Chapter 184 Damian's POV
I barely managed to twist away, his teeth caught my shoulder instead, tore through muscle.
Pain exploded through me. I kicked upward with my hind legs. Caught him in the stomach, threw him off.
We separated both bleeding, both breathing hard.
Around us, the battle raged. Prisoners were fighting with desperate courage. But they were outnumbered, slowly being overwhelmed.
"You can't win!" Xavier snarled.
"Even without Erebus, the Dark Moon Pack is too strong! Too organized!"
"You have already lost. You just don't know it yet."
We clashed again, hours seemed to pass, though it was probably only minutes. Every move, every strike, every dodge.
I was getting tired, my wounds accumulating. The shoulder bite was deep, bleeding heavily.
Xavier was wounded too, but his dark magic kept him going. Kept him strong when he should have been exhausted.
Finally, he got past my guard, his claws raked across my side opened me up from ribs to hip.
I collapsed, the pain overwhelming. Shifted back to human form involuntarily.
Xavier shifted back too, standing over me bleeding but triumphant.
"I should have known you would betray me. Should have killed you the moment you arrived."
He pulled out a silver knife from his belt. "But I wanted to believe, wanted my brother back, that was my weakness."
"Xavier, please don't do this, you don't have to-"
"Yes, I do.”
“You betrayed everything we could have built together. Everything we could have become. For what? For loyalty to an Alpha who rejected his own mate? For a pack that will fall eventually anyway?"
"For what is right, for what is good, for the chance to save people instead of destroying them."
"Noble, stupid, but noble." He raised the knife. "Goodbye, brother."
A shout from across the courtyard. "Damian!"
Kira, running toward us unarmed, having dropped her weapons to run faster.
Xavier's head snapped toward her a cruel smile spread across his face.
"How touching." He turned away from me, toward Kira. "I will make you watch her die first, then kill you."
"No!" I tried to stand, tried to move but my body wouldn't cooperate, too damaged.
Xavier intercepted Kira easily grabbed her by the throat, lifted her off the ground.
"Any last words?" he asked her.
Kira struggled, gasping for air her eyes found mine. And I saw acceptance there. She knew she was going to die and she was at peace with it.
No, not her, not because of me.
I forced myself to stand. Agony screaming through every nerve. Blood poured from the wound in my side.
I grabbed a fallen blade and could barely lift it. But I managed.
"Xavier!" I shouted.
"Let her go!"
He turned, Kira still in his grip. "Or what? You can barely stand. You're in no position to-"
I threw the blade.
It wasn't a great throw, wasn't even a good throw. I had no strength left for accuracy or power.
But sometimes luck matters more than skill.
The blade flew end over end and by pure chance, it hit Xavier in the back, right between his shoulder blades and sank deep.
He screamed, and Kira reached back trying to grab the blade.
I stumbled forward, every step agony. But I kept moving and reached Xavier just as he pulled the sword from his back.
He tried to turn it on me, tried to stab me with it. But I was already moving, on instinct, on desperation.
I grabbed his wrist, twisted hard, the bone snapped and the blade fell. I caught it mid-air and I drove it through Xavier's chest, through his heart.
He gasped, looked down at the blade, then up at me. "Brother..." Blood poured from his mouth. "You... actually... did it..."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry but I couldn't let you hurt anyone else."
"Father... was right... The curse... one son... serves light... one serves... dark..." His legs buckled. He fell to his knees. "I chose... wrong..."
"You chose what you thought was right. You just... you were mistaken about what that was."
"Was I... though?" His eyes were fading.
"We could have... ruled together... Changed everything... United all packs..."
"Through fear and torture, that's not unity. That's tyranny."
"Perspective..." Xavier smiled weakly. "All about... perspective..."
Then his eyes closed, his body slumped dead by my hand. I stood there, shaking. Covered in blood. Barely able to process what I had just done.
Around me, the battle was ending. The Dark Moon warriors saw their Alpha fall. Saw Xavier dead, saw their cause destroyed.
One by one, they dropped their weapons then they began dropping to their knees. In submission, in surrender.
The freed prisoners held their positions, weapons ready but not attacking.
Kira stood slowly, rubbing her throat. She came to me and caught me as my legs gave out.
"It's over," she whispered. "You did it, you ended it."
"I killed him, I killed my own brother."
"You saved me, saved everyone here, stopped a war."
I looked at Xavier's body. At the brother I had grown up with, fought with, loved despite everything.
And I wept.
For him, for our father, for the curse that had torn our family apart.
For every choice that had led us to this moment.
The surviving Dark Moon warriors knelt in submission around us. Waiting for judgment, waiting to learn their fate.