Chapter 51: The Only Way

LUCIAN POV

The stakes were getting higher.

The search team I’d put together hadn’t gotten a single breakthrough in finding the missing piece of the historical puzzle Ms. Ashlyn had spoken about. Every hour that passed felt like a stone being added to my chest.

Selene was still unconscious.

She had caused so much chaos. There was about to be carnage because of what everyone had seen inside her ... and yet I couldn’t bring myself to see her as the monster they were starting to whisper about. She would never do any of this on her own. I believed in her. I loved her. She had been influenced, manipulated into doing what she was doing. The Selene I knew wouldn’t even think of hurting a fly. She had a beautiful soul, a beautiful heart ... and the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on.

But the wolf inside her was going to wake up soon, and she might be stronger than any of us could handle.

"Take this seriously and get it done fast," I told Kael again over the phone, my voice dropping into the tone I used when I meant business.

Ms. Ashlyn had joined the search team as well.

I’d never been interested in historical analysis or ancient knowledge. Books and libraries were never my world ... I always thought they were a waste of time for a man like me. But Selene had changed that. She’d made me cherish the things I least thought about. Who knew love could do that to a person?

Tessa was already recovering. Her face was beginning to brighten up again, which was one less weight on my shoulders.

Then Ms. Ashlyn and my recovery team returned ... and the looks on their faces told me everything before their mouths opened.

"We couldn’t find the book, sir," they said.

I welled up with rage. I swept everything off the nearest surface, the crash of it echoing through the hall.

"Is Winterwood a bottomless pit?" I growled. "You people will find that book no matter the cost. Go back and don’t return empty-handed again."

They scattered in fear and went back out. I couldn’t let Selene die because some ancient spirit named Nara had decided to make her body a battlefield.

I was fearless. Always had been. So I stayed in the room with Selene even though I knew exactly how dangerous she could become. The doctor had said she wouldn’t wake for a while, but I didn’t put my faith in medicine. Not tonight.

Nara had made it clear ... this had everything to do with my bloodline. A deed done centuries ago, buried under generations of silence, and now she had crawled back into the body of the woman I loved to take her revenge. That was absurd to me. Let the dead stay dead and let the living breathe fresh air.

Eventually, they came back with good news. A breakthrough. They had found the book.

I felt the tightness in my chest release for the first time in what felt like days.

Ms. Ashlyn came to me in the ward where Selene lay.

"She can hear us," she said quietly, glancing at Selene. "It’s better we step outside."

I listened and we moved into the corridor. The guards gave us space.

She had found the missing piece. The book had been in her library all along, buried and deliberately mixed in with other texts in a way that made it nearly impossible to locate. Whoever had hidden it that way would have to be found.

"Removing Nara from Selene won’t be simple," Ms. Ashlyn began, her voice steady but grave. "She is strong-willed and has fused herself to Selene’s mind."

She paused, then looked at me directly.

"Based on the research in this book, your family will be haunted for blood across generations ... because you bear the mark of your ancestors."

"What mark?" I asked.

"The one on your back. It belongs to the cult that carried out Nara’s killing. The goddess herself has approved of Nara’s plight. Even if we remove her from Selene, she’ll continue to haunt you."

I was still piecing it together. "So she won’t stop? Even after Selene?"

Ms. Ashlyn walked me through the full origin ... the flu that swept through the territory, the false accusation, the scapegoat. I’d heard pieces of it before. My father had mentioned the story once, years before he died.

But what Ms. Ashlyn revealed was the part no one had ever said out loud.

The Alpha at the time had known the real cause of the flu. He’d known, and he’d killed Nara anyway ... because their freedom required a sacrifice, and she was the easier choice. The real culprit was his Luna, a woman who wasn’t even his fated mate according to the goddess. Their union had been an alliance ... his father was an Alpha, hers was a Beta, and he’d chosen her because he loved her. So instead of exposing the truth, he’d sacrificed Nara to protect the woman he loved.

The Luna of that era had blood on her hands, even if she’d never worn the legitimate title.

And now the sword wouldn’t depart from my family.

My great-grandfather had been killed by the sword in battle. My grandfather, the same. And my father ... the same way.

It had become a generational curse. One I couldn’t outrun, no matter how far I stood from my ancestors’ sins.

But that was a battle for another day. Right now, I only had one fight that mattered.

"There’s only one way to get Nara out of Selene," Ms. Ashlyn said.

"Tell me."

"Through the power of love."

I stared at her. "What does that mean exactly?"

"You’ll have to tell Selene how much you love her. Constantly. Relentlessly. The reason is that she’ll have to fight Nara from the inside herself ... you can’t do it for her. She has to win that battle. And love is the most powerful weapon she has. It has never lost."

I nodded slowly and we walked back into the room.

Selene was awake.

The doctors and nurses were already at her bedside, checking her vitals. Nara hadn’t started manifesting yet ... it was still my Selene lying there, watching me walk through that door.

"I want you to know we’re getting you out of this," I said, taking her hand. "Do you hear me?"

She nodded.

"She says I have to kill Tessa," Selene whispered, her voice soft and strained. "And then you."

She was fighting to speak, I could see it. The injection they’d given her was making everything heavy, but she was pushing through it anyway. That was so like her.

"Selene." I held her gaze. "You know that I love you, right?"

She nodded again, and I caught the quiet shape of I love you too on her lips.

"I’ll try to fight this as much as I can," she said.

I kissed her on the forehead the way you kiss someone you’d burn the world down to protect.

Then the doctor pulled me aside.

"There’s no more anaesthesia we can give her, sir."

"Why?"

"Any more and it’ll weaken her immune system. Her body is already fighting the parasite inside her at full capacity. Another dose could kill her."

He said it plainly, but the weight of it landed like a punch.

"So no more drugs. It’s either she fights her way out ... or nothing."

I was fighting two battles at once. The one raging inside Selene and the centuries-old curse carved into my bloodline. The weight of both was enormous. But I was willing to carry it. I’d always been a warrior, just like the men who came before me.

Just like the men who died before me.

I made a quiet promise to myself standing in that room. I was not going to die the way my father died. This curse ended with me. I wasn’t going to be buried because of sins I never committed. Even if surviving meant I had to become more ruthless than anything my ancestors ever were ... I would do it. Survival takes gut. A whole lot of it.

Then Selene’s eyes rolled back.

She began to transform ... slowly at first, then all at once ... into the beast that had been coiled inside her.

"Move back! Move back!" I barked at everyone in the room. They scrambled away from the bed, pressing against the walls, taking cover.

I didn’t move.

One thing I was absolutely certain of ... Nara was coming out of Selene today.