Chapter 21 Silent Sacrifice #2
The prospect stretches before my consciousness with the particular horror of eternities spent wrong.
Years, decades, centuries of existence as nothing but destruction incarnate—no voice, no choice, no connection to the bonds that gave my existence meaning.
Just flames and fury and the endless repetition of violence that this form demands.
I don't want to be left behind.
The plea surfaces with desperation that my hellhound body can't express—yearning so intense that it should be visible in the air around me, need so profound that reality itself should bend to accommodate it. But magic doesn't work that way. Curses don't care about want.
This is what Elena wanted.
The realization crystallizes with the particular clarity of puzzles finally revealing their true design.
Shedidn't just curse me to create a weapon—she cursed me to create tragedy.
To engineer exactly this scenario, where the people I care about are forced to choose between their own survival and a monster who can't explain that he's still the man they knew.
This is what she planned.
For my demise to be a lonely, agonizing one.
To deliver what she believes I deserve for not being utmost loyal to her.
For the plans that were rooted for the sister she's desperate to destroy.
I failed to serve Elena's agenda.
Failed to prioritize her schemes above Gwenievere's wellbeing.
Failed to remain the obedient weapon she expected when she first learned of my existence.
And this is my punishment.
Isolation.
Abandonment.
The knowledge that the woman I love is walking away because I can't tell her not to.
"Mortimer!"
Gwenievere's voice cuts through my spiraling despair with force that makes all three of my heads snap toward her position. She's calling to the dragon shifter, summoning the transportation that will carry them all toward the gates I was trying to destroy.
They're leaving.
They're actually leaving.
The dragon shifter responds to her call with the particular obedience of bond mates who recognize when their Queen has made a decision.
Mortimer's massive form roars as it soars toward the golden gates—toward the structures that have suddenly begun to open, revealing whatever lies beyond this volcanic nightmare.
The rest of the crew accompanies him.
Atticus on his back, Nikolai finding purchase among the scales, the others arranging themselves for departure that will leave me behind.
All of them following Gwenievere's command because that's what bond mates do—they trust their Queen's judgment even when that judgment condemns one of their own to eternal isolation.
No.
They're leaving.
They're leaving.
I let out an outcry.
The roar that escapes all three of my throats shakes the frost ground that's sizzling against the lava still fighting to make way. The sound carries everything I can't express in words—desperation, fear, the particular anguish of watching hope disappear while trapped in a form that can't pursue it.
Don't go.
Please don't go.
I'm still here.
I'm still ME.
My anger is ruthless.
Frustration that I can't speak translates into fury that this form eagerly amplifies.
The hellhound's instincts don't distinguish between emotional sources—any intense feeling becomes fuel for the destruction that defines my current existence.
I want to cry but only flames emerge. I want to plead but only roars escape.
I can't express.
Can't say the truth.
Can't make them understand that the monster they're abandoning still contains the man they knew.
That's probably the irony of all of this.
This whole journey, really.
Since she arrived at Wicked Academy, I sacrificed my voice to protect her in silence.
Moved in shadows while she walked in light.
Manipulated circumstances from positions she couldn't see, redirecting threats before she knew they existed.
I did everything I could to shelter her from the machinations that were fighting to stack against her.
Even if it made me the villain.
Even if she hated me for years because I had to wear a mask that earned her contempt.
Even if the truth of my devotion remained hidden behind performances of enmity.
I gave up my voice long before this curse claimed it officially.
And this is the true end of that wickedness.
The final price of the path I chose.
Silence that has become permanent.
Protection that has transformed into prison.
I guess it really is the sacrifice made for redemption.
The thought carries the particular weight of acceptance that despair eventually produces. If this is my fate—if the cost of protecting Gwenievere through three years of Academy trials is eternal existence as a monster who can never explain why he did what he did—then so be it.
Better this than watching her die.
Better this than failing the mission I set for myself the moment I understood what Elena was planning.
Mortimer lands just inside the gates.
The dragon's massive form settles with the grace that his bloodline provides, wings folding against scaled sides that carry the others toward whatever comes next. They dismount with the particular urgency of people who want to put distance between themselves and the creature they're abandoning.
The others want to walk to Gwenievere.
I can see them trying—Cassius's shadows reaching toward her, Nikolai's body leaning in her direction, the pull of bonds demanding proximity that circumstances currently prevent. But she puts her hand up.
Stop.
The gesture carries authority that even bond mates don't argue with.
She looks over her shoulder.
Her attention turns toward me—toward the hellhound she trusted moments ago, the creature whose flames almost destroyed her, the monster who would have ended her existence if Professor Eternalis hadn't intervened with impossible speed.
I can't hear what's being said.
The distance is too great, and hellhound ears apparently don't share the enhanced hearing that vampire nature provided. Words pass between them—conversation that probably decides my fate, discussion that I have no ability to influence or even accurately observe.
Only Zeke walks forward.
The quiet one approaches Gwenievere with the particular calm that defines his every action—unhurried despite the urgency of their circumstances, composed despite the chaos that still surrounds them. He reaches her side with patience that contradicts everything about their current situation.
He whispers something in her ear.
Information that I can't access, knowledge that he possesses and she apparently needs. The exchange is brief—just a few words, just a moment of communication that passes between them with the intimacy of shared understanding.
I see the immediate disappointment.
Her shoulders sink with the particular weight of hope being crushed by reality.
Whatever Zeke told her, whatever information his quiet observation has provided, it clearly wasn't the news she wanted to receive.
The posture of someone who has just learned that the path she wanted to take has been blocked.
She looks my way.
Those silver eyes meet my multiple gazes across the distance that separates us—connection that the curse can't fully sever, bond that apparently survives even hellhound transformation.
I know what that look means.
She has no choice but to give up on me.
And if it meant protecting the others, she would.
She would always choose their survival over sentimental attachment to a monster who can't prove he deserves salvation.
I knew she would.
Because I didn't earn her mercy.
It's too soon for that.
Too early in whatever relationship we might have built if the Academy had given us time.
It's a shame, I think to myself.
Because the Academy never allowed them that.
The time to reminisce on what was learned. To grow and excel at our own pace. To develop connections that circumstances kept interrupting with life-threatening trials and enemies who wanted us dead.
We were all simply in survival mode.
That's all that mattered—staying alive long enough to reach the next crisis, the next challenge, the next threat that the Academy generated to test whether we deserved to continue existing.
No space for genuine relationship development.
No opportunity for bonds to mature beyond the desperate connections that shared danger creates.
I hate it.
Hate everything about how this worked out.
Because I never really got to love her in a way she'd understand.
The regret settles into my consciousness with weight that threatens to crush whatever remains of the man beneath the beast.
Instead, I loved her the way I was forced to learn how.
In silence.
In secrecy.
In longing that could never be expressed.
All thanks to Elena and the disciples that aided her schemes. The conspiracy that required my cooperation and received only my sabotage, my quiet resistance, my dedication to protecting Gwenievere regardless of what it cost me personally.
One of them must be hiding somewhere.
Watching.
The realization surfaces with the particular logic of someone who understands how Elena operates. That fireball couldn't have been destroyed—not by normal means, not by anything that should be capable of interfering with hellfire's absolute nature.
I know very little about hellhounds.
The curse came with no instruction manual, no explanation of what I was becoming or how the transformation worked. But one thing I know for certain—one piece of information that filtered through despite Elena's attempt to keep me ignorant.
Hellfire can only be stopped by two sources.
By one's master, which I don't have.
Or by the creator of the curse itself.
Professor Eternalis might be ancient and powerful, but she didn't create this curse. Elena did. Which means—
Elena is probably nearby.
Watching.
Waiting for them to go through the portal so she can come finish me off.
The prospect should terrify me.