Chapter 23 - Sera
The words tear out of my throat like broken glass.
“I, Sera Thornwick, accept this bond willingly and completely.” Each syllable fights me. The curse wraps tighter around my lungs, squeezing until I can barely breathe. “I choose connection over isolation. I choose trust over fear.”
My wolf snarls inside me, shoving against the magical bindings with everything she has.
Three hundred years of suppression push back, trying to stop me from speaking these vows.
Trying to keep me locked in the safe, controlled distance that’s defined every Llewelyn woman since Moira Ashwood wove her revenge into our bloodline.
“I choose Reeyan Hale as my mate. Now and always.”
The curse screams. I feel it rip at my insides, desperate and furious that I’m defying its purpose. My knees buckle, but Reeyan catches me before I fall. His hands are steady on my arms, green eyes locked on mine with such certainty that something in my chest loosens despite the pain.
But the curse isn't finished.
Cold spreads through my veins like poison.
My vision darkens at the edges, and I hear my wolf's howl grow distant, muffled, as if she's being dragged away from me down a long tunnel.
The binding magic fights back with everything it has, three hundred years of accumulated power refusing to die quietly.
"Sera!" Reeyan's voice sounds far away. "Stay with me. Don't let it pull you under."
I try to speak, but my tongue won't cooperate.
The curse whispers in my head with a voice that sounds like my mother, like Thora, like every Llewelyn woman who ever told me that needing someone made me weak.
This is what happens when you trust. This is what happens when you feel.
You will destroy yourself, and for what? A man you barely know?
My heart stutters. Actually stutters, missing beats as the curse tries to stop it. If it can't keep me suppressed, it will kill me rather than let me break free.
I can't feel my legs. Can't feel anything except the cold spreading through my core and Reeyan's hands on my arms, the only warmth left in my body.
The curse shows me visions—myself lying dead on the ritual ground, my mother weeping over my body, Caelan screaming my name.
This is what your defiance costs. This is what breaking me will cost.
But underneath the fear, underneath the visions and the cold and the voice that sounds like everyone I've ever loved telling me to stop, I feel something else.
Reeyan. Through the mate bond. His terror for me, yes, but also his absolute refusal to let me go. His belief that I'm strong enough. His love, pouring through the connection like sunlight through cracked ice.
The curse can't touch that. Can't corrupt it. Can't use it against me the way it's used on everything else.
“Say it,” Evangeline commands from where she stands just outside the ritual circle. “The final words. They must come from you.”
I use every ounce of strength I have to force myself to stand straight. Every woman in my pack is watching. Waiting to see if I’m strong enough to break what’s held them prisoner for generations. My mother stands rigid in the crowd, not a trace of fear or concern on her face.
This is what I’m fighting for, I remind myself. A chance for the women in my family, in my pack, to feel.
“I am not afraid,” I grind out between clenched teeth. “The curse ends here. With me. With us.”
The cold in my veins recedes. Just a fraction. Just enough for me to draw a full breath.
Reeyan speaks his vows next, tossing the words out as fast as he can. “I, Reeyan Hale, accept this bond willingly and completely. I choose partnership over solitude. I choose vulnerability over safety. I choose Sera Thornwick as my mate. Now and always.”
The mate bond ignites between us. Not the gentle warmth I’ve felt before, but something massive and overwhelming that makes my vision blur. Power builds in the space where our hands connect, golden and fierce and hungry for release.
Evangeline begins chanting in the old language.
Magic swirls around us in visible currents, responding to her words and the ancient rituals she’s invoking.
The Amanzite stones placed at cardinal points around the circle pulse with purple light, and I can feel them channeling our bond’s energy into something larger than just the two of us.
“Open yourself to him.” Evangeline’s voice cuts through the magical haze. “The curse can only be broken if you trust him completely. With every part of yourself you’ve been taught to hide.”
Terror claws at my throat. Opening myself means letting Reeyan see everything.
The fear. The doubt. The part of me that still wonders if this bond is real or just supernatural coercion.
The angry, wounded pieces I’ve kept locked away because showing them would prove the curse right—that feeling makes you weak.
“I can’t,” I sob.
The curse surges at my admission, seizing on the weakness. The cold rushes back, colder than before, and I feel my heartbeat slow. One beat. Two. A pause that stretches too long. My wolf's howl fades to silence.
“You can.” Reeyan pulls me closer until we’re nearly touching. “I already see all of it. The fear and the anger and the parts you think make you broken. And I’m choosing you anyway. Every single piece.”
Something in his words chips away at the last of my resistance. I let the walls fall. Let him feel through the bond exactly how terrified I am. How part of me wants to run from this ceremony and never look back. How wanting him feels like drowning and flying at the same time.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. Just holds me steady while I fall apart in front of everyone.
“Seal the bond,” Evangeline instructs. “Let the magic flow through you both and out to those who need it.”
Reeyan cups my face in his hands. “Ready?”
“No. But do it anyway.”
He kisses me, and the world explodes.
Golden magic erupts from where we’re touching, spreading outward in waves that crash over every Llewelyn woman in attendance.
I feel the curse shatter like ice breaking under spring thaw.
The bindings wrapped around my heart for twenty-four years dissolve into nothing, taking with them the dampening influence I’ve never known how to live without.
Everything floods in at once.
Love for Reeyan, so powerful it makes my knees weak all over again. Fear of what comes next. Joy that the curse is finally broken. Anger at Moira Ashwood for stealing three hundred years from my people. Grief for all the women who lived and died without ever feeling this all.
I sob against Reeyan’s chest, overwhelmed by the volume of emotion crashing through me at once.
He holds me through it, with one hand in my hair and the other pressed flat against my spine.
The mate bond sings between us, no longer fighting against magical suppression, but flowing freely like it’s supposed to.
But around us, chaos erupts.
Llewelyn women cry out as they feel the curse break. Some fall to their knees. Others clutch at their chests like they’re having heart attacks. My mother stands frozen with tears streaming down her face. I’ve never seen her cry before. Not once in twenty-four years.
Caelan laughs. The sound is wild and uncontrolled, nothing like the reserved chuckles I’ve heard from her before. She spins in a circle with her arms spread wide, face turned up to the sky like she’s tasting freedom for the first time.
“I can feel it,” she shouts to anyone who will listen. “Everything. All of it. This is what we’ve been missing?”
Matriarch Lydia sinks onto a nearby boulder, staring at nothing. Raegan moves to her side, offering support the matriarch doesn’t seem to register. My aunt’s lips move like she’s speaking, but no sound comes out.
Even Thora looks shaken. The lines around her mouth have softened into something lost and confused. She touches her own chest with trembling fingers, apparently unable to understand what’s happening inside her.
“The binding is broken.” Evangeline’s voice rings out over the gathering. “Three centuries of magical suppression, ended by the courage of one woman and the strength of a mate bond that refused to be diminished.”
Reeyan pulls back enough to look at my face. “You did it. You actually did it.”
“We did it.” I correct him, wiping at the tears I can’t seem to stop. “I couldn’t have broken it without you.”
His thumb catches another tear before it falls. “How do you feel?”
“Free.” I laugh through the crying, which probably makes me look insane. “Everything is so much. How do people function like this all the time?”
“They get used to it. You will too.” He kisses my forehead, gentle this time. “Give yourself time to adjust.”
My mother appears beside us. Her face is wet with tears, and her hands shake as she reaches toward me before pulling back. The gesture is so unlike her that I freeze, unsure how to respond.
“I couldn’t…” she stops and tries again. “I wanted to tell you I loved you. So many times. But the words wouldn’t come. The feeling was there, trapped behind something I couldn’t break through.” Fresh tears spill over. “I thought something was wrong with me. That I was broken as a mother.”
“You’re not broken. None of us were.” I take her hand, and she squeezes so hard it hurts. “We were cursed. But not anymore.”
She pulls me into a hug. Awkward and unpracticed, like she doesn’t quite remember how. But she’s trying, and that means everything.
“I’m sorry,” she speaks against my hair. “For saying you were betraying our values. I didn’t understand what you were saving us from.”
“You couldn’t understand. The curse made sure of that.” I hug her back just as awkwardly. “But you understand now. That’s what matters.”
She releases me and turns to Reeyan. Studies him with the same assessing look she gave him earlier, but something has changed. The hostility has melted into something softer.
“Thank you. For saving my daughter. For helping her break the curse.” She inclines her head in formal acknowledgment. “Our pack owes you a debt we can never fully repay.”
“No debt,” Reeyan refutes. “Sera’s my mate. I’d do anything to keep her safe and help her achieve what she set out to do.”
My father appears next to my mother, and he nods once at Reeyan. Still a man of few words, but the gesture carries weight.
Other Llewelyn women crowd around, all of them experiencing emotions they’ve never felt before. Some are laughing. Others are crying. A few look terrified by everything flooding through them without magical dampening.
Veva pushes through the crowd with Ash and Kira following close behind.
“The magical buffers are helping, but barely. This is more powerful than we anticipated.” She pulls out a small pouch of what looks like herbs and crystals.
“Anyone who feels like they’re drowning, come see me.
I can help ease the transition without suppressing what you’re feeling. ”
Several women move toward her right away, clearly struggling with the sudden onslaught of sensations.
Lydia finally stands and makes her way to me. Her face still shows traces of tears, but she’s pulled herself together enough to speak with something resembling her usual authority.
“You were right. Everything you said about the curse. About what was stolen from us. I felt it break, and now…” she trails off, apparently lacking words to describe what she’s experiencing.
“It’s a lot,” I offer. “But it gets easier. At least, that’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
“I need to speak with my council. With all the women who are experiencing this.” Lydia looks around at her delegation, many of whom are still reeling from the sudden emotional liberation.
“We’ll need to develop support systems. Ways to help our pack adjust to feeling everything without suppression. ”
“Ash and the other psychics have offered to help,” Reeyan informs her. “Veva’s working on magical support. You won’t be handling this alone.”
Lydia nods slowly. “Good. Because I have no idea how to lead a pack through something like this.” She looks at me, really looks at me, and something in her face gives.
“I’ve been a matriarch for forty years. I thought I understood my people.
Turns out I’ve been ruling over shells of what they should have been. ”
“You didn’t know. None of you could know.” I reach out and squeeze her hand. “But now you do. We can start healing.”
Caelan bounces over, still looking drunk on freedom. “This is incredible. I can feel everything. It’s like the volume got turned up on the entire world.” She grabs my hands and spins me in a circle. “Thank you. Thank you for being brave enough to do this.”
“You’re welcome.” I laugh as she spins us again. “Though you might want to calm down before you make yourself sick.”
“I don’t want to calm down. I want to feel all of it.” She releases me and throws her arms around Reeyan instead. “And thank you for being exactly what my sister needed.”
Reeyan catches her and steadies them both before she can knock them over. “Your sister is worth fighting for.”
The celebration continues around us. Women laughing and crying, and experiencing emotions they’ve never had full access to before. Evangeline packs up her ritual components with Raegan’s help, both of them looking satisfied with how the ceremony went.
I lean against Reeyan and just breathe. The curse is broken. My pack is free. The mate bond thrums between us without any magical interference, and I can feel his love for me as clearly as my own heartbeat.
For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid of what I’m feeling. Not ashamed of needing someone or convinced that connection makes me weak.
The curse taught me all those lies. But the curse is gone now, shattered into nothing by a bond strong enough to break three centuries of magical imprisonment.
Movement at the border catches my attention, and my wolf snarls a warning.
“Reeyan—”
He’s already moving, pushing me behind him as his eyes run along the perimeter. Wyn appears beside us within seconds.
“Thornridge. They’re using the emotional chaos as cover.”
All around us, Llewelyn women are still reeling from the curse breaking. Overwhelmed by feelings, they don’t know how to process. Distracted by the sudden liberation from magical suppression.
We’re vulnerable. Exactly what Thornridge has been waiting for.
The first howl splits the air.
The ceremony is over.
And the battle begins.