Chapter 30
ROWAN
For a second, nothing happens.
No one rushes in. No one cheers. No one dares to break the strange, stunned quiet that settles over the wreckage Malrik left behind.
The earth is split and blackened in places, the runes that once glowed beneath us are now nothing more than fractured scars in the dirt.
Chains lie slack where they’ve fallen, and the air hums with the fading remnants of magic that no longer belongs to one man.
My chest rises and falls in shallow pulls, each breath scraping against my ribs. Every muscle in my body shakes. My hands won’t stop trembling, and my knees feel suspiciously close to giving out now that the adrenaline is coming down.
Malrik lies still in front of me, his body emptied of everything he thought made him untouchable. There should be a feeling attached to that sight. Satisfaction, relief, or maybe even pity.
There isn’t.
Only certainty.
The kind that settles deep in my bones and doesn’t ask for permission to stay.
“It’s really over,” I murmur to myself, ready to collapse.
I hear the first footstep behind me then. The second comes faster, then the third, and before I can fall, Cade is there, his warmth hitting my back like sunlight after a lifetime of winter.
He doesn’t touch me immediately.
He stops just close enough that I can feel his restraint, his fear, and his need to make sure I’m truly okay before he risks disturbing whatever fragile thread is keeping me upright.
“Rowan.”
My name leaves him rough and low, more breath than voice, and that does it.
That one word.
That one note of disbelief and relief tangled so tightly together that I can’t separate them.
I turn.
His hands frame my face before I can think another thought, careful and desperate all at once, his golden eyes scanning every inch of me like he expects to find something missing.
There’s dirt on his cheek, strain in the set of his mouth, and a crack in his composure wide enough for me to see straight through it.
“You’re okay,” he says, and it’s so stupidly simple that something in my chest splinters.
“I’m okay,” I whisper back, though the words wobble at the edges.
Then he pulls me into him, and the world Malrik tried to keep me from finally rushes back in.
The impact of Cade’s body against me is enough to make my knees give, but he only tightens his hold, one hand braced at the back of my head and the other wrapped around my waist like he already knows how much I need him.
I bury my face against his chest and breathe him in—smoky pine and wolf and the warm, steady certainty of home.
For one seemingly endless and blessed moment, I don’t have to be the Ashmark.
I don’t have to be the thing Malrik feared, or the being others expected me to become.
I can just be this woman, standing in the arms of the man who never stopped believing I could do what needed to be done.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs into my hair.
“So are you,” I point out, my voice muffled by his shirt.
A breath that might’ve been a laugh leaves him, but it catches halfway through and turns into something rougher, more broken. He kisses the top of my head, then my temple, then lingers there like he needs the contact as much as I do.
“I thought…” He doesn’t finish.
And I don’t make him.
Instead, I lift my face enough to look at him and press my hand over his heart. It’s pounding so hard beneath my palm, and I can feel the echo of it through the bond.
“I know.”
I felt him through every second of it. The fear. The pride. The desperation. The refusal to let go, even when I would’ve thought I was slipping too far away to reach.
His eyes search mine one more time, then he nods, like he’s convinced now. Like I’m solid and real and not about to disappear if he blinks.
Behind him, movement begins to gather. My mom is the next one I see, her expression already crumpling before she reaches me.
Dad stays close to her side, one hand hovering at her lower back, but it’s Mom who crosses the last few feet and folds herself around me the second Cade loosens his hold enough to let her in.
“Oh, Rowan,” she breathes, and there’s so much tortured emotion in those two words that my throat tightens all over again.
I hug her back carefully at first, afraid of pressing too hard against the body Malrik stole from and marked and used. But when she clings just as fiercely, I let myself lean in.
“You shouldn’t have had to do that,” she whispers, her voice trembling near my ear. “None of it. Not for me. Not for any of us.”
I pull back enough to see her face. There’s more color there now than when we found her, and though the shadows under her eyes remain, she looks more like herself. Still healing, but my mom.
“But I did,” I tell her softly.
Tears slip free down her cheeks, but she smiles through them anyway. “I’m so proud of you.”
That one lands deeper than anything else has.
Not because I need the praise, but because it comes from her. From the woman who spent my whole life trying to shield me from this world and all the ugly things inside it, only to watch me walk straight into the worst of it and come back changed.
I brush my thumb under one of her eyes and swallow hard. “I’m just glad you’re here to say that.”
My dad steps in next, his hand settling warm and steady against the back of my shoulder before he pulls both of us into him. His hug is gentler than his size should allow and somehow stronger because of it.
“My girls,” he murmurs, rough with emotions he isn’t even attempting to hide.
I laugh and cry at the same time, because apparently, surviving the greatest battle of my life has done absolutely nothing to improve my ability to be emotionally normal.
“Okay,” Liz says from somewhere behind us, her voice suspiciously tight. “Enough with the tears and hogging. My turn.”
I snort, wiping quickly at my face as I step back just in time for the vampire to pull me into a fierce hug of her own. She stays silent. Words aren’t needed between us. Liz is more family than friend, and her hug is more than enough to tell me how she’s feeling.
She steps back and grips my shoulders, her hazel eyes bright and absolutely furious. “You looked terrifying out there, by the way. Marius and I had to throw Cade into the ground at the worst of it before he tried to break through the shield and get himself killed.”
I swallow hard and look back at my mate.
He merely shrugs and speaks through our bond. You’d have tried to do the same.
He’s not wrong about that.
“Thank you for keeping him alive,” is all I can offer. Mostly because I’m ready for this night to be done, but I also know we’re nowhere near done.
I look for Archie, not seeing him standing with the others, but then I realize that’s because he’s no longer five or so feet tall.
Back in his smaller form, my ferret bestie scampers up my leg and wraps himself around my neck, claiming the space that will always belong to him.
His cold nose presses to my cheek, and I place a hand over his back, clinging to his warmth. “Thanks for sticking around.”
He scoffs. “As if you’d survive without me.”
“Never.”
And then…
Iris.
She stands a few feet away, arms crossed, chin lifted, her spiked hair a little wilder than before, and her black clothes dusty from the blast that threw her across the arena. There’s glitter stuck to one boot and enough emotion in her eyes to drown us all if she lets it loose.
Naturally, she does not.
“Well,” she says dryly, looking me up and down. “You look like hell.”
“Nice to see you too.”
She sniffs, but the corners of her mouth twitch. “I had to say something before I cried and ruined my whole image.”
That catches me off guard enough that I just stare.
Iris rolls her eyes dramatically. “What? Did you think I was made of stone and spite?”
“Maybe,” I say honestly.
“Rude.” But then her face softens in a way that strips years off her and adds centuries all at once. “You did well, sugar plum.”
Simple and quiet. No theatrics to hide behind.
I step forward and hug her before she can decide to make it weird again.
She freezes for half a second, then squeezes me back hard enough to make a point. “Don’t make a habit of scaring me like that,” she grumbles against my shoulder. “I’m too old to recover from these things in style.”
“You looked stylish while flying through the air.”
“That’s because I have posture.” She pulls back with a wicked grin. “Now, where are my tears of gratitude?”
I cock my head to the side, confused until she pokes at the half-open fanny pack around my waist. “I told you that would come in handy.”
I pull back laughing and wipe at my cheeks again. “From the depths of my heart, thank you.”
She huffs, but there’s no attitude behind it as I slip back into Cade’s arms.
While the love of my family might be enough to distract me, it’s my mate who is going to make the trembling stop.
It’s only when I lean back against him that I fully realize just how many eyes are on us.
The freed leaders are on their feet, some aided by their people, some standing on stubbornness alone.
The audience Malrik brought is no longer his.
The controlled stillness is gone, replaced by murmurs, movement, confusion, and relief.
Witches gather around the broken runes. Wolves move in careful lines toward one another.
Vampires stand at the edges, sharp-eyed and calculating but no longer bound by that eerie, obedient calm.
Choice has returned to all of them.
And somewhere beyond the arena, The Keep groans again.
Every head turns.
The dark fortress in the distance is still standing, but something about it has changed.
The silver-black sheen that once coated its surface has dulled, and now light pulses through the fractures in its stone—not harsh and cold, but cleaner and softer.
As if all the corruption threaded through it has been broken open, and something purer is finally making its way to the surface.
I stare at it, my heart kicking against my ribs.
“We need to go there,” I say.
Cade’s hand finds mine again immediately. “Not tonight.”