Chapter 59 The Kidnapping

Chapter 59 The Kidnapping
59: The Kidnapping

The first thing I realized after being dragged through a hole in reality was that I was still alive.

The second thing I realized was that I was slung over Lucian Drevane's shoulder like a glorified sack of potatoes.

Not exactly the rescue fantasy I pictured in my head.

“Put me down!” I shrieked, kicking like an angry cat. “I can walk. I have legs. Two. Fully functioning. Let me use them!”

Lucian did not even grunt. He just kept running through the dawn, barefoot, shirt ripped, blood dripping down his back, muscles flexing like he did this every weekend. Typical.

“I swear to the moon, Lucian, I will bite you.”

He didn’t slow down. He didn’t speed up. He simply growled, “I dare you.”

The tone. The nerve. I hated that it sent heat straight to my spine.

We burst out of the shadow portal and into the open air. A ruined fortress rose ahead of us. Dravenmoor. Its once towering walls were shattered and blackened, the ground cracked like earth after a battlefield funeral. The moon over it was darker than everywhere else, like even the sky knew this place had suffered.

Lucian finally set me down. Not gently. Not carelessly. Just… urgently.

My body wobbled, dress and hair a disaster. The relic fragments hidden inside the gown pulsed like tiny heartbeats. Lucian steadied me with one hand at my waist. His touch burned, familiar and terrifying.

I shoved him away.

“What is wrong with you?” I snapped. “You could have talked to me. You could have sent a raven. A message. Anything other than kidnapping me mid-vow in front of an entire kingdom!”

Lucian looked like a man stitched together by fury. Voice low. Breathing sharp. Still not letting me out of arm’s reach.

“They were going to kill you.”

I opened my mouth to yell back… but nothing came out.

His eyes didn’t soften. They didn’t melt. But for the first time since the altar, they looked… human.

“You were not marrying Rowan, Keira. You were being sacrificed.”

I barked out a laugh. The very wrong kind. “Oh, sure. Sacrificed. To what? My marriage certificate?”

“No.” His voice rumbled deep and slow. “To finish the curse.”

Everything in me went silent.

Lucian stepped closer. “The Halecrest Council planned to use your body to seal the curse forever. They needed the Goddess instead of the First Luna. If the ritual succeeded, you would die. And the world would stay bound to the Blood Moon for eternity.”

I staggered backward until my back hit a cracked stone pillar. The cold bit through my gown.

“No. No. Rowan would never let that happen.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened. “He knew.”

My heart drop-kicked itself out of my chest.

“You’re lying.”

“If I wanted to lie, I would have told you I never loved you. That would have been easier.”

The ground tilted. My ears rang. My throat felt too tight to breathe.

Rowan.

He knew?

He stood next to me at the altar. Smiled. Promised protection. And all along he knew I was supposed to die.

I turned away and pressed my palm against my mouth to stop the sob clawing its way up. I refused to break. Not here. Not in front of him. Not in this cursed place.

Lucian stepped forward, but he didn’t touch me.

“I fought them for weeks. I negotiated. I threatened. I bled for you. Every night they got closer to sealing the ritual. Tonight was their deadline.”

I spun around. “So your brilliant solution was to crash the wedding of the century?”

“Yes.”

“At the altar?”

“Yes.”

“In front of everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Lucian, that is insane!”

He didn’t blink. “I know.”

A hot tear finally slipped out. Traitor.

I wiped it with the back of my hand. “You ruined my life.”

“I saved it.”

Those three words detonated something inside me.

My fists collided with his chest before I even consciously decided to move. “I hate you! I hate you for finding me! I hate you for choosing me! I hate that you get to destroy me and I still—”

He grabbed my wrists mid-punch. His voice cracked. “Then hate me. But live.”

I froze.

His forehead rested against mine. His breath shook. His hands trembled on my skin.

“I cannot do another lifetime without you” he whispered. “I will not.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to push him away. I wanted to pull him closer. I wanted everything and nothing at once.

But then the relic fragments flared through my gown and scorched both our skin.

We jumped apart.

The shards glowed white blue violet silver wild uncontained.

The goddess. The curse. The cycle. The truth. It all crashed into me at once.

I was not Aria. I was not the First Luna. I was the goddess. And the curse bound to Lucian existed because I made a wish I didn’t understand.

Lucian watched me without breathing. “Now you see.”

My voice was barely a whisper. “The only way to break it… is the ritual.”

His eyes burned. “Yes.”

“And if I perform it…”

“You live.”

“And you?”

He did not answer. He didn’t need to. The curse would reverse. Lucian would die.

I backed away, shaking. “No. We will find another way.”

“There is no other way.”

“I am not losing you.”

“You will lose everything if you don’t.”

The wind howled through the ruins. The moon dimmed the dawn. The world listened.

I grabbed handfuls of my skirt, storming toward him. “You did not drag me across kingdoms, slaughter half the wedding party, and nearly start a civil war just so you could die in front of me.”

Lucian’s voice shattered. “If it frees you… I would.”

I punched his shoulder. Hard. Then punched it again. “How dare you decide that for me? How dare you give your life away like something cheap? If one of us dies, we both die. That is how it works!”

Lucian caught my fists again, but this time his grip was tender. “I would rather die than lose you.”

“And I would rather die than watch you die.”

Silence swallowed both of us.

The relics pulsed. The shadows trembled. Destiny held its breath.

Lucian finally whispered, “Then what do you choose?” My heart pounded so hard my ribs ached.

I was exhausted from running from fate. Exhausted from pretending I didn’t love him. Exhausted from being a weapon instead of a person. So I made a choice. A reckless one. A dangerous one. A choice that would either save us… or destroy everything.

“We do the ritual” I said. “But we do it my way. No one dies.”

Lucian stared at me like I had just rewritten time.

“That is impossible.”

“Good” I said. “Then let’s do the impossible.”

Something inside him broke then healed all at once. He pulled me in and kissed me like breath itself depended on it. Blood. Moonlight. Desperation. Hope.

When he finally tore away he murmured against my mouth, “I will burn the world for you.”

I grabbed his collar and whispered back, “So stop trying and build it with me instead.”

His smile was slow. Dangerous. And full of belief.

For the first time in forever, the curse didn’t feel like a coffin. It felt like something we could fight. Together. Lucian took my hand. “Then we begin at dawn.”

“The wedding was supposed to be under the sun” I murmured.

“So will the undoing.” He tugged me close, shadows curling around us like a cloak.

“Keira…” he whispered. “This is the beginning of the end.”

I squeezed his fingers. “No. This is the beginning of freedom.”