Chapter 15 #2
Willow knelt beside her bed and reached underneath, fingers brushing against the cloth-wrapped bundle she'd tucked against the wall when she first arrived.
Her grandmother's grimoire felt heavier than she remembered when she pulled it out, as though the book understood what she was about to ask of it.
She had to do this now. Tonight. Before the anger coursing through her cooled and the treacherous hope started whispering in her ear again. She knew herself too well, knew that by morning some pathetic part of her would be making excuses.
Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe he was protecting the pack the only way he knew how. Maybe if I just give him more time...
She'd been running that loop for too long. Burning and hoping and hating herself for both.
The cloth fell away to reveal worn leather binding and pages yellowed with age. Her grandmother's handwriting filled every margin. There were recipes for healing teas and protection charms, notes on moon phases and herb harvesting, and all her wisdom accumulated over seventy years of practice.
She’d studied the pages she thought were important until she could recite them from memory.
But not all.
She turned past the kitchen magic, past the household blessings, and beyond the gentle spells for growth and comfort. The pages she needed lived at the back of the book, written in darker ink with warnings that made her throat tight.
Severance.
The word stared up at her in her grandmother's careful hand.
For cutting what binds when the binding brings harm. Use with care. Use with truth. Magic that costs blood demands honesty. Lie to yourself and it will take more than you meant to give.
Willow read through the instructions twice, her pulse racing under her skin. Her heart beat so loud she could hear it in her ears.
She would need the usual spell ingredients to prepare her mind into a sharp edge filled with intention. Then she read the words written in the old tongue her grandmother had taught her, the language that belonged to their line.
These were actually simple components, but they carried devastating consequences.
She could sever whatever thread had stretched between her and Ryker when they first met. The pull in her chest, the heat that flooded her whenever he entered a room, and the ache that made her stupid and wanting and blind. Gone. Cut clean at the root.
But the risk was high. The bond might be real. The mate bond wolves talked about, the fated connection that defied explanation. If she severed it, there could be repercussions. And she would never know what it could have been.
What it could have been.
The thought made her want to laugh and cry at once.
There was no could have been with him. Ryker had stood before his pack and asked them to cast her out.
He'd looked at her with nothing in his eyes while she sat close enough to touch and felt her heart crack into pieces.
Whatever future she'd imagined in her weaker moments, he'd burned it to ash with his own words.
And hadn't it been torture for him too? She'd watched him fight the pull between them, seen him go cruel and cold every time his body betrayed him.
He didn't want to want her, that had been clear from the start.
Every harsh word, every cutting remark designed to build walls between them.
He'd spent months trying to convince himself she was dangerous because the alternative terrified him.
She could end that for both of them.
No more burning. No more fighting something neither of them had asked for. She would cut the connection and set them free, and maybe then he could stop hating her and himself for wanting her. She too could stop hating herself for hoping he'd change his mind.
Her hands were shaking. She needed to move before she lost her nerve and condemned them both to more of this slow poison.
Willow gathered what she needed from around the room. Five white candles from the drawer, the salt she kept for protection work, and the small knife she used for cutting herbs. Her hands moved with purpose now, the ritual preparations giving her something solid to focus on.
She cleared a space on the floor and poured salt in a circle wide enough to sit in. The candles went at strategic points around the circle, their wicks catching flame when she touched them. Her grandmother's grimoire lay open before her, the spell waiting.
The knife felt cold against her palm as she took a bracing breath.
"I release what binds me." Her voice came out raw, scraping through her chest. "I sever what harms. I choose myself."
She drew the blade across her left palm in one clean motion. Pain flared bright and immediate, as blood welled up dark against her skin. She watched it pool for a moment before pressing her bleeding hand flat against the floor inside the circle.
"By blood I bind this working. By will I shape this ending. Do what must be done."
The old words rose to her lips, sounds her grandmother had whispered over her cradle and hummed while kneading bread. Willow spoke them now with tears streaming down her cheeks as she repeated the spell again in a language few understood, emphasizing every syllable.
The magic answered.
A flash of intense heat traveled up her arm and spread through her veins, gentle at first, then building.
She felt it reach her chest and wrap around the place where that constant ache had lived since she first set foot on this island, and the pull toward Ryker that she'd never been able to fully explain or resist. The warmth turned to heat, then to burning, and she bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from crying out.
Let go, she told herself. You have to let it go.
She thought of his hands on her skin and released them.
His mouth against her throat—released. The scrape of his stubble on her inner thigh, the sound he'd made when he came apart inside her, the way he'd held her afterward like she was something special, she released it all, memory by memory, until her chest felt scraped hollow.
The burning intensified until she couldn't tell if she was the flame or just the thing being consumed. Her body trembled and sweat broke out across her brow and she kept speaking the words, over and over she kept pushing, kept cutting.
And then it stopped.
The fire in her veins went cold. The warmth drained out of her like water through sand. She sagged forward onto her hands, blood smearing against the floor, and waited for the familiar ache to resurface.
Nothing came.
She tested it, the way you might probe a missing tooth with your tongue.
She thought about Ryker's face, the sharp angles of his jaw, the smoky blue of his eyes when firelight caught them.
She remembered the weight of his body over hers, the sound of his breathing going ragged, the way her name had sounded like surrender when he whispered it at her ear.
The memories remained. The aching want did not.
Willow sat back on her heels and pressed her wounded palm against her thigh. The candles had burned halfway down, and the salt circle gleamed in the dim light. Blood dripped slow from her hand onto the floor.
She felt empty. The absence spread through her chest, quiet and strange. A little unsettling at first. But underneath the emptiness, she sensed peace.
She could breathe without his name in her head. She couldn't remember the last time that was true.
Willow climbed to her feet on legs that barely held and crossed to the window.
The cove stretched dark and grey beyond the glass, waves churning.
There was still something out there and maybe now she could find it.
If she had proof that it had nothing to do with witches or wolves or the disaster of her heart…
There wasn’t time.
Tomorrow she would face whatever the alphas decided. She would stand with her coven and fight for their place on this island or help them pack their bags and find somewhere new to start over. The future remained uncertain, dangerous, full of edges that could cut.
But at least she wouldn't burn for a man who'd chosen to see her as an enemy. She wouldn't spend another sleepless night aching for someone who'd rather exile her than trust his own heart. Whatever happened next, she would face it clear-eyed and whole, the fire in her veins her own again.
From the kitchen, she heard Sage's voice murmuring something, then Hazel's answering laugh. The kettle whistled. A cabinet door creaked open, and the familiar sounds of tea being made drifted through the thin walls. Her coven was out there waiting for her, likely scared and uncertain, but together.
She wrapped a cloth around her bleeding palm and watched the last light fade over the water. The peace settled deeper with every breath, unfamiliar and hard-won and entirely hers.
Yes. Tomorrow, she would fight for the women in the other room who had trusted her with their futures. For the home she'd found despite everything.
She just wouldn't fight for him. Not anymore.