Chapter 21 - Sean
“The last time Delilah did this, she was infected by dark magic…” Hunter comments dryly as we both stand on the porch, watching the witches standing around a fire in the backyard, Emily and Delilah facing each other in some ritual that allows her to see into Emily’s mind.
The witches are calling it “diagnostics.”
That word alone sets my teeth on edge.
There’s nothing clinical about what’s happening. Nothing detached. This isn’t observation; it’s interrogation. Of Emily’s magic. Of the bond. Of her mind.
She stands barefoot in the center of the circle, shoulders squared, chin lifted like she’s bracing for a blow.
Golden sigils glow faintly beneath her feet, etched into the earth in layered patterns; old witchcraft, the kind that predates written language.
The symbols pulse slowly, unevenly, as if they’re breathing.
Or waiting.
Emily gets to her knees, and Delilah kneels before her, palms hovering inches from her temples.
Gwen and Arianna complete the circle, their murmured chants threading through the air like a low, steady current.
Donna isn’t here—too close to her due date, too vulnerable—but I can feel her worry from miles away, like her spirit is with her sisters, whispering words of encouragement, words of comfort between them.
I stand at the edge of the clearing with Hunter, arms crossed tightly across my chest, every muscle coiled and waiting, with bated breath, for something to go wrong.
I’ve been feeling that way ever since the Harrower started attacking Emily.
Just waiting for something to demand my action.
My wolf prowls beneath my skin, restless and alert, hackles raised as if we’re surrounded by enemies instead of allies.
Anything is possible. I couldn’t even get some alone time with Emily without the Harrower attacking her psyche in the diner. Emily still won’t speak about what she saw in that vision, but I witnessed the terror in her eyes, like she saw a ghost.
The mate bond hums now, and my palms tingle as if Emily is close enough to touch me. The awareness vibrates through my chest like a warning siren, prompting me to unfold my arms and clench fists at my sides. Through my periphery, I notice how tense Hunter is.
“Emily isn’t infected with dark magic…” I mutter under my breath like a reassurance to him, but also a reminder to myself. It’s not as if anything is wrong with Emily. The witches are just running diagnostics to check if they can block out the Harrower from Emily’s mind.
Emily inhales sharply as Delilah finally makes contact, her palms pressed to Emily’s temples. Golden light flares beneath Delilah’s hands, but not violently, not uncontrolled, but rather searching. It spills outward in tendrils, curling through the air like it’s tasting everything around her.
Including me.
My wolf surges forward instinctively, answering the call before my mind can stop it. I take a step closer, and the light around Emily’s temples reacts instantly, tightening, intensifying, locking onto me with frightening precision.
“Sean…” Delilah warns without turning. “Do not move.”
I stop, fists clenching so hard my knuckles ache, my palms stinging with my nails digging trenches into them. The light sharpens anyway, drawn toward me like gravity has shifted.
Emily gasps, and her back arches, fingers curling at her sides as her magic spikes at her palms. Her power doesn’t explode, but it binds, and I feel it inside my gut, wrapping inward.
Fusing…
I feel it through the bond like pressure behind my eyes.
“Something’s wrong,” I growl, face contorting with strain as if my insides are going to explode.
Delilah’s expression changes. The teasing warmth she usually carries drains away, replaced by something cold and focused, calculating, as her brows furrow. That scares me more than panic ever could.
She pulls her hands back from Emily’s head abruptly. The gold light retracts, snapping inward toward Emily’s temples, but the air around us doesn’t settle. It stays charged, heavy, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes.
Emily opens her eyes slowly, blinking as if she’d been asleep and is just waking up. She appears steady, like she’s holding herself together through pure stubborn will. It would have been amusing if I weren’t so concerned by the look on Delilah’s face.
“Well?” Hunter asks, breaking the silence as he steps forward beside me.
Delilah reaches out a hand, and Hunter is at her side in no time, helping her stand up as she brushes dirt from her knees. She exhales once, long and measured, before turning to face me. I’m already by Emily’s side, too, helping her get to her feet.
“Thanks,” Emily murmurs timidly, and I give her a gentle, reassuring smile as I remain by her side. Gwen and Arianna join us, the crackling fire serving as the backdrop of what feels like an eerie scene.
“The bond isn’t just active,” Delilah says carefully, her brows furrowing as she slips her arm through Hunter’s. “It’s integrating with Emily’s magic.”
My stomach drops. “Integrating how?” I ask, my voice rough as I take Emily’s hand.
Delilah hesitates, and it’s like a blade sliding between my ribs, prompting me to tighten my grip on Emily’s hand. I know that look on Delilah’s face. We spent four years together in black ops. She can’t hide her worries from me.
“The mate bond isn’t feeding her magic, the way it does with the rest of us,” Delilah continues. “It’s not amplifying it. It’s…becoming part of it.”
Arianna swallows. “Yeah. It worked differently for us. Our mate bonds strengthened our magic, but it didn’t bind to the bond.”
“We’ve never seen convergence like this,” Gwen adds grimly.
“Not outside of myth,” Delilah says to the other witches.
Emily’s shoulders tense. “That doesn’t mean it’s bad, does it?”
“No,” Delilah agrees, shaking her head softly. “It’s not necessarily bad. But it is dangerous.”
I take a step forward. “Dangerous how?”
Delilah meets my gaze, and for once, there’s no humor there. Only truth. “She’s nearing the threshold.”
The word lands like a gunshot.
Emily’s breath stutters. Through the bond, fear spikes. It’s sharp, cold, and my immediate response is to wrap an arm around her shoulders.
“The threshold?” I repeat. “You’re saying she’s—”
“About to fully emerge as the fifth witch,” Delilah says matter-of-factly. “Her magic is crossing the point of no return.”
“How is that dangerous?” I ask irritably, and Delilah sighs.
“With Emily’s magic dependent on the mate bond, it puts the responsibility of her magic on both of you. You’re two halves of a whole, and one can’t work independently of the other. But if you get hurt, Emily does. And vice versa. There’s no room for error.”
Emily gasps beside me, her face paling as she stares in horror at Delilah. “The Harrower…?” she asks softly.
Delilah doesn’t look away. “She knows.”
My wolf snarls. Of course she does.
“Both of you need to be careful,” Hunter warns. “We can’t risk either of you getting hurt.”
“Emily needs to be especially careful,” Arianna warns. “The Harrower appears to be siphoning her energy through the psychic attacks. It’ll weaken her, but it’ll also weaken you, Sean.”
I nod briskly, while Emily remains spooked.
Even when we head back inside the house and have dinner with the others, she barely says a word, as if she’s haunted.
I keep a watchful eye on her discreetly, noticing how she eats, but she’s not even tasting her food, just going through the motions of dinner.
When night falls, and Tyler comes over to pick up Arianna, while Hunter, Delilah, and Gwen head to Scarborough, Emily remains quietly spooked. She still hasn’t told me what she saw in the vision she had last night at the diner, and I can see it’s eating her up inside.
“Em…?” I call out gently toward her as she begins to move toward the hallway. She stops and turns, but her head remains bent, as if weighed down by all the fear wearing on her mind.
“Yeah?”
I gulp hard when I hear her timid voice, every instinct in me screaming to go to her and pull her into my arms. But she doesn’t need me to be overbearing right now. It’s probably space she needs.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Emily requires space before she can truly open up to me. All I can do is reaffirm that I’m here for her.
“You can sleep in my room tonight,” I say, and a faint light flashes through her eyes.
“Sure,” she says with a half-smile before turning back and dragging her feet down the hallway.
No protest. No argument. A seamless agreement that tells me she’s not okay.
Later that night, I turn the house into a fortress. I don’t ask permission. I don’t debate. I act.
Guards rotate in silent shifts around the perimeter.
I reinforce every window with iron-laced bars that are strong enough to slow dark magic, subtle enough not to alert it.
Dustin and the other soldiers are on standby, all because of what the witches found tonight—if either Emily or I gets hurt, the other suffers. Neither of us can be in danger.
When I enter my bedroom, I find Emily still awake, reading one of the witches’ leather-bound books.
She doesn’t say anything at first when I walk in, but she steals glances at me as I go about taking off my shoes and disappearing into the bathroom.
When I return to the room, she just glares every time I pass, her jaw tight, magic simmering beneath her skin like a live wire.
Through the bond, I feel her irritation coil into anger, sharp and bitter, scraping against my nerves.
It explodes when I reach the bed.
“This has to stop,” she snaps, lifting her head from the book.
“What are you talking about?” I ask with a frown, not sure where this is coming from.
Emily huffs as she climbs out of bed, then marches to the window where she yanks on the curtain and pulls on the drawstring of the blind.
She points to the soldiers posted on either side of the window, then to the metal bars covering the glass like a prison.
“You can’t cage me in my own house, Sean. ”
I stall for a moment, only because she referenced this house as “hers,” and that should make me feel proud, like she’s finally accepting that she belongs here with me. But she glares at me angrily, warning me that this is no time to rejoice.
“I’m not caging you,” I fire back. “I’m keeping you alive.”
Her laugh is brittle. “This isn’t protection, Sean. It’s suffocation.”
“You’re bleeding power in your sleep,” I snap. “The Harrower is already inside your head, and you want me to give you what? Space? At a time like this?”
Emily flinches, and regret hits me immediately—but it’s too late.
“You don’t trust me,” she says quietly.
“That’s not true.” I frown. “This isn’t about—”
“You don’t trust me,” she repeats, her voice cracking. “You trust the bond. You trust your instincts. But you don’t trust that I am strong enough against the Harrower.”
My chest tightens painfully, as if I’d been stabbed and the knife had been twisted.
“I have been on the other side of what happens to you when she plays tricks on your mind, Em. And I already lost you once before,” I admit, the words tearing free.
“I can’t—” My voice breaks. “I can’t lose you again.
Not like that. Not permanently. I’m not willing to risk it.
I will cage us both in if I have to, if it means I don’t lose you. ”
Her walls fracture just enough for the truth to bleed through the bond.
Fear. Raw. Choking.
That’s what she’s feeling. That’s the reason for her outburst.
“The bond makes me feel things,” she whispers. “Things I don’t want to feel. Needing you feels like drowning, Sean. Like if I let go, I’ll disappear into you and never get myself back.”
The words gut me, and I’m already walking toward her. “I don’t want to take anything from you,” I say hoarsely. “I just want you alive.”
“I know,” she says through a sob as I wrap my arms around her. “And that’s what scares me.”
The argument dies in the warmth of our embrace, and Emily’s mixed emotions ease into sleep when she finds it on the bed, in my arms. I fall asleep, too, even if it’s just to close my eyes for a moment. What feels like hours later, my wolf wakes me before my mind does.
Dark magic is evident in the air, even though it’s faint. I turn to check on Emily, but she’s sound asleep, and there’s no indication that she’s bleeding magic.
Inside the house.
I’m moving before thought catches up, heart slamming as I sprint down the hallway toward the living room, where the scent of black magic feels the strongest. I reach the fireplace and freeze.
Burn marks scar the wall above the fireplace, black whiffs of smoke still faintly curling upward—the air reeks of rot and cold and something ancient enough to make my blood run ice-cold.
There’s a note that floats down from the top of the fireplace, and I snatch it midair before it lands on the firewood that isn’t burning.
My heart sinks when I read the note.
“THE FIFTH WITCH WILL FALL.
THE PROPHECY WILL brEAK.
YOUR ALPHA WILL BLEED.”
My vision tunnels, and rage surges violently and blindingly, my wolf slamming against my ribs, demanding blood.
I glance back at the hallway where Emily is sound asleep and unaware, only her magic flickering restlessly beneath her skin like a candle fighting a draft. I can feel it through the bond. That’s how I know she’s safe. It’s how I know she’s still asleep.
No.
She will not see this.
I grab the box of matches from the shelf, light one, and throw it onto the firewood. I throw the note into the hot, licking flames, watching as the paper burns to ash. But the message remains floating in my head.
Burned into my mind.
The Harrower isn’t just attacking Emily anymore. She’s warning me. And I swear—to the Moon Goddess, to the pack, to the bond itself—that the Harrower will not take my mate, or my blood.
Not over my dead body.
I have two people to protect now, not just Emily. I have to protect myself, too, if I don’t want her to get hurt.