308- ANNA

308- ANNA
POV Anna:

The blade cut my arm, and I looked at Maeve with a growing smile on my face. Blood spilled onto the earth, and she stood with her arms wide open.

"Come to me," she shouted. "Magic of the mountain, grant me the power to purify this mountain and begin anew. I am your servant, and I shall be your queen."

The music stopped, and an impossible silence fell over the mountain.

Nothing happened.

Maeve frowned. "I am ready," she shouted. "Let me be your vessel."

"Sorry, Maeve," I murmured as I rose from the stone to stand. "You lost."

She spun around sharply and cast me a furious look. "What did you do?"

"I defeated you," I said simply. "All that planning, all those seers, and none of them told you the truth. It was my destiny to be here, a broken ternary, too weak to do anything but bleed for you, but instead, I stand here as proof that this mountain is not broken. These wolves are not broken. The only thing broken is you, and I defeated you. I defeated you because of him."

"I will drain you to the very last drop!" Maeve howled.

She leapt toward me, but Lunessa also leapt onto my stone and smiled at me.

And then she shone.

The ground trembled beneath us, and Maeve stopped, gasping, as Lunessa raised her hands to the sky. "You are mine!"

The roar echoed through the mountain, and half the witches in the circle collapsed. Rising into the air, Lunessa glowed, and chaos spread. I turned my head and saw wolves and witches appearing.

My wolves and my witches.

Somehow, Lunessa had gathered enough power to amplify her own abilities, and she had teleported half of the Black Diamond pack here.

With a scream, Maeve turned and launched herself at me, but a wolf caught her midair and sank its teeth into her neck.

Maeve died, and Finn, kneeling over her body, howled.

(...)
POV Jax:

Freeing ourselves from our captors, London and I ran up the hill. He reached Lunessa and pulled her off the stone before I could get to Anna. A massive mutated wolf leapt onto Anna, and I threw myself on top of it. Teeth and claws tore into the flesh of my human form, but I ignored it. There was only one truth: if I didn’t reach Anna, she would be torn to pieces.

Shifting faster than I ever had in my life, I turned and sprinted back to her. With a roar, I ripped her chains from the stones with my paws and turned to her.

“Jax,” she whispered, letting herself fall to the ground. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can walk, let alone shift. Help Finn.”

Finn didn’t need my help. He was tearing wolves apart at an alarming rate. I wasn’t even sure he knew what he was doing.

Anna shuddered, and I spun as another wolf tried to leap. Slashing my claws across its flank, we rolled, but as soon as I found my footing, I returned to her side.

If she couldn’t shift, she would be vulnerable, but I would defend her until my last breath.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by wolves. My wolves. Saul. Amelia. Kenzi. Jenson. Howling, they formed a circle and crouched into position. Their stance was clear.

She was ours, and we would never let her go.

I spotted Irene, Janelle, and Ava in their own circle. Whatever they were doing, it was holding the remaining witches in place, and their screams could be heard over the chaos as they stumbled.

And the wolves kept fighting.

Elonso was down below, barking orders to my warriors, organizing them.

On the other side, Finn kept killing. Our bond had snapped the moment he killed Maeve, and I could no longer feel him. I knew exactly what that meant, even if he didn’t. He probably didn’t even know what he was fighting for. He had already been close to death before killing Maeve, and I had no idea how much longer he would last, but I couldn’t intervene.

I wasn’t allowed to intervene.

Blood ran down the mountain, but not in the way Maeve had envisioned. Her wolves were weakening. By drugging them, she had essentially killed them. My wolves were only speeding up the process.

Then, silence came. There were groans and cries, but the battle was over. Any of Maeve’s wolves who weren’t dead were lying on their backs, bellies up in surrender.

Below me, a solitary figure caught my attention, and I growled softly as I sensed her presence.

Saris.

So she appeared at last. Was she the one who broke Maeve’s spell? Had she interfered after all?

In human form, Elonso made the long climb. “Indigo Peak,” he shouted. “A new alpha has risen. Accept his bond or die.”

Finn’s wolf head lifted in surprise, and London and I howled in acceptance.

Slowly, wolf by wolf, the surviving members of Indigo Peak who were present followed suit.

“The son will kill the mother,” Anna whispered behind me.

It was never about our baby. It had always been about Finn. From the moment I met him, I felt the alpha power inside him. I had always known that one day he would be even more powerful than me.

And I hoped that was true, because Indigo Peak had a difficult path ahead.

Rain fell from the sky as Anna and Lunessa slept. My inner circle, along with London and Elonso, gathered in their room, for I refused to leave Anna’s side. Something was different about her, I just couldn’t figure out what, and she had fainted before she could explain.

“Explain,” I asked quietly. “How did Lunessa manage to teleport so many wolves at once?”

“In a way, it was Evalina,” Irene whispered. She was exhausted. “When Evalina asked how my magic had been taken from me, she began experimenting. Lunessa and I leafed through her spellbook after she died. She found a quick and dirty way to borrow power for thirty seconds, and that was all Lunessa needed. We prepared her and let her be captured. I adjusted the spell into the earth beneath our feet. Janelle manipulated the magic within the wolves, which they did not like one bit, and Ava created a portal around us. It took all of us, and honestly, the chances of it working weren’t good.”