Chapter 19 - Damian
Poppy’s hand goes limp between mine, and panic rises like acrid bile in my throat as I snap my head to her.
That’s when her head flies up, her eyes turning milk white and her fingers in my hand twitching.
“Poppy?” I whisper, dread settling in my gut as I snap my head to the witch.
Aoife warned me about the dangers of this ritual—a method of extracting the poisonous magic Poppy had been injected with. It’s a ritual that has never been performed before, pulled from the aging pages of an ancient witchcraft text known to the witches as a grimoire.
The ritual meant to undo the curse bonded to a werewolf was risky and wasn’t suggested for a mateless wolf. While Poppy and I have been bonded through the mating ritual, she never spoke the words with true conviction.
I forced her into that mate bond while she despised me in the past. And I entered the mate bond without knowing all the truths there were to know, and now I can’t help but have doubts.
If she resists what this ritual brings, if she fails to tear her soul from the darkness, she’ll die.
The mother of my child will die.
My mate will die.
Sister Aoife frowns as she stares at Poppy, as if she senses something is wrong, just the way I can feel it. My heart hammers with the panic coursing through me like fire, and I hop onto my heels and spin toward Poppy just as she collapses forward and into my arms.
When Aoife comes rushing forward, Poppy’s body convulses, her eyes still burning white.
“What’s happening, Aoife?!” I ask urgently as the other witches continue chanting around the fire.
Aoife quickly presses a finger to Poppy’s neck where the mating mark pulses as if it contains her heart.
“She is resisting…” Aoife whispers.
“What can we do? What can I do to help her?”
“Nothing,” Aoife says, her eyes wide as she lifts them to me. “Only she can fight it, Alpha. If she does not, she will—”
“No!” I roar, my voice trembling. “I will not hear it! I refuse!”
I grab Poppy by the shoulders, ignoring the crowd of council members we’ve gathered around us as I shake her when her eyelids close this time.
“Fight it, Poppy! You are strong enough!”
Those words ring truer than ever as our lives come flashing before my eyes as if I’m the one dying. As if I’m absorbing all the pain and torture the dark magic brings her, praying that it helps her fight this evil.
Poppy Barnes is strong.
She was strong enough to carry the past ten years on her own, strong enough to raise our son to be the resilient, kind-hearted boy he is now.
And if that counts for something…if it counts for anything at all, then Poppy will make it through this.
She has to. She has to come back so I can tell her how I really feel about her. To hell with the past, to the ten years we lost. We can make up for it, because I…
Because I love her.
The realization hits me like a gut-punch, and I nearly stumble on my feet. I catch myself and snap out of it, wanting to keep Poppy steady through her trance.
I look up to find Aoife staring at Poppy with a confused frown as she places a hand on Poppy’s chest this time.
“What is it? Is it working?”
“I do not…” Aoife gulps as she looks up at me, shaking her head slowly while still wearing her confusion on her brow. “I do not know, Alpha. The rhythm of her heartbeat is…different. Something is not right.”
I open my mouth, about to ask what it is, what is wrong with my Poppy, when the sirens around Nightclaw territory blare across the clearing.
“The borders!” Dorian exclaims.
The shrill wail of the emergency sirens tears through the clearing again, echoing across the valley with a desperation that sends every werewolf present springing into action.
Warriors who had been standing guard immediately shift into wolf form, their bones snapping as snarls erupt around us.
Council members bark out orders while soldiers rush toward the front gates, the peaceful atmosphere surrounding the ritual evaporating into absolute chaos within seconds.
My entire body locks.
No.
Not now.
Not when Poppy is lying unconscious in my arms, suspended somewhere between life and death.
“I need every available warrior at the northern border!” Dorian bellows as he spins toward Connor. “Sound the second alarm. Evacuate the children and get everyone who isn’t a fighter underground.”
Connor doesn’t hesitate, barking orders to the Nightclaw soldiers before taking off at a sprint.
Around us, the chanting of the witches never falters.
The sisters continue holding hands around the fire, their voices rising higher now, louder, as though refusing to allow whatever is happening beyond the borders to interfere with the ritual.
I tighten my arms around Poppy.
“I’m not leaving her,” I murmur, the words escaping before I even realize I’ve spoken them aloud.
Dorian’s head snaps toward me.
“Damian—”
“No.” I shake my head fiercely, refusing to loosen my hold on her even as another siren joins the first. “I’m staying right here.”
The mate bond pulses weakly against my chest, so faint that it terrifies me. I lower my forehead against Poppy’s, desperately searching for even the smallest indication that she’s still fighting whatever is torturing her soul.
“You hear me, Poppy?” I whisper against her skin. “You’re not doing this alone anymore.”
Another explosion echoes somewhere beyond the trees, close enough that the ground trembles beneath us.
Flynn curses under his breath.
“Dark magic,” he growls, narrowing his eyes toward the forest. “I can feel it.”
Aoife finally tears her gaze away from Poppy, though her chanting sisters never stop.
“They’ve come for her,” she says gravely.
The words strike me harder than any physical blow ever could.
“They’re trying to interrupt the ritual,” Dorian adds.
“They know if this succeeds,” Flynn says, his voice tight with understanding, “they lose whatever control they have over her.”
A vicious growl builds inside my chest.
Then they’re too late, I think, with rage pulsing through my veins.
Because I’m not letting them have her. Not after everything we’ve survived, not after finally understanding what she’s always meant to me.
I brush trembling fingers through the strands of blonde hair plastered across Poppy’s forehead, unable to stop staring at her peaceful face despite the war erupting around us.
It feels impossibly cruel that the woman I’ve spent ten years convincing myself to hate is the very woman I can’t imagine living without.
I was wrong. Wrong about her. Wrong about us.
Wrong about everything.
I never stopped loving her. Not when she disappeared, nor when I discovered she’d hidden Daniel from me.
Not even when she stood in that warehouse with blood-red eyes and nearly tore me apart.
Somewhere beneath all that anger…all that resentment…all those years spent mourning what I thought I’d lost…
I loved her.
I always have.
And if the Moon Goddess grants me one more chance, I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it.
“P-Poppy,” I whisper brokenly as I cradle her face between my palms. “C-come back to me.”
Her expression doesn’t change even a twitch, and the silence becomes unbearable.
“I know you can hear me,” I continue, refusing to believe the bond between us going quiet means the worst. “You promised you’d do whatever it takes. You made me promise to make sure you survived.” I gulp hard as a lump lodges painfully in my throat. “So help me keep that promise, please…”
Another deafening blast erupts outside the borders, followed almost immediately by terrified screams.
This time, nobody has to tell me how serious it is.
Dorian is already shifting, dark fur exploding across his body before he throws his enormous wolf toward the tree line.
“They’re inside the territory!” his voice roars through the mind link. “Move!”
Warriors surge after him. Cyrus. Simon. Theodore.
Even Flynn hesitates only long enough to glance back toward Aoife before sprinting after the others.
Only I remain rooted beside Poppy.
Aoife looks at me, sorrow swimming in her eyes even as sweat beads across her brow from maintaining the ritual.
“Alpha…” she says quietly, but I don’t move.
“I cannot prevent whatever is happening to her.”
My jaw clenches. “I know.”
“There is someone else who needs you.”
Aoife’s words strike somewhere painfully deep inside me.
Daniel.
I promised Poppy I’d keep our son safe.
I promised myself I would never fail him again.
If the threat breaches Nightclaw… Daniel is in danger again.
I squeeze my eyes shut for one agonizing heartbeat before opening them again and looking back at Poppy.
My hand slides across her cheek.
“You’ve spent ten years protecting him by yourself,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “Now it’s my turn.”
I lean forward until my forehead rests against hers one final time. “So please…” Another breath catches in my throat. “…come home to us.”
Slowly, I lift my head and turn toward Aoife.
“Don’t stop,” I say, every word carrying the full weight of an alpha’s command. “Whatever happens out there…don’t stop this ritual.”
Aoife nods solemnly. “I will not, Alpha. You have my word.”
I look back at Poppy one last time, committing every detail of her face to memory in case fate decides to be cruel again.
“You hear me?” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her cheek. “You’re coming back.”
Then, before I can lose the courage to leave, I lean down and press my lips softly against hers.
The kiss is gentle, nothing like yesterday’s desperate attempt to hold on to her. Nothing like the fevered passion that has always existed between us.
It’s a promise.
“I love you, Poppy,” I whisper against her lips. “I always have. I always will.”
For a fraction of a second, I could swear her fingers twitch beneath my hand.
Hope explodes inside my chest, but duty tears me away before I can convince myself it wasn’t my imagination.
I rise to my feet, every instinct screaming at me to stay, yet forcing my legs to turn toward the battle raging beyond the trees.
If I want Poppy to come home to us, then I have to make sure she still has a home to return to.
Without another glance behind me, I shift into wolf form and launch myself toward the northern border, where the night has already erupted into war.
Dark figures draped in black robes stand beyond the barricades, their hands raised toward the sky as ribbons of jetted, corrupted magic lash through the air like living serpents.
Every blast that collides with a warrior throws them backward with enough force to splinter trees, while the earth itself blackens wherever the magic lands, leaving behind patches of dying grass and smoking soil.
The remaining witches of Aoife’s coven, who were helping the guards, meet them head-on.
Ancient words roll from their tongues as circles of pale gold light bloom beneath their feet, crashing against the dark spells in brilliant explosions that shake the forest. For every ribbon of corruption the enemy casts, one of Aoife’s sisters counters with blinding white magic, the two forces colliding in violent bursts that illuminate the clearing like lightning.
Lowering my head, I throw myself straight into the enemy ranks.
My jaws clamp around the arm of a hooded witch before she can finish another incantation, sending her crashing into the ground.
Another raises both hands toward me, and a spear of black energy tears across my shoulder before I can dodge.
Agony explodes through me, and I let out a tortured howl as blood splatters across the grass, but I refuse to fall.
Not while Daniel is somewhere behind these borders.
Not while Poppy is fighting for her life.
Not while I finally have something worth living for.
More dark witches emerge from the shadows, their laughter echoing through the battlefield as corrupted magic rains down upon wolves and witches alike.
For the first time since Jackson’s war, defeat feels possible, even just because the war out here feels like it manifested from the war raging inside my head.
Another witch aims her offense at me, and I’m about to close my eyes to brace for impact when a sudden pulse of power ripples across the clearing, grabbing everyone’s attention by the neck—even the dark witches.
The surge of power isn’t dark or corrupted, but it feels ancient. Pure. And I can feel it in my bones.
Every witch on the battlefield freezes.
Every wolf stops fighting.
A blinding column of white light crashes down from the heavens into the center of the battlefield, forcing every one of us to shield our eyes.
The corrupted magic dissolves the instant it touches the light, sizzling out like it’s been burned.
The dark witches stagger backward in horror, and the brilliant light takes a pause, the forest seemingly holding its breath with the magic.
It’s long enough for me to drop my gaze to a lone woman standing where the light had fallen, her white robes billowing around her as strands of golden hair dance in a wind that exists for no one else.
She slowly lifts one hand, speaking in a calm but authoritative tone, “You have trespassed long enough!”
A shiver courses down my spine. The voice is terrifying, layered with power that I’ve never seen before.
With a single sweep of her arm, every remaining dark witch is hurled backward as though struck by an invisible tidal wave, disappearing into the darkness beyond the borders and into the shadows from which they came.
Silence crashes over the battlefield.
I stare at the woman, my heart stopping inside my chest when our eyes meet and lock as if it’s the only pair of eyes that matter, the only thing I want to see if it’s the last thing I look at before dying.
No…
It isn’t possible.
“Poppy...?” my wolf whispers through the mind link in stunned disbelief, too shocked to hang on when the throes of pain pull me under, and my vision blurs.