Chapter 24 - Sophie
My eyes open with a start, and the first thing I notice is that I'm alone in bed. Damian isn't beside me, and only the residual hum between my thighs remains as a gentle reminder of our lovemaking last night.
What strikes me is how I don't freak out or think the worst, even if I just woke up in the middle of the night alone in his bed.
I can feel his presence nearby, and suspect that he's left my side at this hour for a perfectly good reason.
Gathering myself and taking a deep breath to wake up my body, I climb out of his bed, dragging the sheet along with me as I head to his bathroom. He's sliding his pants on, pausing when he hears me coming in, wearing a look of controlled worry.
“I was just about to wake you,” he says as he does his button. “Demons were sighted on the north boundaries.”
“Red Moon territory…?” I gasp, and Damian nods.
“James just contacted me about it, and we need to go.”
I'm about to open my mouth to fight him when I realize I don't have to. Damian isn't asking me to stay behind. That's why he said he was about to wake me.
For the first time, it feels like he actually needs me, or rather, wants me to fight beside him. I race to my bedroom to get dressed, and Damian meets me at the front door, his expression troubled when I find him.
I know why he looks like that—it’s because there’s a gnawing feeling that the demons are plotting their worst attack by far. And this time, they’re coming directly for Red Moon.
They’re coming for me.
I slip my hand into Damian’s, offering him a terse smile, perhaps to reassure him, or to reassure myself, I’m not sure. He returns it tentatively before we head to the clearing near the woods, the air ominous as James approaches us to give us an update about the demon sightings at the border.
“Have you alerted Henry and Conan?” Damian asks his beta, and James nods.
“Yes, Alpha. They’re on their way.”
Damian’s hand tightens on mine when a screeching cry can be heard in the distance. James promptly rushes back toward the woods, disappearing between the trees to join the other soldiers as they prepare for the looming attack.
What frightens me most is that this attack doesn’t begin with chaos, but it grows in the valley, and we can feel it settling over us, like a dark cloud covering the valley right before a storm.
There’s no more screaming, no rushed alarm bells tearing through the valley.
Instead, there’s a pressure that rolls in low and steady, like the moment before a storm breaks, when the air grows thick enough to press against the lungs.
I feel it even before Damian stiffens beside me, even before the bond sharpens into warning.
This isn’t a raid.
This isn’t a test.
This is a push.
The demons come in waves that don’t scatter when met with resistance, that don’t retreat when the first lines of werewolves hold.
They surge forward together, coordinated in a way I haven’t seen before, forcing the packs to respond all at once as Heinrich and Conan come charging in with their wolves.
The wolves shift, magic flares, weapons rise, but something is wrong, and it becomes clear almost immediately.
The alphas are slower.
Not unskilled. Not hesitant. Just…dulled.
Heinrich’s strikes land when he uses his magic, but the earth answers him reluctantly, cracking where it should have split clean through.
Conan’s lightning arcs wide instead of sharp, dispersing more than it destroys.
Even the wind magic carried by the rest of Conan’s pack falters, whispering rather than cutting through any demons.
They are fighting well, not fighting powerfully, and the demons know it, mocking them with teasing attacks that are meant to taunt them instead of delivering any real damage.
The wolves aren’t what the demons want.
They want me.
Damian moves with me without needing to look, water already coiling at his command as I step into position beside him.
This time, there’s no argument, no command to stay back.
Just alignment, our training gathering up to this moment.
His power meets mine the way it always has when we’re in sync, neither overpowering the other, not consuming, but steady, shaping the battlefield around us instead of tearing it apart.
Fire answers me cleanly, wild with power, but not greedy enough to consume me, because I’m controlling it this time.
I draw it up from the center of myself, the way Damian taught me, breathing through the heat until it settles into something I can hold.
I release it in controlled arcs, forcing demons back without chasing them, without losing myself to the pull of destruction.
Water surges where my flames strike, steam exploding outward in violent bursts that stagger the front lines of the demons whooshing in.
For a moment… just a moment… It works.
The valley holds.
But then the demons change. They don’t just counter us. They close in on me, targeting me specifically, moving away from the wolves and rushing at me.
The first corrupted attack slips through the defensive line like smoke, blackened flame threading itself through the chaos with deliberate precision.
It doesn’t burn the way fire should. It corrodes like burning acid, eating at the edges of my control, twisting heat into something unstable, something that wants to explode outward instead of obey.
I falter.
Just a fraction, but it’s enough to throw me off guard.
Another strike from the demons follows, then another, each one designed not to overpower me, but to unbalance me.
To fracture my focus. To pull my fire back toward the wild, emotional state it once answered so easily.
I fight it, teeth clenched, trying to remember my breath and form and restraint, but the battlefield shifts, bodies moving between us, magic colliding in uneven bursts.
I lose sight of Damian for a moment that stretches too long.
A demon breaks through the line, slamming into me with a force that knocks the air from my lungs.
My fire flares instinctively, surging higher than I intend, heat roaring up my spine as my control slips.
I feel it then—the edge of myself I’ve been holding back, the part that could burn everything to ash if I let it.
The fear isn’t of the demons, but of what I might become if I lose myself now.
Another corrupted blast tears toward me, darker than the last, aimed straight at my chest. I can’t counter it in time. My fire stutters, unstable, collapsing inward instead of surging forward.
And then Damian is there.
He doesn’t block it with magic.
He takes it.
The impact hits him at full force, a brutal collision that sends him crashing to the ground hard enough to fracture stone. I feel it through the bond like something tearing open inside my ribs, pain and shock and terror flooding through me all at once.
“No!”
The sound that leaves me isn’t a word. It’s a rupture from deep within my being.
Something breaks open in me then, a clarity so sharp it steals my breath away. The truth slams into me with devastating force: losing him would destroy me far more completely than any prophecy, any fate, any destiny ever could.
I don’t think. There is no time to think. All I do is command.
My fire answers instantly, no longer flaring outward in wild arcs, but collapsing inward, compressing into something dense and blindingly bright.
It moves through the valley like a living force, erasing the corrupted flames on contact, burning clean through demon after demon without spreading beyond what I choose.
The battlefield goes quiet in stages.
It’s not peaceful, but stunned.
The remaining demons retreat, not in disorder, but in recognition, slipping back into shadow as if marking something they cannot yet overcome. When the last of them vanishes, the valley exhales, smoke and ash settling over scorched ground and broken stone.
For a moment, it feels…safer.
Not healed. Not whole. Just held long enough to exhale.
I drop to my knees beside Damian before anyone can stop me, hands shaking as I press them to his chest, to his side, to anywhere I can feel warmth beneath the blood. He’s breathing…barely…his skin too pale, his pulse erratic beneath my fingers.
I try to heal him with trembling hands, and the fire responds sluggishly, thin and weak, drained by the fight, by the force it took to end it. Panic rises sharp and fast like a blade cutting through my throat, tears blurring my vision as I fight to summon more, to give him anything I have left.
“Please…” I whisper, the word tearing out of me, raw and broken. “Please stay. Don’t leave me.”
Around us, the valley stands silent, the other alphas wounded but alive, wolves staring not in reverence now, but in awe, edged with fear. They’ve survived.
But I don’t care about any of that.
All I care about is the man bleeding beneath my hands, and the terrifying truth burning steadily in my chest:
It was never destiny pulling me toward him. It was free will.
And I am not ready to lose him.
Closing my eyes as a sob rips through my chest, my head drops, and I’m instantly sprung into what feels like another timeline, or another dimension, fire blazing all around me as cloaked figures scatter across the valley, filling up every corner.
Something about it doesn’t feel scary, but rather, familiar, as if I know the faces of those I cannot see in the dark, covered by tanned hoods of their cloaks. There’s recognition where there should be fear, and not even the hot licking flames surrounding me scare me.
I glance to my left and notice a woman standing there with flames surrounding her, but she isn’t burning.
She’s like me, except her hair is longer and straighter than mine, her frame taller.
Glancing to my right, then, I see another woman with flames engulfing her, but she’s a petite girl with a short bob of straight hair.
I turn from the unrecognizable woman to the gathering of cloaked people ahead, my breath catching when I hear an echo of many voices resounding through the valley.
“This is how it ends…” the voices echo in unison, the forms of cloaked figures breaking apart and disappearing with the wind like golden specks. I look up to see a black, gaping hole above the mountains, a chill running down my spine when I sense the demons heavily in the swirling portal.
When I look down again, I’m back to reality, back to seeing Damian lying helplessly on the ground, but something changes in my palms, and it isn’t fire I’m wielding anymore.
It’s golden dust, like the specks of the people in cloaks from the vision I just had, showering from my hands. There’s a quiet recognition that awakens inside me.
The people in cloaks were my ancestors, and they just showed me how to end the war with the demons, while bestowing a new way of healing upon me. The golden light spreads through Damian’s chest, filling every corner of him until the color returns to his face, and his eyes spring open.
“Damian…?”
“Sophie!” Damian instantly rises as if nothing happened to him, flinging his arms around me and pulling me into a hug. Of relief. From both of us.
The tears fall effortlessly from my eyes as I settle snugly into his arms, the weight of the dangers finally releasing from my shoulders, even if they do exist, entering our world through the portal I saw in that vision.
But what matters the most right now is being in Damian’s arms, after nearly losing him—something I’ve discovered I could never live with.
I pull back, teary-eyed, vision hazy as I blink at him and sniff, the sounds and presence of the other wolves drowned out amidst this sacred reunion between us.
“I love you, Damian!” I blurt out. “Don’t ever do that to me again!”
Damian just stares at me, blinking, brows lightly furrowed, when he responds naturally, “I love you too, Sophie. I’ve always loved you. I think you always—”
“Yes. I always did, Damian. I always loved you. I never stopped.” I’m breathing heavily at this point, grabbing his face with a cupped hand. “Please kiss me, and show me that you’re real, you’re alive.”
Damian drinks in the sob that lurches from my chest, his lips all I needed to calm down, while his love for me remains an anchor that I need moving forward.
The threat may not be gone, but I have an idea how we can put an end to the demons once and for all. We just need time, patience, and each other.