Chapter Two
The battlefield stank of blood and ash, and the glow of spellfire lit the night like a thousand torches.
Saffron walked at the center of her mates, Ryan and Alaric, their hands brushing hers, though their fists were clenched in fury.
Ahead, the Council gathered in a half-circle, Matthew at their front, his dark eyes alight with triumph.
He knew what he was about to do, and so did she.
Ryan’s voice was low, seething. “You expect me to stand here and let him bind us all? He killed Liam and Jacob. Now Libby lies cold. And we’re meant to watch him take everything else, too?”
Alaric’s jaw was tight, his body trembling with the wolf he could not unleash. “Say the word, Saffron, and we tear him apart.”
Her heart ached at their fury. At their grief. She wanted nothing more than to hurl herself at Matthew, to sink her blade into his black heart. But she had seen this moment in her visions. The only way forward was not through rage, but sacrifice.
“Listen to me,” she whispered, desperate for them to hear her above the chanting that had already begun.
“We knew this was coming. His curse will rip through the shifters, it will kill those who already run with their animals. But if I weave myself into it, if I lace his spell with mine, the line will not end. The latents will live. The blood will carry on until this curse is broken in another time.”
Ryan turned to her, eyes molten with anguish. “At what cost?”
Her throat burned. “At ours. But, if you can live with that, ending all shifters and knowing that there will never be another one of your kind to walk this earth for all eternity, then speak now, and I will be the first one to stick my knife into that bastard’s heart.”
Saffie sobbed once when she saw the answer in their eyes. They blazed with the pain and anguish of knowing what was to come. None of them could live if that was the price.
The words shattered them. Ryan’s hands shook as he reached for her, and Alaric swore, the sound torn from deep in his chest. But still they held her between them, their foreheads pressed to hers, three breaths mingling as if this moment might bind them forever.
“Promise me,” Alaric rasped, “that this pain will mean something. That the future you speak of is real.”
Saffron closed her eyes, forcing herself not to weep. “It is. Libby and Liam and Jacob will find each other again. When they do, the curse will unravel, and shifters will rise. But only if I do this.”
Matthew raised his arms, power spilling from his fingers like smoke. The Council’s voices grew louder, the spell swelling toward its peak, their chant rolling like thunder.
“Blood to ash, and ash to stone,
Wolves shall fall and stand alone.
Bound by night, the beast shall die,
No more howl beneath the sky.”
Saffron let her own magic rise, golden threads spilling from her fingertips, weaving themselves unseen into the black tapestry of his curse. She whispered her own words through her tears, rhyming with grief, her voice at a counterpoint.
“By blood and bone, by grief and flame,
The line shall sleep, but not in shame.
Latents live, though wolves may fall,
The blood endures, it answers all.”
She bound the spell with her grief, her blood, the jagged edges of her pain, forcing her essence into it so that it could never fully belong to him.
She twisted it, bent it, carved a loophole into its heart.
Wolves who already bore their forms would fall tonight, but the latents would live.
Their blood would carry on until the curse was broken and Libby and her wolves found each other in another life. The line would endure, though dormant.
Her eyes caught a movement—Matthew pulling a talisman from his cloak, holding it aloft. The stone, a druid stone, pulsed with dark energy as the Council’s voices rose.
“Through the stone, the path is mine,
To future days beyond this time.”
His form began to blur, phasing out of this age. Terror struck, but Saffron reached further into her magic, threading herself into that stone, binding part of her will to it. She wove her own counter-spell with shaking voice.
“Stone may guide, but it shall bind,
Carry me forward, soul entwined.
If he endures, then so shall I,
My will resists, it will not die.”
If it aided him in another age, it would also carry her defiance, her tether, her silent war. She poured every last shred of herself into the weave, vowing that if the stone endured, so too would her resistance.
Her final voice rose in broken rhyme.
“With blood I bind, with grief I see,
In life or death my mates with me.
Our souls entwined, forever free,
As is my will, so mote it be.”
The ground shook. A scream ripped through the night as the curse took hold.
Ryan staggered, eyes wide as if the light had been ripped from him.
Alaric followed, his great frame folding silently to the ground.
Both of them collapsed at her feet, their bodies lifeless, the bond between them tearing from her soul like flesh from bone.
“No!” Her cry split the night. She dropped to her knees, gathering their faces in her hands, kissing their cooling lips, her tears falling unchecked. She had chosen this. She had damned herself. And still, the pain was unbearable.
Her knife was in her hand before she knew it, the sharp edge kissing her skin. Better to follow them. Better to end this agony. Her hand trembled as she raised the blade to her heart.
And then the world stilled.
Moonlight spilled across the battlefield, though the sky was dark. The Goddess herself appeared before her, cloaked in silver radiance, her gaze tender and terrible all at once.
“You would take your life,” the Goddess said softly, “when you have already given everything?”
Saffron’s breath hitched. “They are gone. My mates. My heart. What is left for me?”
The Goddess’s hand brushed her cheek, cool and strong.
“Your strength. Your sacrifice. You wove yourself into the curse to save the future of shifters. That choice was not unnoticed. But your task is not done. Walk this earth, Saffron. Endure the centuries. When the curse is broken, when the balance is restored, you will be reunited with them. And their future will be yours again.”
Tears blurred her vision. “Centuries ... to carry this pain alone?”
“Not alone,” the Goddess murmured. “In faith. In purpose. In hope. And you will not walk without power. To endure, you must change. Not as a shifter, but as what you are—the Wicca princess, bound to moonlight and magic. You are Dawn, and you stand in the East, the promise of beginnings and the fire of renewal. I gift you the form of the cat, a shadow and a sentinel, until your time is fulfilled.”
The knife slipped from Saffron’s hand. Her sobs shook her as she bent over the bodies of Ryan and Alaric, pressing one last kiss to each of their brows.
“I will wait,” she whispered. “I will walk this cursed earth until I can give you the life you were denied. And when that day comes, not even death will keep us apart.”
The Moon Goddess smiled, and light wrapped around her, changing her bones, her breath, her very being. Fur brushed her skin, sleek and dark. Her vision sharpened, her body bending into the lithe, silent grace of a cat.
She lifted her head, eyes gleaming gold in the shadows. Her heart still bled, but her path was clear. She would endure. She would fight. And one day, she would love them again. Either in life or whatever comes next.
****
Present day
The fire devoured everything.
Nolan tore his mask into place, the sound of the straps snapping against his helmet ringing sharp as he followed Isaac into the building.
Heat clawed at them the instant the door gave way, a wall of smoke swallowing their visibility.
The roar of the blaze thundered in his ears, but beneath it he could hear the cries—frantic, terrified voices trapped above.
“Third floor!” Isaac shouted over the commotion, his voice steady even though Nolan could see the tension in his posture.
Nolan swallowed, forcing back the burn of adrenaline. “Copy that. Let’s move.”
The two of them surged forward, boots hammering across the tile that was already beginning to buckle.
The stairwell loomed ahead, orange tongues of flame licking the walls.
They pushed up, step by step, the heat pressing against their suits.
Every inhale felt like swallowing fire even through the respirator.
On the landing, Nolan spotted a woman huddled against a door, clutching two small children to her chest. “Got you,” he said, voice muffled but firm as he guided them forward. Isaac took one child in his arms, Nolan the other, the woman clinging to them as they descended together.
“Keep moving!” Isaac urged, clearing the way with one arm as debris fell from the ceiling. They reached the ground level, handing their charges off to waiting medics. The woman sobbed her gratitude, but there was no time to stop.
“Back in,” Nolan said, already turning. His brother’s nod was quick, wordless.
They climbed again, another hallway thick with smoke. This time, it was an elderly man barely conscious, dragged out from his apartment as the flames clawed at the curtains. They maneuvered him down, lungs screaming with the effort.
Over the radio, their captain’s voice crackled, firm and sharp. “Unit Two, you need to get out of there. Structure’s unstable. Repeat, get out now.”
“Copy,” Isaac replied, eyes scanning for Nolan as they turned toward the stairwell.
That was when Nolan saw it—a flash of fur against the charred stairs. A cat, small and motionless, lying on its side, chest barely rising. His heart kicked hard against his ribs.
“Wait!” Nolan shouted, pointing. “There—on the stairs!”
Isaac’s head jerked around, disbelief flashing in his eyes. “Nolan—”