Chapter 27 Done with Her
Seri
The moon hung high and full above us, silver light pouring down like living armor across my skin, as I stood facing the woman who had stolen so much from me. Arabesque’s cold beauty was unchanged, that perfect face a mask for the monster beneath, but I was changed.
This time, my power surged beneath my skin like a living thing, hungry and waiting.
This time, I wasn’t the scared girl she’d abused and drained.
This time, one of us wasn’t walking away.
“You should have stayed where I put you, little bitch,” Arabesque said, her voice as smooth as poisoned honey. “Hidden away, playing house with your monsters. Now I’ll have to start over with a new pawn.”
“Your first mistake was thinking I was ever your pawn. I was only waiting for my turn.”
This was it, the culmination of everything she’d done to me. Every degradation, every siphoning, every threat against my baby sister. Every scar she’d left on Brumous. Everything she’d taken from me. I could see it all reflected in those pale green eyes that had once terrified me.
My magic had never felt so potent, so alive. Every breath I took seemed to draw more power into my lungs. My senses sharpened until I could hear the frantic beat of a moth’s wings twenty feet away, until I could smell the metallic tang of burnt hair and rot that always followed Arabesque.
“Your husbands aren’t here to save you.” She took a step forward, her dress fluttering around her in the breeze. “Did they finally tire of you? Realize what a pathetic little thing you are?”
“They’re giving me space to handle this myself. Unlike you, they know I’m strong enough.”
“Strong? You’ve never been strong, Serafina. You’ve been lucky. And luck always runs out.”
She raised a hand, and a writhing shadow spilled from her fingertips. A hex or a curse, I couldn’t tell which, but I’d been practicing. All those months at Evermere, learning from Casimir’s tactical mind, from Zane’s creative chaos, from Koa’s raw power. I wasn’t defenseless anymore.
I caught the spell with echo magic, feeling it sizzle against my palms like static electricity.
The trick was timing. Catch it at just the right moment, at the peak of its trajectory, then push it back with the same force.
It wasn’t a skill I’d mastered yet, but I didn’t need mastery. I just needed it to work once.
And it did.
The hex rebounded, slamming into Arabesque with enough force to make her stagger backward.
Her arms split open with mirrored wounds, black-red blood dripping into the dirt.
The look of shock on her face was worth every bruise, every failure, every moment I’d pushed myself past what I thought I could endure.
“How unexpected,” she hissed, pressing a hand against her torn sleeve.
“You never bothered to learn what I could do.” The moonlight glowed around me as I drew it closer. “You were too busy stealing my power to notice what remained.”
Fury twisted her perfect features. She straightened, and the air around her darkened as she summoned something different, something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Let’s see how strong you really are, Serafina.”
The world around me shifted, shimmered, twisted. I tried to throw up a shield, but it was too late. One moment I was standing in the clearing and the next—
I was inside Evermere, watching as Casimir packed a bag. This time, there was no softness in his eyes when he looked at me.
“It was a mistake,” he said as Amabel wrapped her arms around his waist. “This attempt at a marriage. We’ve found more suitable partners.”
“You were never strong enough for us, Seri. We need someone who won’t break.” Koa had his fingers tangled in Eluned’s long hair, his gentleness directed at her instead of me.
My heart seized, pain radiating outward until I could barely breathe. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t real. This was an illusion, crafted from my deepest fears. Knowing and feeling were two different things, however, and the sight of my mates turning away from me tore something deep inside me.
The vision shifted, and now I was outside, watching in horror as Zane dragged Brumous by the scruff of his neck. My sweet wolf pup whimpered, trying to twist free, but Zane’s grip was relentless.
“Please,” I begged, my voice breaking. “Don’t hurt him. He never did anything—”
“He’s a waste of resources.” Zane drew a knife. “Just like you. It was fun while it lasted, but let’s be honest. You were only a charity case.”
“No.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. “No, you wouldn’t do this.”
Amabel and Eluned are dead, some tiny part of my brain screamed at me, and I shook my head. Koko would never talk to me that way. Simmy would never walk away. And Zoodle would never hurt Brummy.
None of my husbands smelled right, either. Not one of them carried their mate scent.
“It’s an illusion,” I whispered. “It’s not real.”
Even knowing that, Arabesque’s spell crept through my veins, doubt gnawing at my certainty, until a warmth bloomed over my heart, small at first, then spreading.
My ward against siphoning flared into life, bright and pure as starlight.
I touched it with my fingertips as its silver lines glimmered, and her illusion wavered, shadows and shapes dancing at the edges of my vision.
“Not real,” I said again, louder this time.
The fake Casimir’s handsome face twisted with disdain.
“You really thought we’d stay with you? You’re nothing.”
“If you were really my Simmy, you’d know exactly what I am to you.” I raised my chin, and his illusion flickered.
“And if you were really my Koko,” I turned to his fake version, “you’d never look at me with those empty eyes.”
His image wavered like heat rising from pavement.
“And you.” I turned to the false Zane, still holding Brumous. “If you were really my Zoodle, you’d sooner cut off your own arm than harm a hair on Brummy’s head. You love that wolf.”
And just like that, as Zane’s illusion faltered, I remembered who I was.
Not the same frightened girl who’d fled her stepmother’s house with nothing but a battered wolf pup, a newborn, and desperate hope. Not even the same woman who’d arrived at Evermere, waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting cruelty from every shadow.
This Serafina had found strength in the love of three monsters, in their belief in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. In the home we’d built. In our ’ohana.
I drew moonlight to me in great silver sheets. It cascaded over my skin, through my hair, and down my arms until I shone like a beacon. Not borrowed. Not stolen. Mine.
Just as it had always been.
Palms outward, I released the moonlight in a single, focused burst. It exploded outward like a shockwave, shattering the last of her illusion into a thousand glittering fragments.
“No!” Arabesque shrieked, and I realized one thing with dread certainty: If she hadn’t been greedy and tried to siphon from me, she might have won.
And I was done with her.
Not just done with being afraid or done with running.
Done with Arabesque Harrow’s existence. The certainty settled into my bones, cold and hard and unshakable.
I might not have had much in the way of offensive magic, but I had something better: My monsters’ lessons burning in my mind, their love fortifying my spine, and Koa’s knife filling my hand.
“You’ve learned a few tricks,” Arabesque sneered, although uncertainty flickered in her eyes now. “But you’re still just a child playing with power you don’t understand. I’ve walked with demons, little girl. I’ve bartered with old gods. What have you done except hide behind your husbands?”
I didn’t bother responding. Words had never moved Arabesque. Instead, I took a deep breath, centering myself the way Casimir had taught me. The shadows around us deepened, pooling like ink all around me. Perfect for what I needed.
Arabesque maybe stood twenty feet away, her hair not even ruffled. Her pale green eyes glittered with contempt as her lips formed words of power. The air around her hands shimmered, dark and venomous, as she gathered a Dark spell in her palm like black flames.
“I told you before, Serafina. You belong to me. You’re mine.”
As she hurled the curse at me, I reached for the spaces between light, and the shadow welcomed me like an old friend. For a heartbeat, I existed in the in-between, then I stepped out of the shadow realm, right behind her, silent as a memory.
Wrapping my magic around her, I called on the moon’s gravitational pull, but instead of hurling her into the air like I did with Zane once, I used the immensity of it to hold her in place.
“I was never yours,” I whispered, my lips at her ear. “Neither was Josslyn nor Brummy nor Papa.”
Her pulse jumped. Fast. Frightened. Human. For all her power, for all her cruelty, she was just flesh and bone. Not a goddess. Not a demon. Just a woman who’d made herself into a monster.
And home wasn’t someplace she could touch anymore.
“But you were right about two things. Me leaving wasn’t the end of anything, only the beginning of my happily ever after.” I tightened my grip on Koa’s knife. “And distance didn’t free me, but this does.”
And I did it just like they’d taught me. Left side, between the fourth and fifth rib. In and out. Quick and clean. No hesitation.
Her body went rigid against mine as I gave the knife a swift jerk, my hands steady despite the blood slicking the handle, then I drew back both the knife and my magic.
And Arabesque Harrow crumpled on her belly in the dirt at my feet, eyes wide with disbelief even as the light faded from them.
The woman who had terrorized me, who had stolen so much of what I loved, who had broken Brummy and me down to nothing and laughed while doing it, reduced to a heap of expensive fabric over a cooling corpse.
And I felt… not joy. Not even satisfaction. Just a sense of finality. Of a chapter closing.