IRIS
The world went silent. The chaotic shouts of the atrium, Varik’s cold commands, Ronan’s furious roar—it all faded into a distant, meaningless hum. There was only the frantic, thundering beat of my own heart and the cold, terrible stillness of the man in my arms. Kaelen’s body went limp, a dead, heavy weight that crashed against me, driving us both to our knees on the shattered obsidian floor. His head lolled against my shoulder, his eyes closed, his face a pale, slack mask that was a stranger's.
"No!" The sound that ripped from my throat was not a word. It was a primal, animalistic shriek of pure denial. My hands were pressed against the wound in his side, a desperate, futile attempt to stem the tide. But it wasn't just blood that was pouring from him. It was his life. A dark, viscous, sludgy energy that was a tangible poison, a living thing that seeped through my fingers, staining them black. It was an anti-life force, and it was devouring him from the inside out.
The bond was a screaming, frayed wire, a connection that was being severed strand by agonizing strand. I could feel him fading, a light guttering out in a hurricane. The deep, resonant hum of his soul, the steady, powerful rhythm of his Lycan energy that had been my constant companion, was dissolving into a thin, reedy whine. He was a drowning man, and I was watching him go under for the last time.
*He is dying.* The thought was a shard of ice in my soul. *The poison is made for him. It is unmaking him.*
Ronan was there, his hands on my shoulders, his voice a desperate, ragged sound in my ear. "Iris, we have to get him out! The healers—" He broke off, his own healer's senses telling him what I already knew. No healer could fix this. This wasn't a wound of the flesh. It was a wound of the soul, crafted by ancient, malicious Fae magic.
"Get back!" I snarled, the sound ripped from my chest, a feral warning. I shrugged off his hands, my entire being focusing inward, on the dying bond, on the fading ember of Kaelen's life. I could feel his consciousness, a tiny, flickering spark in an ocean of encroaching, cold darkness. He was fighting. He was roaring his defiance in the silence of his own mind, but he was losing. The poison was a tidal wave, and he was just one man.
*No. Not one man.*
Elara’s words came back to me, a whisper from a lifetime ago. *Your moon magic is tied to your emotions. And Kaelen’s Lycan nature could amplify it in dangerous ways.*
Dangerous. But also… powerful. A power that could match this. A power that could fight this.
I had never done it before. It was a thing of legend, a last resort of the Moon Witches of old, a ritual that required a sacrifice of life force so great it had always killed the caster. But I wasn't just a hedge witch anymore. And I wasn't alone.
I laid Kaelen gently on the floor, his head resting in my lap. The atrium was a frozen tableau of shock and horror. Isolde was being held, her face a mask of triumphant fury. Varik watched, his ancient eyes unreadable. But they were all just ghosts. The only reality was the man dying in my arms.
I placed my hands, one over the hideous, blackened wound in his side and the other over his heart, directly over the place where our bond was anchored. The sludgy, cold energy of the poison recoiled from my touch, a hiss of pure hate. But I pushed past it, my own magic a cool, silver river that I forced into his body.
It was like pouring water into a vat of acid. My moon magic sizzled and evaporated, consumed by the sheer, corrosive power of the Fae poison. It wasn't enough. I was a candle trying to illuminate a black hole.
"Iris, don't," Ronan begged, his voice thick with a grief that mirrored my own. "You'll kill yourself."
I ignored him. I closed my eyes, shutting out the world, shutting out the fear. I reached for the bond, for the frayed, dying thread that connected our souls. I didn't try to heal him from the outside. I went in. I poured my own consciousness, my own life force, down that thread, a desperate, reckless journey into the heart of the storm.
I fell into his darkness. It was a cold, suffocating void, a place of absolute silence and despair. And in the center of it, a tiny, defiant spark of gold. Kaelen. His soul. He was fighting, a lone warrior against an army of shadows, his roar a silent, impotent thing in this dead place.
*I am here,* I sent, my thought a silver spear of light piercing the dark. *I will not let you fall.*
The spark of gold flared, a surge of pure, desperate recognition. *Iris? Go! It's a trap!*
*The only trap is letting you die,* I shot back, pouring more of my own energy into our connection, using it as a lifeline to pull myself closer to his fading soul. I wrapped my silver light around his gold, a shield, a cocoon. The shadows of the poison battered against us, a relentless, crushing force.
I knew what I had to do. I couldn't just fight the poison. It was too strong, too much a part of him now. I had to replace it. I had to burn it out and fill the void it left behind with something else. With something stronger.
With a final, desperate surge of will, I let go. I stopped pouring my magic *into* him and started pulling his life force *into* me. I drew the poison, the sludgy, dark energy, out of his soul and into my own. It was a searing, blinding agony, a pain so profound it was a physical weight, a thousand daggers twisting in my gut. The Fae magic was an alien, hostile thing in my system, a corrosive acid that sought to unmake me just as it was unmaking him. I screamed, a silent, soundless shriek in the shared darkness of our souls.
But I didn't stop. I pulled. I drew every last drop of the vile, black poison out of him, taking it into myself. His soul, the golden spark, flared, growing brighter as the darkness receded. And as I pulled the last of it, as I felt his soul become clean and whole again, I did the only thing I could think of. I offered a trade.
I poured my own silver magic, my own life force, my very essence, into the void. Not as a shield, but as a replacement. I filled him with me. With my light, my strength, my love. It was a total, unreserved surrender. A binding of souls that went deeper than any bite, deeper than any contract.
The world exploded.
A wave of pure, blinding silver and gold light erupted from our bodies, a physical shockwave that threw everyone in the atrium off their feet. The crystalline dome of the ceiling shattered, raining down harmless, glittering dust. The very air crackled and screamed with a power that was beyond comprehension. It was the light of a moon colliding with a sun, the raw, untamed energy of creation and destruction.
I was thrown back, my body disconnecting from his. I collapsed onto the shattered floor, my body a limp, empty thing. The poison was gone from Kaelen, but it was now a roaring, fire in my veins. My own magic was gone, spent, sacrificed. I was an empty vessel, filled only with the Fae's venom. It was a cold, creeping death, and it was coming for me.
Through a haze of pain and fading light, I saw him. Kaelen. He was on his knees, his head thrown back, a roar of pure, unadulterated life and power tearing from his throat. The wound in his side was gone, healed over by a smooth, silvery scar. But his chest, right over his heart, was glowing. A new, intricate mark, a mirror of the one on my own neck, was burning itself onto his skin. A sigil of moonlight and Lycan fur, a brand of our joined souls.
His eyes snapped open, and they were burning. Not with gold or silver, but with a pure, incandescent white light. He was changed. Remade. He was no longer just an Alpha King infused with his mate's magic. He was a fusion. A new being.
His gaze found mine, and the bond that slammed back into place was not the same. It was no longer a bridge between two separate points. It was a single, unified consciousness. I could feel his thoughts as my own, his rage, his terror, his love, as if they were my own. And I knew, with a terrifying certainty, that he could feel mine. He could feel the poison. He could feel my death.
He moved. Not with the speed of a Lycan, but with the speed of thought itself. He was at my side in an instant, his hands, which now glowed with a faint silver light, pressing against my stomach, right where the poison had centered.
"No," he growled, the word a command to the universe itself. "You do not get to leave me. Not after this."
He didn't try to pull the poison out. He couldn't. It was Fae magic, anathema to his Lycan nature. So he did the only thing he could. He overwhelmed it. He poured his own life force, his own remade, merged energy, into me. It was a tidal wave of pure, untamed life, a golden river that flooded the desert of my soul. The silver light of his new mark flared, a beacon of pure power that sought out and annihilated every last trace of the sludgy, black poison.
The cold in my veins receded, replaced by a warmth so profound it was a fire. My own magic, which I had thought gone, spent, began to stir, drawn by the call of his. It was a weak, flickering thing, but it was there. It answered his call, weaving with his golden energy, creating a new, harmonious whole.
I lay there, on the shattered floor of the atrium, my head in his lap. His hands were on me, his body a solid, living shield. The world slowly came back into focus. I saw the shattered ceiling, the stunned faces of the Council members. I saw Isolde, her face a mask of utter, defeated shock. And I saw Ronan, his expression one of dawning, awe-filled reverence.
But all of it was secondary. The only thing that mattered was the man holding me. His silver eyes, now laced with threads of pure, white light, were locked on mine. They were filled with a love and a terror so profound it was a physical weight.
"You fool," he whispered, his voice a low, ragged sound that was thick with an emotion I couldn't name. "You absolute, magnificent fool."
A weak, watery smile touched my lips. "Takes one to know one," I rasped, my voice a thin, reedy thing.
He leaned down and pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes closing. The bond between us was a supernova, a shared consciousness that was both terrifying and beautiful. I could feel his relief, his bone-deep terror at almost losing me, his fierce, overwhelming pride. And he could feel my exhaustion, my bone-deep satisfaction at having saved him, my own profound love.
As I looked up at him, at the new, glowing mark on his chest that was a mirror to the one on my neck, I knew with a certainty that settled deep in my bones that everything had changed. We were no longer just bound. We were one. A single, unified being, forged in fire and pain and a love so absolute it had rewritten the very laws of magic and life. The Sepulcher, Marius, the future of the world—it was all still out there. But in this moment, we had won the only battle that had ever truly mattered. We had won each other. And we were eternal.