Chapter 340: What Do You Want?

The willingness to sacrifice anything...even yourself to protect the person you cared about most.

"We both want her alive," Victoria said finally. "That’s enough for now."

Nicholas nodded slowly. "Then we work together. Against Thalia. To buy Lilith time to make her choice. And when it’s over..."

"When it’s over, we face whatever comes next," Victoria finished.

She held out her hand.

Nicholas looked at it for a moment, then clasped it in his.

His grip was firm. Solid. The handshake of someone who meant what they said even when it cost them everything.

"Truce," Nicholas said.

"Truce," Victoria agreed.

He released her hand and moved toward the door. But he paused before opening it.

"For what it’s worth," Nicholas said, "I am sorry. About your sister. About Victor. About everything my family’s choices cost yours."

Victoria felt something crack in her chest but she did not let it show. "Sorry doesn’t bring them back."

"No," Nicholas agreed. "But it’s all I have to offer."

He left the room after that.

Victoria stood alone in her room surrounded by research that offered no real solutions and prophecies that led only to tragedy.

She looked down at the grimoire still open on her desk, the ritual that could sever Lilith’s bonds safely if everyone involved was willing to let her go.

"Please choose life," Victoria whispered to the empty room. "Please, Lilith. Choose yourself. Choose to survive. Even if it means losing everything else."

But she knew her niece.

Knew Lilith’s stubborn loyalty and desperate love and willingness to sacrifice herself for the people she cared about.

And Victoria was terrified that when the moment came, when Lilith had to choose between her own survival and saving the three men she loved, she would make the choice Victoria could not bear to watch.

Outside, the night deepened.

And somewhere in the darkness, Thalia Morvaine prepared for war.

***

Lilith’s POV

The morning after Victoria arrived felt strange.

Lilith walked through the estate’s main hall and watched witches and wolves trying to occupy the same space without killing each other. Victoria’s coven had claimed the east wing as promised, but they moved through the common areas with careful neutrality...nodding to pack members they passed, keeping their magic contained, visibly trying not to provoke the wolves who watched them with obvious suspicion.

It was working. Barely.

But it was working.

Lilith paused near one of the broken windows...still not repaired from Thalia’s attack, and watched a young witch help one of the Omegas reinforce the wards around the estate’s perimeter. The witch’s magic glowed green. The wolf’s energy pulsed silver. Where they met, the two forces wove together into something stronger than either could create alone.

Temporary alliance built on mutual need.

Just like the truce between Victoria and the Alphas.

Just like everything in Lilith’s life right now...fragile and contingent and liable to shatter at any moment.

Lilith pressed her hand to her chest where the curse sat coiled around her ribs.

It was still there. Still growing. Still squeezing tighter with every breath.

But it was slower today.

The pain had dulled from acute agony to a constant ache. She could breathe without gasping. Could move without feeling like something was crushing her from the inside out.

Elena’s charm was helping. The small crystal the witch had given Nicholas, the one meant to slow the curse’s progression...was actually working.

Not enough to stop it. Not enough to save her.

But enough to buy time.

Time to make impossible choices. Time to say goodbye. Time to pretend she was not dying when everyone around her could feel exactly how much time she had left slipping away.

Lilith turned away from the window and nearly walked straight into Lucian.

He caught her shoulders to steady her, and the moment his hands touched her skin the bond between them flared to life...warm and solid and absolutely undeniable.

"Careful," Lucian said, his voice rough.

"Sorry," Lilith said. "I wasn’t paying attention."

Lucian’s hands lingered on her shoulders for a moment longer than necessary. His eyes...more gold than human right now, searched her face with an intensity that made her chest tighten.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like I’m dying," Lilith said honestly. Then, when his expression flickered with pain: "But slower than yesterday. The charm is helping."

Lucian nodded and released her shoulders, stepping back to give her space. The bond between them ached at the distance, barely two feet but it felt like miles.

"I was coming to find you," Lucian said.

"Why?"

"Because you’ve been avoiding me since the truce," Lucian said bluntly. "And I need to know if you’re ever going to forgive me for marking you without permission."

Lilith felt her throat tighten. She had been avoiding him. Had been spending time with Nicholas and Sebastian, talking to Victoria, helping with preparations...anything to avoid this conversation.

"I don’t know," Lilith admitted quietly.

Lucian absorbed this without flinching. "That’s fair."

"Is it?" Lilith asked. "Because I keep telling myself I should hate you for what you did. I should be furious and hurt and completely unwilling to forgive you. But instead I just..." She stopped.

"Just what?"

"Feel the bond," Lilith finished. "Feel you through the connection. Feel your guilt and your fear and your desperate need to fix what you broke. And it makes it impossible to hate you properly."

Lucian’s jaw tightened. "I didn’t mark you to manipulate your feelings."

"I know," Lilith said. "You marked me because you were terrified. Because I kept saying I didn’t know if I’d stay and you couldn’t handle the possibility of losing me. But Lucian, that doesn’t make it okay. You took my choice away."

"I know."

"And I’m still angry about it."

"I know."

"But I’m also..." Lilith stopped and pressed her hand to her chest again, feeling the curse and the bonds and the overwhelming complexity of everything she was trying to process. "I’m also running out of time to stay angry. And I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left hating you."

Lucian moved closer, his eyes searching hers. "What do you want?"