CHAPTER 65: The Sacrifice

CHAPTER 65: The Sacrifice

Georgia's POV

I grabbed the silver knife from Damien's belt and pressed it to my wrist. "Tell me how to break the spell!"
"Mama, don't!" Shadow's voice was changing, becoming deeper and monstrous. Black veins crawled up his neck.
"There's no point," Malakai laughed. "Even if you die right now, it's too late. The transformation has begun. In sixty seconds, your children will be lost forever."
"Then I'll have sixty seconds to save them!" I dragged the blade across my skin. Blood welled up, golden instead of red.
Malakai's smile faltered. "What? That's impossible. Your blood shouldn't be—"
"She's bonded to me," Damien said, eyes wide. "When I touched her earlier, some of my Lycan power transferred. She's half-transformed!"
"Which means her sacrifice is twice as powerful," Jared added, catching on. He grabbed my bleeding wrist. "Georgia, if you die now, you won't just break the spell. You'll erase Malakai's magic from existence. Everything he's ever done will be undone!"
"Including the spell that made you forget Damien five years ago," Malakai growled. "Are you willing to lose those memories? Your time with Jared? Everything you think you know about your life?"
I looked at my children, writhing in pain as darkness swallowed them. Keira's little face was half-covered in black scales. Kelvin's hands had turned to claws. Shadow's eyes were pure black holes.
"I don't care about memories," I said. "I care about them."
I shoved the knife deeper. My blood poured onto the floor, glowing like liquid sunshine. Where it touched, the darkness recoiled.
"NO!" Malakai lunged at me, but Damien caught him, holding him back with incredible strength.
"Finish it, Georgia!" Damien yelled.
The world started spinning. I was dying fast. But I had to hold on long enough to save them.
"I love you," I whispered to my children. "I will always love you. Even if you forget me again. Even if I'm gone. You are loved."
The golden blood reached Shadow first. The darkness screamed and dissolved. His eyes cleared. He gasped and fell to his knees, normal again.
Then Kelvin. The claws retracted. The scales disappeared. He sobbed with relief.
Finally Keira. The change reversed. My baby girl was whole again.
"It's working!" Jared yelled. "Keep going!"
But I was so weak. My view blurred. The knife slipped from my fingers.
"Mama!" Keira crawled to me. "Don't leave us!"
"The spell's not fully broken," Malakai spat. "She's dying for nothing. She needed to spill ALL her blood. Every drop. And she's too weak to—"
"Then she won't do it alone," Jared said. He picked up the knife and cut his own wrist. "We share children. That makes us family. My blood for hers."
"And mine," Damien added, slashing his hand. "She's my mate. What's mine is hers."
Their blood mixed with mine on the floor. Three colors moving together—gold, red, and silver. The light grew blinding.
Malakai screamed as the magic burned him. "You fools! You'll destroy everything! The balance will—"
He never finished. The mixed blood reached him and he exploded into ash.
The light faded. I lay on the cold floor, barely moving. Jared fell beside me. Damien fell to one knee, spent.
"Is it over?" Shadow asked in a tiny voice.
"Look at your hands," Kelvin whispered.
They all checked. Normal skin. Normal eyes. The darkness was gone completely.
"We're okay," Keira said, amazed. "Mama saved us."
"Mama?" Shadow shook me softly. "Wake up. Please wake up."
I tried to answer, but couldn't. The world was fading. Was this what death felt like? So cold and quiet?
Then warmth flooded through me. Someone was holding my hand. No—two someones. Jared on one side, Damien on the other.
"Come back," Jared begged. "Please, Georgia. The children need you."
"I need you," Damien added softly. "True mate. Don't leave me after I just found you."
Their power poured into me. Healing me. Bringing me back from the edge.
My eyes fluttered open. "Did it work?"
"You're alive!" All three children piled on top of me, crying and laughing.
I hugged them tight, tears running down my face. "You're safe. That's all that matters."
"Actually," a new voice said, "that's not ALL that matters."
We all looked up. Oracle Mira stood in the doorway, her face grave.
"I hate to interrupt this touching moment," she said, "but we have a serious problem. When you three mixed your blood, you didn't just break Malakai's spell. You triggered something ancient. Something that was never meant to be awakened."
"What are you talking about?" Damien asked.
Oracle Mira's hands shook as she unrolled a paper. "There's a prophecy. About three bloodlines joining—wolf, Lycan, and Guardian. When their blood mixes over innocent children, it opens a doorway."
"A doorway to what?" I asked, fear coming back.
"To the realm of the Forgotten Gods. The beings who existed before the moon goddess. Before the First Evil. Before everything." She looked at the children with pity. "And according to this prophecy, those gods will return. They'll want to reclaim the world they once ruled."
"How do we stop them?" Jared asked.
"You can't. They're already coming." Oracle Mira pointed to the pool of mixed blood on the floor. It was shining again, pulsing like a heartbeat. "That blood is a beacon. They'll arrive within hours."
"So what do we do?" I pulled my children closer.
"There's only one option." Oracle Mira's voice was barely a whisper. "The prophecy says the children born of three bloodlines have the power to either serve the Forgotten Gods... or destroy them. But using that power will cost them something precious."
"What?" Keira asked nervously.
"Their humanity," Oracle Mira said sadly. "To fight gods, they must BECOME gods. Which means they'll lose the ability to love. To feel. To be the children you know."
"No," I said flatly. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't. I'm sorry." Oracle Mira rolled up the scroll. "You have until dawn to decide. Let the Forgotten Gods destroy our world... or let your children save it by sacrificing who they are."
She left us in awful quiet.
Shadow spoke first. "We'll do it."
"What? No!" I grabbed him. "You're five years old! You can't—"
"We have to, Mama," Kelvin said quietly. "If we don't, everyone dies. You. Papa Jared. Papa Damien. Everyone."
"I don't want to be a god," Keira whimpered. "But I don't want you to die either."
I looked at Jared and Damien, desperate for answers. But they looked as useless as I felt.
"There has to be another way," Jared said. "We'll find it. We'll—"
The building shook. Books fell from shelves. Cracks spread across the walls.
A voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere: "THE BLOOD HAS CALLED US HOME. THE CHILDREN WILL SERVE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."
The pool of mixed blood exploded upward, forming a pillar of light that punched through the roof into the night sky.
And falling through that light came three massive figures, each one radiating power that made even Damien look weak.
The Forgotten Gods had come.
And they were looking straight at my children.