# Chapter 257:

# Chapter 257:
Melinda's POV


"Didn't expect me to find you, did you?" Selena's voice was sweet but edged with venom. "I think you should have anticipated this before you decided to knock out all my guards. Quite impressive, by the way. I must admit I was surprised."


I narrowed my eyes and attempted to move toward her, only to discover my feet were somehow fixed to the marble floor. A crushing weight descended on my chest, making each breath a struggle. My limbs felt impossibly heavy, as though gravity had intensified tenfold around my body alone.


"What...are you doing to me?" I managed to gasp, fighting against the invisible force holding me in place.


Selena examined her nails with theatrical disinterest, slowly walking toward Michael and me. "You know, despite what you two might think, I'm not actually an idiot."


Michael opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. His face contorted with effort as he tried to speak, producing only muffled grunts. Selena's laugh sliced through the air, high and cruel.


"No one thinks you're an idiot, Selena," I replied, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. "Quite the opposite."


Selena tilted her head, her dark hair cascading over one shoulder in a perfect wave. We were mirror images in so many ways, yet fundamentally different in others. But the most significant difference lay in what I couldn't see—the darkness that had shaped her soul.


"Is that why you've gone to such lengths to stop me?" She moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "By the way, I found that friend of yours earlier. What was his name? Jared? Such a shame..." Her smile widened, revealing perfect teeth. "He was so loyal to you. In the end, though, he just screamed Professor Wilson's name."


My eyes widened in horror. "What the fuck did you do to him?" I lunged forward, driven by pure rage, only to crash heavily to the floor as my leaden limbs failed me. I lay sprawled on the cold marble, my body feeling like it had been filled with lead, my limbs unresponsive.


Selena paced around me, admiring the mural on the walls. "You know, I was going to spare you. Do you know the history of our kind?" she asked, addressing me while I struggled on the ground.


Michael had fallen beside me, his fingers straining to reach mine. I could see the desperation in his eyes, the helpless fury as he fought against Selena's spell.


I used the distraction to carefully extract a small surgical scalpel from my boot, sliding it up my sleeve. The cool metal against my skin was reassuring—a tiny weapon, but in the right place, it could be deadly. As a medical student, I knew exactly which veins would bleed out fastest.


Selena pointed to the second mural on the wall. "Our ancestors were naive. They trusted humans; they thought humans could coexist peacefully with werewolves..." She sighed dramatically. "They were wrong. Humans ruin everything."


She walked to the third mural. "After centuries of peace, humans became too arrogant. Their egos inflated. They decided they wanted all the power, and they saw werewolves as a threat. So they killed our king. Our Alpha." Her voice hardened. "But what they didn't know was that the Alpha had a mate, and she was pregnant."


Selena crouched down beside me, her face inches from mine. A sickly sweet smile spread across her face as she brushed my hair away from my face. I couldn't recoil from her touch, my body still impossibly heavy.


Her expression darkened, fingers gripping my hair painfully. "Some humans found the pregnant Luna. Humans have witches, and those witches placed a powerful curse on Luna. She was carrying twins, but when they were born, only one was alive. The other had been strangled by the living one's umbilical cord." Selena's eyes glittered with something between fascination and rage. "But that wasn't the end: the second twin died shortly after, also by asphyxiation. No one knew why; it was as if an invisible hand had strangled the baby. So naturally, this set off a chain reaction. Twins born of Alpha blood—one cannot exist with the other... but neither can exist alone. Inconvenient, to say the least."


A terrible realization dawned on me. That feeling I'd had all my life... It wasn't just intuition. It was the curse. And curses could be broken. They had to be.


"Why?" I struggled to ask, the word barely audible.


Selena shrugged, rising to her feet. "I'm simply fulfilling the duty our ancestors should have carried out long ago. It's time to cleanse the world of disgusting humans, sister. But you've always tried to stop me... I knew you would from the start. I could feel your presence hanging over me from the moment I had consciousness. When I saw you with my own eyes, I knew the curse must be real; if it wasn't, the Blood Moon Pack would have killed you as an infant, as they should have."


My mind raced, processing this information. Selena saw humans as enemies to be eliminated. She saw me as an obstacle to her plans.


"You... you don't need to do this," I whimpered. "There's no need for... violence..."


Her face contorted with sudden rage. She leapt to her feet and lunged toward Michael, who was slowly inching toward me. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back as she raised her other hand, fingers spread as if preparing to cast a spell.


"Violence is all I know, sister," Selena snarled. "When I found him, I was willing to change, but you took him from me. Perhaps now, if I let you taste what it's like to lose someone you love, you'll join me. Think how powerful we could be together."


She paused, studying Michael's face, then pressed a cold kiss to his lips, like she was saying goodbye. I noticed with a jolt that Selena hadn't seen the small blue vial clutched in Michael's hand.


I closed my eyes, thinking of Bob's words. There was a way to end this without anyone dying. I searched inside myself for my wolf—Leah—finding only the faintest spark of her presence.


When I opened my eyes, Selena was smiling at me. "What's wrong? Don't want to watch?" She snapped her fingers, and suddenly I couldn't blink. My eyes were forced to stay open.


Drawing on Leah's strength, I managed to sit up. In one fluid motion, I pulled the scalpel from my sleeve and pressed it against my wrist.


Selena's eyes widened as she saw the blade sink into my skin. A crimson bead appeared on my flesh, and simultaneously, a drop of blood formed on Selena's wrist.


She gasped, jerking her hand back and clutching it to her chest. "What... what are you doing?!" she shrieked.


I gritted my teeth and pushed the blade deeper. "I'll do it," I said. As a medical student, I knew exactly which vein to open that would cause me to bleed out within minutes. If I died, so would Selena. "If you hurt Michael, I'll make sure we both die."


Selena whimpered and lunged toward me. I dodged her, driving the blade deeper still, causing us both to bleed more heavily.


"If you harm Michael," I growled, "we both die. After all, twins of Alpha blood—neither can exist without the other, remember?"