Chapter 25 - Sean
I curl my arm around Emily’s shoulders, feeling her trembling in the aftermath of using her powers so boldly against the three evil witches. Tonight is the culmination of all her training over these past few weeks, and she’s outdone herself.
But there’s no time to celebrate the victory of the fall of the wicked witches when the ground quakes beneath us. The ground doesn’t simply split, but it peels back, roaring to life.
Stone curls back from itself like rotting skin, roots snapping and screaming as they’re torn free, the earth buckling inward as if something massive beneath the island is finally stretching after centuries of confinement.
The cemetery convulses, headstones toppling over, bones cracking audibly as graves rupture one after another.
Emily stumbles, and I catch her before she can fall, her magic flaring instinctively around us in a shield of gold. The air goes frigid, the temperature plummeting so fast my breath fogs instantly, frost blooming across broken stone.
And then the shadows come, not creeping in slowly, but pouring in like a tsunami hitting the mainland.
Black smoke coils upward from the split earth, thick and oily, writhing as if it’s alive.
Faces surface briefly in the dark with screaming mouths and hollow eyes, before being dragged back into the mass of the gaping hole in the ground.
The smell hits next: decay, iron, something burned, and ancient enough to make my wolf recoil and send acrid bile to the top of my throat.
“Hold formation!” Dominic shouts, already shifting mid-command.
Wolves explode into motion around us, bodies tearing free of human skin in flashes of fur and bone. The witches move in practiced synchronization, hands weaving sigils as light and symbols snap into place, forming layered defenses.
Emily stays rooted beside me, and the bond tightens. She’s not panicking, but she’s focused. She feels what is coming, feels the weight of it, the vastness pressing against her awareness like a stormfront rolling in.
The shadows begin to shape themselves in the air, a spine forming first, twisted, elongated, looking and feeling wrong. Ribs push outward next, cracking into place with wet, obscene sounds. The darkness condenses, hardens, flesh knitting itself together from magic alone.
Merlin Grimes rises from the ashes of his grave. He’s not human anymore. Not entirely.
His body is hideously tall, limbs stretched unnaturally long, joints bending at angles that make my skin crawl.
Black veins pulse visibly beneath corpse-pale flesh, shadow crawling beneath his skin like something trapped and furious.
A black cloak made of shadows and death covers his body.
His face is gaunt, eyes sunken deep into their sockets, glowing faintly violet as he lifts his head.
And when he smiles with blackened teeth, I feel Emily flinch through the bond.
“Ah…” Grimes murmurs, his voice layered, overlapping itself like multiple throats speaking at once. “The children return.”
His gaze sweeps over us, dismissive at first, like the wolves and witches standing at the ready to fight him don’t faze him until his eyes land on Emily, and the air changes.
“That glow,” he says softly, reverently. “I would recognize it anywhere.”
Emily’s magic responds without her permission, gold flickering beneath her skin, radiating outward like sunlight straining against storm clouds. My wolf presses forward, hackles raised, a low snarl rumbling from my chest.
Grimes laughs.
“You feel it, don’t you?” he continues with a snarl, eyes never leaving her.
“The island remembers you. The blood in the veins of this soil remembers you. Your grandmothers fought me here.” He clicks his tongue.
“Brave, foolish women. They burned me, but they could never get rid of me.” He chuckles, the vulgar sound echoing around the entire island.
“That’s what we’re here for!” Arianna shouts, her chin held up high as Tyler stands beside her in wolf form. “We’re here to put an end to you for good!”
More chuckling from the inhuman, dark warlock. “What makes you think that you can defeat me? Your grandmothers failed, and so will you.”
“We’ll see about that!” Gwen roars, and the witches attack first.
Delilah’s voice cuts through, sharp and commanding, as golden light detonates outward, sigils slamming into Grimes’s chest with enough force to crater stone. Gwen and Arianna follow, magic threading together in blinding arcs, binding spells snapping tight.
For half a heartbeat, it looks like it works.
Until Grimes lifts one hand, and the spells implode.
A pressure wave slams outward, hurling wolves and witches alike through the air. I barely have time to pull Emily down before the shockwave hits, stone shattering around us, trees snapping like matchsticks.
“Sean!” she gasps.
“I’ve got you,” I growl, hauling her upright as chaos erupts around us.
Wolves charge forward, and Nicholas and Dominic hit Grimes from opposite sides, massive bodies slamming into his legs, tearing at shadow and flesh alike. Tyler shifts into human form before gunfire crackles uselessly against barriers of condensed darkness.
Grimes snarls and moves forward like he’s floating, levitating, and he’s controlled.
A sweep of his arm sends Nicholas flying, his massive wolf body crashing through two standing stones before he collapses, stunned but alive. Another gesture, and shadow spears erupt from the ground, hitting Dominic in the hind leg mid-leap.
Emily screams, her magic surging.
A golden dome snaps into place around us just as a spear directed at my chest slams into the barrier, shattering on impact. I feel the strain immediately, the pressure behind my eyes, and a ringing in my ears as her magic bears the brunt of the attack.
He’s testing us, testing her.
“Stay with me,” I tell her, gripping her hand tighter than I mean to.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she replies, voice steady even as power crackles around her. “But he knows about the bond. He’s targeting us.”
Grimes’s eyes flick to me.
“Ah. The alpha…” he muses with an eerie half-smile. “You were not part of the prophecy before.”
He steps closer, shadow curling protectively around his frame as witches and wolves strike again, coordinated and relentless. Magic barriers shatter. Blood stains ancient earth.
“And yet…” Grimes continues, voice carrying effortlessly over the fight, “here you are. Bound to her.”
The bond flares as anger brews inside me, watching my brothers get injured. This was part of the plan—staying by Emily’s side when Grimes emerges. But my one moment of weakness, when my anger surges because I’m not with them, fighting by their sides, is what does it.
Pain lances through my chest, sharp and disorienting, as Grimes gestures toward me. Shadow clamps around my limbs, yanking me forward violently.
“Sean!” Emily yells out.
I hit the ground hard, breath knocked clean out of me as darkness coils around my throat, crushing me, choking me. Emily’s magic slams into the shadow binding me, but Grimes counters instantly, hurling her back with a flick of his wrist.
She lands hard, skidding across stone.
Rage explodes inside me, and my wolf tears free of the dark magic binds, bones snapping, vision reddening as I shift mid-roar. I rip through the shadow binding with brute force, launching myself at Grimes with everything I have.
He laughs as I strike.
We collide in a brutal crash of fur and shadow, my claws tearing through his chest, ripping free chunks of dark flesh that dissolve into smoke even as he reforms. His power slams into me like a wall, crushing me into the earth, shadow spears pinning my limbs.
“If you break…” he says calmly, leaning down until his face is inches from mine, “she dies.”
Pain floods through the bond.
Emily screams again, feeling my pain, every ounce of agony transferred through that cursed, beautiful connection.
“And if you die…” Grimes continues, eyes gleaming obsidian, “...she dies, too.”
Emily gets to her feet, and the air vibrates. “No!” she says firmly, voice ringing clear and unafraid.
Grimes turns slowly.
Emily stands between us now, golden light pouring from her like a living sun, illuminating the entire clearing. Her magic is no longer restrained, no longer tentative. It’s vast, controlled, terrifying in its precision. “You don’t get to decide our fate,” she tells him. “You never did.”
Grimes smiles wider. “You are mine, Emily Hudson. Just as your grandmother, Nyara, was mine. I consumed her, as I will do to you. The power you carry belongs to me!”
I feel Emily squeeze my hand through the bond. “Trust me,” she says through the mind link, and I do. With every fiber in my being, I trust that woman with my life.
She steps forward, lifting her palms toward the sky.
The world floods with gold, and all of Grimes’s illusions peel away instantly, his layered defenses cracking as Emily’s magic tears through deception itself.
Donna joins her, one hand on her belly as she throws magic into the pool, amplifying Emily’s magic with her own.
The shadows scream, retreating, writhing as if burned.
Just for a second, Grimes falters. “That power…” he snarls. “That’s not possible.”
Emily turns to me. “Sean,” she says softly. “Take it.”
I nod once, and the bond ignites, magic surging into me like liquid fire, flooding my veins, my lungs, my soul. My vision explodes into gold, every sense sharpening until I can hear heartbeats across the clearing, feel the pull of the moon overhead.
My eyes burn, and I roar as witchfire and wolf merge inside me, something ancient snapping into alignment. I move without thought, merely instinct, tearing through Grimes’s physical defenses as Emily shatters his illusions piece by piece.
Witches close the circle, sigils blazing all around us.
Grimes screams as ancient light snaps into place, trapping him.
Emily steps forward one final time. Her magic gathers, and it’s final, absolute.
“This ends now,” she says calmly, releasing her magic to its full extent.
Gold consumes shadow, ripping Grimes apart at the seams. His scream fractures into nothing as his form implodes inward, collapsing into ash and broken magic that dissolves beneath our combined power.
Silence falls all around, and I drop with the weight of everything being released. My wolf retreats, and I collapse to one knee, lungs burning, the bond settling warm and complete.
Emily is at my side instantly, arms around me, her magic steady and whole.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers, and my heart squeezes.
I bury my face in her neck, shaking. “I love you,” I breathe, the most natural response, as natural as breathing.
She smiles through tears as she cups my face. Her eyes shine a soft shade of blue, glossed over with tears as she says, “I know. I love you too, Sean.”
Relief washes over me, but it also washes over the island as our brothers and sisters crawl to each other, to their mates, to embrace them. The prophecy is fulfilled, and the darkness is gone.
For the first time in years, it feels safe enough to breathe. And to kiss my fated mate on her lips without any obstacles standing in our way.