Chapter 14 THE EX'S FURY
We didn't make it to the Veil.
Halfway through the forest, they surrounded us. Light Court soldiers materialized from nothing, golden armor gleaming through trees, weapons drawn, magic crackling in the air like thunderstorms.
Hundreds of them.
"Ambush!" Ravyn's shout came too late.
We were already trapped.
My mother's weight in Ravyn's arms suddenly felt like an anchor. She couldn't fight. Could barely breathe. And we were outnumbered so badly that my mind couldn't even calculate the odds.
"Get behind me," Kaelix ordered. Shadows rising despite his exhaustion. Through the bond, I felt how much each spell cost him. Felt the curse eating him alive with every magical breath.
"I'm not hiding," I said. Magic surged to my fingertips, vines and thorns ready to explode. "I fight beside you. Always."
"Always stubborn." But he didn't argue. Just positioned himself so we fought back-to-back. Partners. Equals. Probably about to die together.
Romantic.
"Did you really think I'd let you escape?"
Seraphine’s voice tore through the silence of the forest, sharp, jarring, and cold enough to make the trees flinch. She emerged from her soldiers, somehow still perfect despite her palace burning. Hair immaculate. Dress pristine. Eyes absolutely insane.
"You destroyed my home. Killed my guards. Stole my prisoner." Her smile was poison and sunlight. "Did you think there wouldn't be consequences?"
"Let us go," Kaelix said. Voice level despite everything. "This is between us. Let them leave."
"Oh, Kaelix." She laughed. High. Manic. "Still trying to play hero. Still trying to save everyone. That's what I always loved about you. Your misguided nobility."
"If you loved it so much, why curse me?"
"Because you LEFT me!" The shriek echoed. Birds fled from nearby trees. "I gave you everything! EVERYTHING! My body, my power, my heart, my soul! And you threw it away for NOTHING!"
"I threw away a prison. Not love. You don't know the difference."
Her face twisted. Beautiful features warping into something grotesque. "I know you left me broken. Empty. Destroyed. I know you chose loneliness over me. LONELINESS!"
"Because loneliness was better than being owned!"
"I CHERISHED you!"
"You suffocated me!" Kaelix's shadows pulsed. Angry. Barely controlled. "Every breath I took, you monitored. Every thought, you judged. Every moment, you demanded. That's not love, Seraphine. That's obsession."
"And she's different?" Seraphine poked a finger at me. Hate radiating from every pore. "This child you barely know? This mongrel you bought to murder? She's your great love?"
"Yes." Simple. Absolute.
The word hit me like lightning. Through the bond, I felt his truth. Felt how much he meant it.
"Then watch her die." Seraphine's voice went quiet. Deadly. "Watch her bleed out because you're too weak to save her. Watch the curse eat her alive. Watch her beg for death while you're powerless to give it. That's the curse, Kaelix. That's what I made sure would happen. Anyone you love dies. Slowly. Painfully. While you watch. That's my gift to you."
Horror crawled through me. "You designed it that way? Specifically?"
"Of course. Why just kill him when I could make him suffer?" She smiled. Radiant. Terrible. "Every girl he brought for the ritual? They failed because he felt nothing. The curse needs love to activate. And now?" She looked between us. "Now he loves you. Which means the curse is working perfectly. You're dying faster than him. And he gets to watch. Gets to feel exactly what he made me feel when he left."
The revelation sank like ice in my stomach.
Kaelix's love was literally killing me. The more he cared, the faster I died.
"You're sick," I managed.
"I'm brokenhearted. And now so is he." Seraphine gestured.
Soldiers attacked.
Everything became chaos.
I threw vines at the first wave. They wrapped around legs, arms, throats. Thorns tore through armor.
Beside me, Kaelix fought with shadows made of night and death. Each spell visibly weakened him. Black veins spreading across his face in real-time.
"Kaelix, stop!" I panted between breaths. "You're killing yourself!"
"So are you! Keep fighting!"
A soldier grabbed me. Weapon to my throat.
Fury exploded from Kaelix, darker shadows than I'd ever seen. They wrapped around the soldier, crushed him, threw him aside like trash.
"Lay a hand on her, and I'll bury you before you take your next breath, " he snarled. Not to the soldier. To all of them. "That goes for everyone. Touch my mate and I'll make your death take days."
Several soldiers actually stepped back.
But more came. Always more.
We fought side by side. Shadow and Wild combining. Our magic worked together now, instinctive, fluid, like we'd trained for years instead of days.
But we were dying. Each spell draining us. The curse feeding on our connection.
"Fall back!" Lysander shouted. Forming shields. Barely holding. "To the trees!"
We retreated. Fighting every step. Bodies, theirs and ours; littering the forest floor.
This was how we died. Together. Fighting. Refusing to quit even when quitting made sense.
"ENOUGH!"
Seraphine's voice cracked like thunder.
Everyone froze. Her magic radiated outward, oppressive, suffocating, absolute.
"I'm done playing." She walked toward us slowly. Soldiers parting. "I wanted you to suffer. To fight. To have hope before I crushed it. But I'm bored now. So let's end this."
"Seraphine..." Kaelix started.
"Shut UP!" Light magic exploded from her hands. "I spent three hundred years planning this! Three hundred years crafting the perfect revenge! And you..." She dug at him. "You don't even have the decency to grovel! To beg! To show me you understand what you took from me!"
"I didn't take anything from you. I took myself back from you. There's a difference."
"LIAR!"
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" Kaelix stepped forward. Putting himself between her and me. "You want the truth, Seraphine? Here it is: I never loved you. Not even a little. I stayed because leaving seemed complicated. Not because I wanted to. When I finally left, it wasn't heartbreaking. It was liberating."
Her face went white. Then red. Then something beyond color.
"Then you can die liberating," she whispered.
Magic built. Massive. Unstable. Suicidal.
"She's going to explode!" Elysande's voice from somewhere behind us. "Kill everyone... us and her forces both!"
"Stop her!" I ran forward. Stupid. Reckless. Didn't care. "SERAPHINE!"
She looked at me. Really looked. For the first time, I saw past the madness to the pain underneath. Raw. Bleeding. Three hundred years old.
"You took him from me," she said quietly.
"No. I didn't. He was never yours to begin with."
"He could have been! If you'd never existed! If he'd never met you!"
"Then he'd have found someone else. Eventually. Because he didn't want to be owned. He wanted to be free."
"I DON'T CARE!"
The magic released.
I threw up a shield. Wild and Shadow combined. Desperate. Instinctive.
The explosion hit my barrier like a battering ram. Every nerve screamed. Magic tore through me, trying to rip me apart from inside.
But the shield held. Barely.
When the light cleared, Seraphine lay unconscious. Magic exhausted. Defeated.
I stood over her, barely standing myself. Blood dripped from my nose. My ears. Everywhere.
"It's over," I whispered. Tasted copper. "Finally over."
Then my legs gave out.
Kaelix caught me before I hit the ground. "I've got you."
"Is she..."
"Unconscious. Spent. No threat." He looked at me. Fear in his eyes. "But you're bleeding. Everywhere."
"I'm fine."
"You're hemorrhaging from using too much magic."
"Then I'll heal. Later. When we're safe."
Around us, Light Court soldiers were surrendering. Seeing their leader fallen. Seeing impossible odds defeated.
We'd won.
Barely. But we'd won.
"My lord!" Lysander appeared. Bloody. Exhausted. Alive. "We need to move. More forces could arrive..."
"Agreed. Everyone who can walk, move. Everyone who can't, we carry." Kaelix looked at me. "Can you walk?"
"With help."
"Then lean on me."
We stumbled through the forest. A bedraggled, bloody, victorious mess.
My mother was alive. Seraphine was defeated. The curse... well. The curse was still there. But changed. Different.
We'd figure it out. Later. When we could think past surviving the next minute.
"Elara?" Kaelix's voice was quiet. Worried.
"Yeah?"
"You saved us. Back there. That shield. I've never seen magic that strong."
"I didn't know I could do it either. Just... reacted."
"You combined our magic. Shadow and Wild. Perfectly unified." He stopped walking. Made me look at him. "That shouldn't be possible. Not without a completed ritual. Not without..."
"Without what?"
"Without being true mates. Really, deeply true mates. The kind of connection that transcends magic itself."
I stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying maybe the curse activated something. Maybe trying to kill our bond actually strengthened it." His hand found mine. "I'm saying I felt it back there. Felt our souls touch. Really touch. That's not normal. That's..."
"Destiny?" I tried to sound sarcastic. Failed. Came out hopeful instead.
"Maybe. Or maybe just two stupidly stubborn people refusing to die." He pulled me close. "Either way, we're stuck together now. Officially."
"We were already stuck together. The bond, remember?"
"This is different. This is choice. Magic recognized what we feel. Blessed it. Made it permanent."
"So we're super-bonded now?"
"Something like that."
Despite everything, fhe pain, the exhaustion, the certainty we'd die tomorrow; I laughed.
"Super-bonded. That's the most romantic thing you've ever said."
"I try."
We made it to the Veil. Crossed into Wild Court territory. Collapsed on safe ground.
My mother was alive. Seraphine was captured. We'd survived.
But Kaelix's curse mark remained. Changed, yes. But present.
And through the bond, I felt his pain. His certainty that time was running out.
"How long?" I whispered.
He knew what I meant. "Days. Maybe a week."
"Then we use them. Every second. We break this curse or die trying."
"Agreed."
Morwenna appeared through the Veil. Took one look at us, bloody, broken, victorious, and sighed.
"You look terrible."
"We feel worse," I said.
"Did you get her?"
"Yes." I gestured at my mother in Ravyn's arms. "We got her."
"And the curse?"
"Still there. But different. We'll explain later."
"You better." But she was smiling. Proud. "Come. Let's get you home. You can tell me everything after you've slept for three days."
"Can't sleep three days. Don't have time."
"Then sleep one. I'll take it."
We walked into the Wild Court together.
Bloody. Exhausted. Alive against all odds.
Tomorrow would bring new problems. New dangers. New impossible choices.
But tonight, we'd survived.
I didn’t sleep again after that.
I just lay there, curled into his warmth, counting the spaces between his breaths like they were numbered, like one day soon, they’d stop.
The bond pulsed softly between us. Slower than usual. Fainter.
And all I could think was… what if this was our last night?
What if tomorrow, I woke up, and he didn’t?
So I held him tighter, memorizing the shape of him, the sound of his heartbeat, the weight of his hand over mine.
Because no matter how many times he said "we’ll figure it out…"
I was starting to feel like "we wouldn’t."
Like fate had already made up its mind.