Chapter 164: Mark Her Now, Screw the Ritual!

Author’s POV~

"This is the only path to free her true wolf," Lilith said, her voice thin, raspy, and thoroughly exhausted. "It has been trapped in the dark beneath that cursed mask for nineteen long years, and no gentle magic will ever unlock that door. The only way to save her real spirit is to break the mask completely."

Keiran shook his head slowly, his dark eyes fixed tightly on the witch. The cold edge in his voice grew sharper with every word he spoke.

"It still doesn’t make any sense, Lilith. You keep telling us that her true wolf is sealed away, silent, buried, and completely dormant. Then explain to me what Raven felt that night at the estate. His wolf went completely wild, like a starving beast dragged out of a cage. Wolves do not react to a ghost, Lilith. They don’t lose control over an empty shadow. How is that even possible if there is nothing awake inside her to react to?"

Lilith opened her mouth to answer, but the words never came out.

Every head snapped toward the archway entrance, where a figure stepped slowly out of the darkness.

She was ancient, though no living person could ever guess her true age. Her heavy cloak was the exact color of midnight,and long, silver hair hung loosely over her shoulders. Her eyes were completely pale and still... the unsettling eyes of someone who had spent a whole lifetime staring into dark truths that ordinary people were never meant to see. Lilith bowed her head in deep reverence immediately.

The coven leader walked toward the long stone table with slow, measured strides. When she finally opened her mouth, her voice was quiet, raspy, and unshaken.

"It is possible because something horrific must happened to that fake wolf," the old witch revealed, her pale eyes scanning their faces. "Extreme, unbearable agony. The kind of physical and emotional torment that a soul cannot endure, only survive."

"When a false mask is struck with pain that deep, it cracks, even if only for a single second. And through that micro-crack, the true wolf’s hidden scent leaks out into the air like water bleeding through broken stone. It stays exposed for a heartbeat, until the mask heals itself and buries the beast once again."

She stopped across from Dowager Luna Gwen and the Lycan Princes, offering them a slow, heavy nod.

Raven’s expression completely shifted. His eyes dropped to the stone table, his jaw tightly locked as his voice came out rough, low, as if the sudden memory was actively tearing at his throat.

"Yes..." Raven whispered, his breathing growing harsh. "That was the exact night she was rejected by those twin Alphas...both of them at the exact same time. The fated mates of her fake wolf."

"She was utterly shattered that night. I remember looking at her, watching her collapse, and I remember how her scent suddenly twisted into something completely different for a split second. My wolf went entirely insane inside my chest. I thought I was just feeling rage."

"That is exactly right, my lord," the coven head said gently. "Her pain was so deep that her real wolf cried out from beneath the mask, and yours answered. Wolves of the same fate always do." Her pale eyes moved across their faces, and her voice grew darker.

"For her real wolf to be freed, her fake one must be destroyed. When the mask is broken, the real wolf begins to wake. But the moment it starts to wake, the fake wolf must be wiped out completely, to the last trace."

"If the work is only half done, the mask will cover the real wolf again, and this time even deeper. That is the nature of this curse. It does not forgive a mistake. And if her real wolf is too fragile, too weak, or simply unable to survive the violent shock of waking up," the coven leader added, "then she will not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise."

"No!" Raven’s voice exploded across the chamber. His hands slammed onto the table, and his eyes burned with a dangerous, wildness.

"We can’t do this. I won’t allow it. Do you hear what you are asking of us? You want us to break the fake thing that has been with her for nineteen years and hope she is strong enough to survive it?"

"What happens if she isn’t? What then? Do we bury her in the dirt and tell ourselves that we tried our best?"

"We cannot gamble with her life like this," Keiran interjected, his voice low, tight, and trembling with a fierce rage he was desperately struggling to keep under control.

"We are talking about risking her absolute death for a wolf we aren’t even one hundred percent sure is strong enough to exist. Adeline is someone who has already suffered enough torment to die a hundred times over."

Zyran stepped forward, his jaw set hard, though his voice softened with genuine emotion as he looked at the dowager luna.

"It doesn’t matter to me if her wolf never wakes up," Zyran said firmly. "I mean every word of that. It changes absolutely nothing for us. Screw the ritual."

"We are going to claim her and mark her as our shared mate, all four of us. She will sit beside us as our Luna, whether she carries a wolf or not. It doesn’t matter. Let us keep her safe and whole. That is all I care about."

"We are definitely not going to make her die trying to wake something she doesn’t even know she has," Raven added, and his voice cracked on the last word.

Keiran turned his head, his gaze turning icy and ruthless. "And as for Chloe, we keep her sedated forever. We tell the healers to keep injecting her with high doses until she forgets her own name and cannot even stand up."

"If Chloe never wakes up, Adeline never feels the pain. Why does anything else need to be risked?"

"No. We are going to perform the ritual," Gwen declared, her voice cold and sharp. "You will prepare everything that is required, the high healers, the coven’s strongest witches, the sacred circle, and every binding artifact we possess. We are going to destroy that fake mask and wake her true wolf up."