~Karla's Pov~
Magic lingers in your bones like memories you've tried too hard to forget.
After the awakening ritual with Nyssa, the world changed again not on the outside, but inside me. I could feel the threads now. The delicate, shimmering cords that linked me to the old blood. The witches who came before me weren't gone. They were embedded in the marrow of my soul, their lives etched into mine like sacred scripture. When I walked, I carried their fury. When I breathed, I exhaled their prayers. And when I dreamed, I saw their deaths.
They died in fire. In chains. Beneath the claws of wolves that once swore to protect them. But through it all, they whispered the same thing to me, over and over, in the quiet between heartbeats:
You are the last. And you are not alone.
Nyssa had warned me that with connection came responsibility. The ancestral link wasn't just a power source, it was a covenant. I bore the weight of generations who had been hunted and betrayed. Their magic lived on through me, but only if I chose to wield it not for revenge... but balance.
Balance. As if that was even possible when the world was a tinderbox and my name had become the spark.
I was meditating when Kade barged in like a thunderstorm wrapped in a tailored coat. He never knocked. He just arrived an arrogant force of nature, always assuming space bent around him.
"You smell different," he said as he leaned against the doorway. His voice was low, but his gaze was sharp, calculating.
"I'm not surprised. I've changed."
He stepped closer, eyes darkening. "You've always smelled like moonlight and fire. But now? Now you smell like power."
I opened one eye. "You're such a romantic."
"I'm not here to flirt."
I snorted softly. "You say that, but you always sound like you are."
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm here because you're dangerous. And not just to the Ignari. The Tribunal wants blood. Yours. And they won't stop until they get it."
"So they'll have to try," I said simply. "Again."
Something flickered in his expression. Worry. Frustration. And something darker. "This isn't just about the curse anymore. They know you've connected to the ancestral plane. That you've accepted the bond. You're no longer just a hybrid. You're a conduit."
"I know," I whispered. "I can feel them."
He frowned. "Who?"
"The witches. The ones who died. My blood remembers them."
Kade sank onto the floor across from me, closer than I wanted, but not close enough to push away. "Do you remember Seraphine?"
I shook my head. "Not clearly. I see flashes. A song in the dark. A lullaby made of wolves and stars. I think she used to sing it to me before she gave me away."
"She didn't give you away," he said, voice suddenly tight. "She saved you. She died to protect you from... from people like me."
I opened my eyes fully and stared at him. "You've never told me what happened between you and her."
"I was young," he said after a long pause. "Too arrogant. Too eager to prove I could end the feud. I thought if I brought the child of Seraphine to the Tribunal, they'd see reason. They'd stop hunting the coven. But I didn't understand the depth of their fear." He looked down. "They wanted your blood to silence prophecy. To stop the rise of the Moonborn."
"The Moonborn?" I echoed.
He hesitated. "That's what they called you. A child born of wolf and witch under the Blood Moon. A vessel. A weapon. A threat to the hierarchy of every pureblood pack."
"And you thought delivering me to them would help?"
"I was a fool."
I should've raged at him. Screamed. Hit him. But instead, I whispered the truth that hurt worse than any betrayal.
"And yet… I still feel you."
His eyes snapped to mine.
"I feel you in my blood, Kade. In my dreams. In every heartbeat that shouldn't race when you walk in a room. I should hate you. You're arrogant. Controlling. You've killed more men than I've probably met. And yet, I can't cut you out of me."
He moved slowly, crossing the space between us until he knelt directly in front of me. He didn't touch me just sat there, like he was waiting for permission. Or forgiveness.
"I feel you too, Elara," he said softly. "Every second. Like my skin is incomplete without yours near it."
"It's the bond," I said, my voice cracking.
"No," he murmured. "It's more than that."
For a moment, I believed him.
Then the room began to tremble.
It started as a low hum beneath the stone floor. Then the candles around us flickered violently. Magic stirred not mine, not his. Theirs. The witches. My ancestors. They didn't like this. I could feel it in my bones, their rage, their sorrow, their warning.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, standing slowly.
Kade nodded, face tense. "Yes. It's... protective. They don't trust me."
"They remember."
He met my gaze. "Do you?"
I hesitated. Then shook my head. "Not yet. But it's coming."
The air thickened. Cold. Then hot. Then...
A voice.
Not mine. Not Kade's.
But speaking through me.
"The wolf always bites the hand that loves it."
Kade's face went pale. He stood abruptly, stepping back. "That voice,"
"That was my mother," I whispered. "She's in me now. They all are."
He looked at me as if he didn't know whether to reach for me or run.
And deep down, I didn't know which I wanted either.
This bond between us wasn't just blood and magic. It was prophecy and punishment. A fated thread woven in war. The witches inside me, my bloodline they didn't hate him. But they didn't trust him either. Not yet.
Not when his kind had burned theirs alive.
And yet... I couldn't push him away.
Because love, real love, isn't clean. It's not perfect or safe. It's a battlefield soaked in forgiveness and wounds that don't scar the same way.
So I stepped forward and took his hand.
The moment our skin touched, I felt the weight of his guilt.
The years he'd spent watching me from afar.
The blood on his hands.
The loneliness.
The love he didn't want to name.
And I let him feel me, too.
All of me.
The rage. The fire. The hunger. The fear.
The witch. The wolf. The reckoning.
We didn't kiss. We didn't speak. We just stood there, linked, breathing in each other's ruin.
And for the first time, the witches didn't scream.