Chapter 65 Salem Magic

Chapter 65 Salem Magic
Brea’s POV
The human soldiers and vampires slowly pushed themselves up as the dust began to settle across the ruined road. Even with Adrian and Seraphine gone, neither side lowered their weapons.

The human soldiers lined the dirty ridge with rifles still trained on us, while the surviving vampires bared their fangs and growled low in their throats, ready to tear into anyone who moved first.

“Look at her,” a human commander in a blood-stained jacket barked, pointing his shaking gun straight at my face. “A human girl standing right beside a monster. You betrayed your own kind, Brea!”

“We have lost too many soldiers,” another spat. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You are human and yet you follow this vampire.”

Others joined in, voices rising until the humans began marching forward and shouting war chants. My heart slammed against my ribs as I realized both armies were only seconds away from wiping each other out again.

“She didn’t betray anyone!” Rayne growled, stepping directly in front of me. “Touch her and I’ll tear this whole line apart.”

The vampires around us raised their weapons in answer, ready to start another slaughter right there in the dirt. They had already locked into fighting stances, waiting only for the command that would set everything off.

“Stop it!” I screamed, jumping between Rayne and the humans. “Lower your weapons! All of you!”

The commander glared down at me with pure hatred. “Why should we listen to a traitor who chose bloodsuckers over her own blood?”

“Because you’re all being stupid! Can’t you see?” I shouted back, tears burning hot against my cheeks.

“Adrian wasn’t trying to win a war for humanity. Project Orphan used this battle just to force this power inside me to wake up. And Seraphine used the blood from both your armies to feed that ritual!”

I looked back and forth between the two angry lines of soldiers. “Neither side is innocent. You both got played like puppets, giving them the exact power they needed to extract those possessed people!”

“That doesn’t change what he did!” the commander yelled, glaring past my shoulder at Rayne. “He slaughtered our men!”

“He killed our people. We aren’t letting that slide.”

Rayne didn’t try to lie or make excuses. He kept his golden eyes locked on the commander.

“I killed every man who tried to lay a hand on her. I knew it would make me your enemy, and I’d do it again right now. If Adrian had taken her, Project Orphan would have destroyed us all.”

A heavy silence fell over the battlefield. The vampires stared at Rayne in shock, realizing their prince was publicly taking the blame for choosing a human girl over everything else.

I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I wasn’t just stuck in the middle anymore. My bond with Rayne had turned me into the living symbol of this entire war.

“We need a ceasefire,” I demanded, stepping further into the open ground. “Nobody attacks. Here are the terms. We trade back the wounded and prisoners immediately. We share every piece of information we have on Adrian, Seraphine, and the possessed people. And most importantly, neither side crosses into the other’s territory. We stay on our sides of the line until we figure out how to stop them.”

“Never!” the commander spat. “We don’t make deals with bloodsuckers. Not in my lifetime or the generations to come.”

I lost the last shred of patience I had left and screamed at him.

“Adrian and Seraphine just escaped with an entire army of possessed soldiers! If you keep fighting each other right now, neither side will have enough people left to survive when they come back!”

The vampires muttered among themselves and slowly lowered their fangs. They looked at Rayne with a new kind of silence.

Their prince had just publicly accepted the blame for killing humans and declared war on his own kind’s history for the sake of one human girl. They lowered their weapons out of respect for that choice.

I only hoped the humans could understand it too.

The commander gritted his teeth, looking at his bleeding soldiers before finally letting his gun drop an inch. “Fine. A temporary truce. But you come with us, Brea. That power inside you is a threat to humanity, and you belong under human protection.”

Rayne snarled and stepped forward to refuse, but I put my hand flat against his chest and held him back.

“I’m not going with you,” I told the commander, my voice shaking but steady. “I will stay by his side no matter what.”

“Then you’re choosing to be an outlaw to your own people,” the commander warned coldly. “There’s no coming back from this.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

The armies slowly began to pull back, dragging their wounded off the bloody pavement. Some shot icy glances at me as they walked past. Others just sneered.

They kept staring at me like I was the monster, while a few of the vampires whispered to each other, wondering if a human girl could really be trusted with this kind of power.

I heard every whisper and critique, but I chose to keep quiet. For now, all that mattered was that we were still breathing.

When the road finally emptied, it was just Rayne and me standing in the ruins. He looked down at me, golden eyes full of worry, and touched my face with his rough hand.

“Do you regret choosing this, Brea?”

“I’m scared,” I whispered, pressing my cheek into his palm. “Not of the humans hunting us. I’m terrified of what happens if Isadora takes over my mind.”

Rayne didn’t give me any false promise that everything would be all right. He simply wrapped his arms tight around my waist and pulled me close so I could feel his strong heartbeat against mine.

We both knew we might not survive what was coming next, but we were staying together no matter what.

Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel behind us. I had almost forgotten about Elias and Drake. Relief flooded through me when I saw they were both still standing.

Elias walked out of the smoke, holding a jagged piece of the shattered red stone from Seraphine’s runes. His face was pale and his hands shook as he held it out for us to see.

“The battle’s over, but you need to see this,” he said. “I checked the magic inside the broken lines.”

“What is it?” Rayne asked, keeping one arm firmly around me.

“It’s Salem magic,” Elias answered, looking straight into my eyes. “Not just ordinary dark spells either. This is a specific Salem Soul-Weaving technique that only witches trained inside Salem know how to use.”

My stomach dropped into a cold knot as I stared at the glowing fragment. Seraphine could never have built that trap alone. Someone from Salem had helped her design the ritual.