Chapter 44: The Sacrifice

The binding had been killing her for eighteen years.

Selene had felt it every day, the drain, the weakness, the slow fade of light that had once burned so bright. She’d thought of it as a curse. A price she’d paid for her daughter’s life. A debt that would never be repaid.

But standing in the shadow realm, facing the thing that had been feeding on her for nearly two decades, she saw it for what it really was.

A weapon.

“You’ve been feeding on me,” she said, walking toward Victor. “On my life, my power, my blood. You think that made you strong? You think eighteen years of taking from me made you unstoppable?”

Victor’s form rippled. “It made me more than I ever was. Your blood, your daughter’s blood, it’s made me a god.”

“No.” Selene stopped before him, close enough to touch, close enough to destroy. “It made you vulnerable because what feeds you can also burn you.”

She reached for the binding. For the thread that had connected her to Victor for eighteen years, that had drained her life and strengthened his. She’d always thought of it as a chain. A cage. A prison she’d built with her own blood.

But it was more than that. It was a bridge.

Victor’s eyes widened as he felt her pull. “What are you doing?”

“What I should have done eighteen years ago.” Selene pulled, and the darkness that had been feeding on her for two decades surged not into Victor, not away from him, but through her. “You wanted my power? You wanted my blood? You wanted my life?”

She pulled harder, and Victor screamed.

The binding reversed. Eighteen years of feeding, eighteen years of draining, eighteen years of hunger all of it flowed back into Selene. His power, his rage, his centuries of darkness. She took it all.

“Selene!” Damon’s voice was distant, desperate. “Selene, stop! You can’t”

“I can.” She turned to him, and her body was already beginning to dissolve, light pouring from her skin, her blood, her bones. “I can end this. I can end him and she” Her eyes found Aurora. “She’ll be free.”

Aurora was screaming, fighting against the shadows that still clung to her, reaching for her mother. “NO! Mama, NO!”

But Selene was already gone. Already light. Already the weapon she’d always been meant to be.

Victor thrashed, his form dissolving, his power draining, his existence unraveling. “You can’t destroy me! I’m eternal! I’m everything!”

“You’re nothing.” Selene smiled, and her light blazed. “You’ve always been nothing.”

She pulled.

And the world went white.