CHAPTER 163

CHAPTER 163
SELENE 

“We’re really doing the binding tonight,” I whispered.

“We are,” he said simply.

His chin rested lightly on top of my head.

“And you’re staying close to me the entire time. No heroics. No reckless plans. And absolutely no blowing anything up unless it’s actively trying to kill us.”

I snorted.

“No promises. I’m getting pretty good at the exploding thing.”

A low groan rumbled through his chest.

“Be serious, Selene.”

“I am being serious,” I said, pulling back just enough to look at him.

“It’s a skill. I should put it on a résumé.”

Through the bond I felt it—that flicker of amusement trying to surface through the worry he’d been carrying all day, only to get shoved right back under again.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered.

I smiled sweetly.

“Only if the bond doesn’t beat me to it.”

A quiet breath slipped out of me, the humour fading just a little at the edges.

“Everything gets better after the binding, right?”

The question slipped out softer than I meant it to be.

Less joke now.

More hope.

For the first time all day, I sounded exactly how I felt.

Scared.

Darius went quiet.

Not the comforting kind of silence either—the kind that gave doubt room to stretch its legs.

My chest tightened slightly before he finally moved.

He tipped my chin up, firm but gentle, until I had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“It will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he admitted, steady as ever.

“I don’t.”

His thumb brushed slowly over my cheek, grounding me in a way I didn’t want to admit I needed.

“But I know this.”

His gaze held mine like I was the only thing keeping him upright.

“We didn’t come this far just to lose each other now.”

A breath of laughter slipped out of me—small, shaky, half disbelief.

“You always sound annoyingly certain.”

A faint curve touched his mouth.

“It’ll work.”

“You don’t actually know that.”

“It’ll work.”

“Darius.”

“It’ll work.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Your entire argument is just repeating the same sentence until reality gets tired and gives up, isn’t it?”

“It has a very high success rate.”

That pulled a laugh out of me before I could stop it.

It loosened something tight in my chest, just enough for me to breathe properly again.

His smile softened, subtle but real, like he’d been waiting for that sound.

My fingers tightened around his.

“But I still want an answer,” I said quieter this time.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

The air between us shifted.

He didn’t rush to fill the silence.

His thumb stilled against my cheek, and for once, the certainty in him cracked just enough to show what sat underneath it.

Then he looked at me properly.

“If it doesn’t,” he said quietly, “then we find another way.”

My chest eased a fraction.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Then we find another.”

“And after that?”

“Another.”

A small smile tugged at my lips despite everything.

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?”

His gaze didn’t waver.

“Not when it comes to you.”

Fuck.

I loved this man.

“I can’t believe my life has come to this,” I muttered. 

“I was a normal person until I got kidnapped, auctioned off to you, and then dropped into a world where vampires are real… and apparently so are my favourite supernatural creatures. Werewolves.”

Darius’s head tilted slightly.

“…Your favourite?” he echoed, sounding mildly offended.

I tilted my head up at him, deadpan.

“Yes. My favourite. Try not to take it personally.”

His jaw tightened like he was genuinely considering whether to be insulted or competitive.

“And now,” I added,

“we’re heading into some magical binding ritual that might save us or might explode in our faces.”

Darius exhaled slowly through his nose, the kind of breath that said he was one sentence away from questioning every life choice he’d ever made.

“You weren’t supposed to find this entertaining.”

“I don’t,” I said quickly. 

“I’m traumatised. Deeply. This is trauma. With commentary.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“That’s not how trauma works.”

“I’m adapting.”

“Barely.”

“Surviving.”

He shook his head, but I caught it—the faint shift at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re unbelievable,” he muttered.

I settled more comfortably against him, utterly unrepentant.

“And yet,” I said lightly, 

“you’re still here.”

That earned a quiet laugh from him.

The sound warmed something deep inside me.

We stayed there for a while, wrapped up in blankets and each other.

The eclipse was coming. And we had a ritual to perform that could either save us or destroy us.

The bond still hummed beneath my skin—unsteady, restless, occasionally sparking where we touched—but it wasn't trying to rip us apart anymore.

....

By the time we emerged from the cave, the sky had brightened into a soft morning haze. 

The guards Darius had summoned moved like silent shadows around the perimeter, their presence both comforting and ominous.

Morgana was already waiting on her porch, a small table set with strange glowing herbs, crystals, and what looked suspiciously like a very old, very sharp silver dagger. 

Roxy spotted us first and grinned like a shark that had just scented blood in the water.

“You two look like you’ve been wrestling a thunderstorm.”

“No… not a thunderstorm. Our Bond started throwing tantrums.” I said dryly, tightening my grip on Darius’s hand. 

The contact sent a sharp, uneasy jolt through me, like static crawling under my skin. 

Still, neither of us let go.

“Light and dark are basically at war. Last night it was intense… now it feels like they want to kill each other just for sport.”

Roxy let out a low whistle, leaning back like she was watching a particularly entertaining disaster unfold.

Morgana let out a quiet, unimpressed sound from her chair. Midnight blinked slowly in her lap like she was personally offended by the conversation.

“Of course they do,” she said calmly. 

“Vampire and fae were never meant to bind. You’re trying to lock two opposing forces into the same vessel and expecting cooperation. What did you think would happen? Fireworks? Try chaos, collapse, and the occasional screaming incident.”

I winced.

“I was hoping for ‘mild inconvenience,’” I muttered.

Morgana’s lips twitched. 

“How optimistic of you.”

Xander stood a little apart from the group, arms crossed so tightly his shoulders looked carved from stone. His gaze kept flicking to the dark treeline, restless, distracted—like he wasn’t fully here at all.

“Finally, the Eclipse is tonight.” he muttered, voice rough with impatience. 

“I need to get back,” he added quieter, sharper. 

“I need to see her.”

The raw need in his words hung heavy. 

No one teased him this time.

---------------------------------------------

The morning drifted on in that strange, almost-normal rhythm none of us quite trusted.

Time felt stretched out, like the world had forgotten how to move forward.

To kill it, I focused on a stubborn weed pushing up through the cracked stone near the porch. I nudged my magic into it, carefully this time, coaxing a single leaf to unfurl.

It responded slowly, like it wasn’t entirely convinced I knew what I was doing.

Behind me, I could feel Darius watching—quiet, alert, tracking every flicker of my power like a hawk circling just in case things went wrong.

They didn’t.

Still, every time my spark flared a little too brightly, the bond answered immediately. 

A sharp tug. A counterpull. 

His shadows tightening in instinctive response. It wasn’t pain anymore, just an uneasy friction, like two opposing forces constantly adjusting their distance without ever finding balance.

Across the clearing, Roxy and Xander had fallen into their usual routine of arguing about absolutely nothing.

“If you stare at those trees any harder,” she said, 

“they’re going to file a restraining order. Elara’s fine. You’ll see her soon. Stop brooding like a tragic forest spirit. You’re scaring the wildlife.”

Xander didn’t even look at her.

“Focus on your job.”

“I am focusing. My job is stopping you from becoming emotionally constipated.”

“That’s not a job.”

“It should be.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose, clearly choosing violence only in his head.

Morgana’s voice drifted lazily from her chair without her even looking up.

“If you two don’t stop yapping,” she said, 

“I’m turning you both into toads. At least then you’d be quiet and marginally useful for pest control.”

I couldn’t help it — I laughed. It wasn’t even that funny. 

It was everything around it: the tension crackling in the air, the biting sarcasm, the sheer absurdity of us sitting here like some cursed little group waiting for the world to end on schedule. 

A dysfunctional family on borrowed time.

Darius stayed close the whole time, like he couldn’t help himself. 

Every so often his hand brushed mine — light, absent-minded, like he was making sure I was still real. 

At one point I reached for him properly, needing the reassurance more than I wanted to admit.

The second our fingers locked, it hit again.

Pain snapped through the bond — bright, immediate, like lightning striking bone. 

My spark recoiled hard, clashing violently against his shadows. I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to pull away on instinct.

“What the fuck?” I gasped. 

“It’s still doing that?”

Darius didn’t let go.

His grip stayed steady, cool against the burn, refusing to give me the option of retreat. 

The pain flared hotter for a few agonizing seconds, light trying to scorch night, chaos clawing at stillness, but he held on tighter, jaw clenched.

“Just a few more hours,” he said quietly, voice low and rough.

“The binding is going to be brutal, Selene. When Morgana casts it, it won’t be gentle. It’ll force everything into place whether we’re ready or not — light and dark shoved together, torn open, rewoven by force until it holds or it breaks us.”

His thumb brushed over my knuckles, slow and deliberate, even as the bond continued to throb between us.

“But we get through it. Together. I’m not letting this bond tear you away from me. I’ve already stolen you from death, from my own hunger, from Eron’s reach. I won’t lose you to some ancient, unstable curse that thinks it gets a say in who you belong to. You’re mine, Selene — every spark, every chaotic piece, every defiant breath. And I’m yours, shadows and all. If the bond wants to fight us, then we’ll fight harder. I’d burn the world down before I let it take you from me.”

Even now, with pain still crackling where our hands met, he refused to loosen his grip. 

“You’re terrifying when you get like this, you know that?”

A faint, dark smile tugged at his lips. 

“Good,” he said quietly, voice dropping into something rougher, sharper. 

“Let me be terrifying.”

“The bond, Eron, every cursed thing that thinks it can touch you, take you, even look at you wrong…

He didn't finish the sentence.

His eyes darkened, fixed on mine like a promise turning into a threat.

“If anything tries to come between us, I won’t negotiate with it. I won’t reason with it.”

A beat.

“I’ll end it.”

I squeezed his hand back, ignoring the lingering sting. 

“Then we fight it together. No running. No hiding.”

He rested his forehead against mine, the bond still raw and unsteady but no longer trying to rip us apart quite so viciously. 

For the first time in hours, it felt like we might actually have a chance.