.”

I locked eyes with him. The vulnerability in his gaze matched the raw need in mine. I leaned down, still moving, and he kissed the side of my hand where it covered my mouth, then shifted his palm just enough to claim my lips instead.

“I need you deeper,” I whispered against him.

He rolled us swiftly, pinning me to the floor. One hand braced beside my head, the other hooked my knee higher so he could drive into me with long, controlled strokes.

“Like this?” he asked, voice strained.

“Yes, fuck yes.”

He covered my mouth again when the next moan threatened. His hips never stopped. Every thrust dragged against the place that made my vision blur. I dug my nails into his shoulders and met him stroke for stroke.

“You’re mine,” he said against my ear, the words vibrating through both of us.

I couldn’t speak past his hand, so I nodded hard, eyes wet again for a different reason.

He kept the rhythm relentless, deep, unhurried. Sweat slicked down our skin. The sparse room filled with the quiet, wet sounds of us and the harshness of our breathing. Pressure coiled tighter and tighter until I was shaking under him, every muscle locked.

“Damn, Sera.” he growled, low and certain. “Don’t you dare let go without me.”

I clenched around him, body arching. He drove in one final time and we broke in the same breath, pulse after pulse locking us together, his hand still muffling the cries I couldn’t hold back, his forehead pressed to mine as we rode every wave as one.

Long minutes passed before either of us could move. He eased out carefully, and laid me against his chest on the hard floor, and stroked my hair while our heartbeats slowed.

“I’m still here for you no matter what.” he whispered.

We dressed in silence. My legs felt unsteady when we finally left the empty room and walked back to the others.

Tobias stood up from the corner where he’d been sitting so still I’d almost forgotten he was there. He was looking at his hands, then at me, then at the vial casing still on the table.

“But the bloodline doesn’t disappear because you stop using it. It goes quiet because It waits.”

“So when you told me you were human,” I said to my mom.

“I believed it,” she said. “By the time you were born, I had been dormant so long that I—” She stopped. “I told myself it was gone.”

“But you knew it wasn’t.”

She didn’t answer.

“Mom.” My voice cracked on the word and I hated it. “Did you know it wasn’t gone?”

“I suspected,” she said quietly. “I chose not to examine it.”

Nobody spoke because we knew the inevitable was about to be said.

“I need everyone to listen to me,” Tobias said.

His voice was strange. He wasn't alarmed, but he understood something and needed everyone else to catch up immediately.

“The silver compound,” he said. “What it was designed to do and what it actually did to you are not the same thing.”

I stared at him. “What?”

He looked up at Maera, then at me.

“It didn’t just stabilize your power,” he said. “It acted as a key. It found the dormant bloodline and it unlocked it.” He pointed at the marks on my arms. “That’s why they’re spreading. That’s why the pulse in the forest happened the way it did. Your wolf blood and your Alpha blood have been active this whole time.” He paused. “The witch bloodline wasn’t. Not until tonight.”

“Wait, what are you saying?”

“You’re not two things,” Tobias said quietly. “You never were.” His eyes met mine. “You’re three. And the third one just woke up. You are also a witch.”