Chapter 307: You Marked Me Without My Permission!

"Perfectly."

Victoria held his gaze for one more moment and then she simply vanished....there one second, gone the next, leaving only the faint scent of old magic and burnt ozone hanging in the air.

The moment she was gone, every wolf in the clearing seemed to exhale at once, the tension breaking like a snapped string.

Nicholas turned and walked back through the formation of warriors without a word, Sebastian falling into step beside him.

Neither of them spoke until they were well away from the border, well away from any wolves who might overhear.

"Is it true?" Sebastian asked finally, his voice raw. "Does the curse really require Lilith’s death?"

"I don’t know," Nicholas said honestly. "But Victoria believes it. And she knows more about curses and prophecies than we do."

"We need to research...."

"We need to wake Lilith up first," Nicholas interrupted. "Make sure she’s okay. And then yes, we research. We tear apart every book in the library, we contact every witch we know, we find the witch who gave my father the original prophecy and we demand answers."

"And if Victoria’s right?" Sebastian asked quietly. "If there is no other way?"

Nicholas stopped walking and turned to face his brother. "Then we make a choice. Our lives, or hers."

"We can’t..." Sebastian started saying but his voice broke.

"I know," Nicholas said. "But if it comes down to it, if the curse really does require her death and there’s no way around it, we have to be willing to let her go. We have to be willing to choose her life over ours."

"The bonds won’t let us," Sebastian said. "The wolves won’t let us. Everything in us is screaming to keep her, to claim her, to never let her go."

"I know," Nicholas repeated. "Which is why we have three days to find another way. Because if we can’t..."

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

They both knew what was at stake.

They walked back to the estate in silence, and with every step Nicholas felt the weight of Victoria’s words pressing down on him.

She has to DIE for your curse to break.

Three bonds complete. One curse. One impossible choice.

And only three days to figure out if there was any way to save the woman they loved without condemning themselves to become the monsters they were always meant to be.

****

Lilith’s POV

Lilith woke to pain.

Not the sharp immediate kind that came with injury, but a deep bone-deep ache that radiated through her entire body like she had been torn apart and hastily stitched back together. Every muscle protested when she tried to move. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. And her throat....

Her hand flew to her neck and she felt them immediately.

Marks. Raised scars where teeth had broken skin and the bond had formed.

Lucian.

All three bonds are complete now.

The realization hit her like ice water and she sat up too fast, the room spinning violently around her. She was in Nicholas’s bed....what was left of it, anyway. The frame was cracked straight down the middle. The windows were completely gone, just empty frames with shattered glass still scattered across the floor. The walls were spiderwebbed with cracks and chunks of plaster had fallen from the ceiling.

What the hell had happened?

Lilith pressed her hands to her head and tried to remember. The hospital. Her aunt appearing. The brothers taking her back to the estate. The confrontation. The lies about her father. The punishment. The sex. And then...

Lucian.

Lucian biting down on her throat while she was...

Lilith’s breath caught as the memory slammed into her with perfect clarity.

She had been angry. Furious. Hurt and betrayed and overwhelmed. And they had touched her and kissed her and fucked her until she could not think straight. Until all she could feel was them and the bonds and the desperate need to make the aching stop.

And then Lucian had asked if she was going to leave. If she was going to choose her aunt.

And she had said she did not know.

And he had marked her anyway.

"Mark you anyway," he had said. And then he had bitten down without waiting for permission, without asking if she was sure, without giving her the choice she deserved.

Lilith felt rage and violation twist in her chest alongside something else she did not want to name, relief that the incomplete bond was finally gone, satisfaction that all three marks were complete, the traitorous happiness of the bonds humming in perfect harmony beneath her skin.

She hated that she felt those things. Hated that her body had responded even as her mind screamed that this was wrong.

The door opened and Lilith’s head snapped up.

Lucian stood in the doorway with a tray of food in his hands, and the moment their eyes met she saw guilt flash across his face before he carefully schooled his expression into something neutral.

"You’re awake," he said quietly.

Lilith stared at him and felt the bond between them....new and complete and absolutely solid pull at her insistently. She could feel Zev now. Could feel Lucian’s emotions bleeding through the connection. His guilt. His fear. His desperate relief that she was alive.

"Get out," she said, and her voice was hoarse and broken.

Lucian flinched but did not move. "You need to eat..."

"I said get out!" She shouted at him.

"Lilith...."

"You marked me without my permission!" The words tore out of her like a scream and Lucian actually took a step back. "I didn’t say yes! I told you I didn’t know what I wanted and you marked me anyway!"

"I know..."

"You VIOLATED me!" Lilith was shaking now, tears streaming down her face. "You took my choice away! You completed a bond I wasn’t ready for because you were too selfish to wait!"

"You’re right," Lucian said, and he set the tray down on the broken dresser with hands that were shaking. "You’re absolutely right. I lost control. Zev took over and I marked you when I shouldn’t have. And I’m....fuck, Lilith, I’m so sorry."

"Sorry doesn’t fix this," Lilith said. "Sorry doesn’t give me back the choice you stole."

"I know." Lucian replied, his voice coming out broken.

"Then why did you do it?!" Lilith demanded. "Why couldn’t you just WAIT?!"