Chapter 89 THE BETRAYER’S GUILT
His grip on the dagger loosens slightly.
Enough for me to take another step closer.
“What did the prophecy say?” I whisper.
His throat works. “That I’m the Shadow. That you’re the Flame.”
He shakes his head violently, like he can’t bear the taste of the words.
“And that when your power burns too bright… I am the one meant to end you.”
My breath catches and my vision blurs.
I whisper, “Damien… look at me.”
He turns slowly. Barely looking at me.
His voice cracks as he speaks.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to touch that blade. I don’t want to be the thing that destroys you. But the moon is dying, Selene. The Goddess is rising. The world is shaking. And I—”
His voice shatters.
“I’m running out of time.”
My knees weaken.
My fingers curl.
A cold dread slips down my spine like a drop of icewater.
I reach for the dagger.
“Let me see it.”
He jerks back, clutching it to his chest. “No.”
“Damien—”
“NO.” His voice breaks into a snarl of panic. “If you touch it, the bond—your power—Selene, the dagger is made for you. To kill you. To end you. I don’t want you near it. I don’t want you looking at it. I don’t want you knowing—”
He cuts himself off, chest heaving.
He looks broken and terrified.
And desperately in love.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
His answer is a whisper carved out of pain:
“Because if I told you the truth, you’d look at me differently.”
My heart aches.
“I could never look at you with anything but love.”
He flinches.
The dagger glows faintly, reacting to the tension between us.
My reflection’s words echo through my skull.
He will end you.
I swallow hard.
“Damien… will you?”
The words scrape my throat.
“Will you end me?”
His eyes widen with horror so visceral it steals my breath. “Selene—gods—no. Never. I’d die first. I’d burn the world first. I’d—”
His voice breaks.
“But prophecy doesn’t care what I want.”
Then, there was silence.
Heavy and unbearable.
I take his shaking hand—the one holding the dagger—and I wrap my fingers over his knuckles.
He trembles so violently that I feel it in my bones.
“Damien,” I whisper, “don’t let fate turn you into something you’re not.”
He closes his eyes.
A single tear falls.
DAMIEN'S POV
After she leaves, after she walks out with pain in her eyes that I put there, I stay staring at the dagger.
My hand still trembles.
The shadows tremble with it.
The blade’s silver glow reflects in my palm like a promise.
I whisper to the empty room:
“I don’t want to kill her.”
The dagger hums.
Almost like it disagrees.
And in the faint pulse of lunar steel I feel it.
I feel the beginning of the end.
I haven’t truly slept since.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her; lit from within, burning too bright, too fast, her power unraveling her veins thread by thread.
And when I blink, the dagger is still there.
Even now.
Sitting on the table like a heartbeat turned to metal.
The prophecy coils around me like a rope tightening with every hour the moon dims. The sky outside is a sickly gray-white, as if the moon has been wiped away instead of simply fading.
My wolf paces inside me, restless, frantic.
Save her, save her, save her, save her.
But every way I try to save her ends at the same cliff.
Ends with the dagger in my hand.
Ends with her blood.
And I—I can’t.
I can’t be the thing that ends Selene.
Even if the world burns.
Even if the Goddess breaks free.
Even if every prophecy carved in lunar stone demands I obey.
My hands grip the edge of the table until the wood cracks under my fingers.
My Beta, Garron, stands at a careful distance. His eyes flick from the dagger to me, to the dark sky outside, then back to me again.
He’s scared of what I might choose.
He clears his throat. “Damien… we need to talk.”
“I know,” I rasp.
“The moon is almost gone.”
“I know.”
“Your mate is losing herself.”
I inhale sharply. “I know that too.”
Garron hesitates. His voice softens, which somehow feels worse than if he shouted.
“She trusts you.”
I finally look at him.
His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t look away.
“If you love her,” Garron says quietly, “save the world.”
I close my eyes.
Images flash.
Selene's soft and reluctant smile, after I teased her into it.
Her laugh—rare, bright, stolen in secret moments.
Her touch—steadying me when the shadows clawed too deep.
Her body—warm beside mine, curled into my chest like she belonged there.
Her voice—whispering my name like a prayer and a warning all at once.
She trusted me with all of that.
And now prophecy wants me to use that trust to stab her.
Garron steps closer. “Damien… if you don’t, everything dies. The world, the packs, the children—every last thing we ever swore to protect.”
I let out a broken sound.
“That’s the problem,” I whisper. “Everything dies… including her.”
Garron softens for a moment. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you were born the Moon’s Shadow, and she—”
“Is not the Flame!” I snap, slamming my fist into the table so hard the wood splinters. “She is Selene. She is not a prophecy. She is not a curse. She is not—”
He interrupts gently.
“She is dying.”
The room goes silent.
My knees almost buckle.
Garron steps back, tension swirling in his aura.
“You have to make a choice,” he whispers. “Shadow or Flame.”
I stare at the dagger.
It glows faintly.
As if waiting.
As if reminding me what I was born for.
My voice is barely sound.
“If I love her… I can’t.”
Garron closes his eyes. A small exhale.
l
“Then the world will fall,” he says.
And he turns and leaves me with my trembling hands, my breaking heart, and a prophecy that doesn’t understand love.
SELENE'S POV
I feel it through the bond long before Damien steps into the room. I feel his guilt.l feel it thick.
Heavier than shadow.
Sinking into my chest until breathing feels like wading through wet ash.
I sit on the balcony, knees drawn up to my chest, watching the moon flicker like a dying candle. Its light pulses in weak, uneven breaths like mine.
The Goddess whispers under my skin with a voice made of feathers and ice.
"Soon."
Soon what?
Soon she takes me?
Soon I lose myself?
Soon Damien does what destiny demands?
A cold wind blows across my face, carrying the scent of pine and steel.