CHAPTER 171

CHAPTER 171
SELENE

The world narrowed to the gleam of fangs against Elara’s throat.

One wrong move. One twitch. One second of hesitation from any of us, and she would die before we could reach her.

Xander’s roar still echoed in my ears. Darius’s shadows held him back like a living wall, but I could feel the violence coiling in both of them through the air itself—raw, desperate, barely leashed.

Roxy had gone completely still, blades lowered but ready. Even Morgana’s magic had quieted to a low, dangerous hum in the doorway.

Xander was losing his mind. He slammed against the barrier of shadows again and again, fists and power crashing into the dark wall Darius had thrown up between him and Elara.

Every impact sent a visible ripple through the shadows, but they held. Darius was stronger. Older. The prince. And right now he was using every ounce of that authority to keep Xander from getting them all killed.

“Let me the fuck go!” Xander snarled, voice wrecked and animal. His own power flared hard—raw, chaotic bursts of force slamming into Darius’s shadows like a battering ram.

“Get your fucking shadows off me—Darius, I swear to every dead god, if he hurts her—”

He threw himself forward again. The barrier shuddered but didn’t break.

“Xander, stop!” Darius’s voice was ice and iron. “You’ll get her killed!”

“I won't —now get out of my way!” Xander’s eyes were wild, almost black with rage and terror. He looked like a man drowning. “Elara! Elara, look at me—I’m coming, just hold on—”

Another violent surge of his power cracked against the shadow wall. A few tendrils frayed, but Darius only poured more strength into it, jaw locked, expression carved from stone.

The effort of holding Xander back while still keeping Lazarez in his grip was written in every tense line of his body.

“You attack and she dies,” Darius growled. “You know that. Think, damn you.”

Xander let out a broken, furious sound that was half roar, half sob. “Fuck you—fuck this—I’m not standing here while they—”

His words dissolved into another string of vicious curses as he threw himself at the barrier once more, power flaring so brightly it briefly lit the entire clearing. The shadows strained. For a second I thought they might actually give.

They didn’t. Darius held. And Elara kept crying, fangs still pressed to her throat.

And Lazarez… Lazarez was smiling.
That wet, choking laugh of his as he hung from Darius’s grip made my stomach turn. Black blood still ran from the wound at his throat, but somehow he still looked pleased with himself.

“Let me go, Prince,” Lazarez rasped, voice thick and mocking. “Unless you want the little human’s death on your hands. Your move.”

Darius’s eyes flicked to Elara for the briefest second. Whatever he saw there made his expression go completely cold. Instead of loosening his hold, his fingers tightened around Lazarez’s throat hard enough that something cracked. Lazarez’s laugh turned into a strangled wheeze, but the smile never fully left his face.

The rogue holding Elara shifted his stance, fangs still pressed firmly against her skin. A thin line of blood welled up where one tip had broken the surface.

"You heard him," the rogue said, his voice calm enough to make the threat even more chilling.

"Let Lazarez go. Hand over the fae girl. And all of you get to walk away tonight."

His arm tightened around Elara.
She gasped as his fangs pressed harder against her throat, the sharp tips breaking the skin just enough for a thin line of crimson to trail down her neck.

"Refuse..." His smile widened with cruel satisfaction. "...and she dies right here while you watch."

“No!” Xander’s voice cracked across the clearing, raw enough to make my heart lurch.

He lunged forward again and slammed into Darius’s wall of shadows with everything he had.

The force sent a violent shudder through the barrier, dark tendrils rippling under the impact, but it still didn’t give.

Darius held firm, jaw locked, refusing to let him through no matter how hard Xander threw himself against it.

“No!” he roared again, pounding against the shadows with both fists and raw power. “Let me through!”

His fists struck the barrier again and again. Every blow landed with desperate, bruising force, but Darius’s power absorbed it all without breaking.

The more Xander fought, the more the shadows seemed to tighten, holding him in place like a living cage.

“Darius!” he shouted, desperation tearing through every syllable. “She’s my fucking—” The word mate died on his lips.

His jaw locked so tightly the muscles ticked beneath his skin. He couldn’t say it. Not here. Not in front of Lazarez. Speaking that truth out loud would only put her in even more danger than she already was.

His eyes found Elara again across the clearing. Every ounce of fury drained out of him in an instant, replaced by something far worse. Fear.

“If anything happens to her…” His voice broke, barely more than a whisper now. “If they hurt her…”

He couldn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Across the clearing, Elara was already looking at him.

Tears streamed unchecked down her face, her body trembling against the rogue's grip.

For a brief moment, she held Xander's gaze. Then, slowly... Her eyes shifted to me.
The fear in them stole the air from my lungs.

Tears carved clean tracks through the dirt on her face, and for one awful moment, everything else faded into the background. The shouting. The magic. The blood. All I could see was her.

She looked so young. So frightened.
Like someone who had been dropped into a nightmare she never should have been part of.

Her lips trembled before they formed two silent words. Help me

The plea hit me with enough force to steal the air from my lungs.

Seeing her like that, terrified and completely at the mercy of monsters, hollowed me out. Because she wasn't a warrior.She wasn't part of this war.

She hadn't chosen any of this. She was just... human. And she was suffering because of me. Because of what I was.

A wave of guilt crashed over me, so fierce it almost made my knees buckle.

FUCK..FUCK....FUCK
I had survived Eron’s voice in my head. I had survived the bond nearly tearing Darius and me apart. I had survived waking up with power I barely understood.

But I could not stand here and watch an innocent woman die because of me. Because of what I was.

I stepped forward. Darius’s head snapped toward me so fast it was almost violent.

“Selene.” His voice was low, lethal—a warning wrapped in desperation. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I didn’t look at him. If I looked at him, I would lose my nerve.

“Let her go,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected. “You want me. Not her. Let Elara go, and I’ll come with you.”

“No fucking way.” Darius snarled. The words hit harder than a slap. “I’m handling the situation.”

That did it. I turned my head just enough to meet his eyes, fear and fury twisting together in my chest until I could barely breathe.

“Handling it?” I shot back, voice sharp and shaking.

“You’ve got a centuries-old vampire dangling from one hand, your other hand is busy stopping Xander from doing something reckless, and an innocent girl has fangs on her neck that could end her life any second. Tell me, Darius—where exactly is the part you’ve got handled?”

The bond between us flared hot and painful. His shadows twitched violently around him, caught between the need to protect me and the terror of watching me walk toward danger.

“Listen to me for fucking once,” Darius growled.

His voice wasn’t angry anymore. It was something far worse—raw, desperate, almost broken. The shadows around him twisted violently, responding to the panic he was trying so hard to hide.

“Stay where you are. I am not giving you to Eron. Do you hear me? Not today. Not ever.” His eyes locked onto mine with a intensity that made my chest tighten.

“You take one more step… and I will drag you back myself. Consequences be damned.”

I stared at him, at the fear beneath the fury, at the man who was trying to command me because the alternative—losing me—was something he couldn’t even allow himself to imagine.

“And then what?” I demanded, taking another step forward anyway. His expression fractured.

“What happens then, Darius? We just stand here and wait until Lazarez gets bored? Until he decides Elara isn’t useful anymore and tears her throat out? Until Xander completely loses his shit and gets himself killed trying to reach her? You think I can just stand here and watch that happen?”

“I’ll fucking save her too!” The words exploded from him.

“How?” I demanded, throwing a sharp gesture toward the absolute disaster unfolding around us.

“Please. You’ve got your hands full, as I already pointed out—one occupied with a half-dead ancient vampire, the other restraining your own second-in-command from committing suicide by rage. Forgive me if I’m not exactly overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of your current strategy..”

His jaw tightened, shadows flaring harder around him. “I’m working on it. But don’t you dare take another step forward. I would rather burn this entire forest to the ground than watch them take you.”

The bond between us pulsed painfully, stretched thin between his terror and my determination.

“You are my mate,” he said, each word heavy with conviction. “My responsibility. My—” His voice caught for half a second, just long enough for me to hear the crack in it.

My chest tightened. “And she’s innocent.”

“And so are you.”

For a moment neither of us moved. The bond stretched between us like a live wire, pulled taut between his desperate need to protect me and my refusal to let someone else die because of me.

Then Morgana’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.

“Enough.”

We both turned. She stood in the shattered doorway of the cottage, emerald magic still flickering faintly around her hands, looking thoroughly done with every single one of us.

“Both of you, shut up,” she said flatly. “Your little lovers’ quarrel is incredibly touching. Truly. I’m sure the emotional breakthrough would be beautiful if we weren’t currently seconds away from watching that poor girl have her throat ripped out. So unless your plan is to defeat Lazarez by arguing loudly enough to annoy him to death, I suggest you make a decision. Because time is running out.”

The clearing fell silent again.

Darius’s shadows still writhed around him. My spark still burned hot beneath my skin. Elara was still trapped, still terrified, still waiting.

And as much as it hurt… Morgana was right.

We didn’t have time to fight each other.

We had to choose how to fight together.