Chapter 349: STOP! You’re Hurting Her!

"Fix it," Lucian growled.

"I’M TRYING!" Victoria snapped.

She placed both hands on Lilith’s chest and green magic poured out of her....healing magic, stabilization spells, every technique she knew for keeping someone alive when their body was trying to die.

Lilith convulsed harder.

The magic was not working.

"No," Victoria whispered. "No no no...."

She pushed more power into Lilith. The green light blazed brighter.

Lilith screamed, a sound so filled with agony that every person on the battlefield flinched.

"STOP!" Sebastian lurched forward. "You’re hurting her!"

"I’m trying to SAVE her!" Victoria shot back.

But Nicholas could see it. Could see that whatever Victoria was doing, it was not working. The curse was too strong. Too embedded. Too hungry.

Lilith was still dying.

And they were all just standing there watching it happen.

***

Selene’s POV

Selene had been a Moon Temple Guardian for three hundred years.

She had seen battles that leveled cities. Had watched civilizations rise and fall. Had witnessed suffering and death in forms most mortals could not comprehend.

But watching this girl die while her mates stood helpless and her aunt desperately tried to save her with magic that clearly was not working...

That was its own special kind of torture.

Selene moved forward without consciously deciding to.

She knelt beside Victoria and placed her hand on the witch’s shoulder. "Your magic isn’t working because you’re fighting the curse directly. You can’t overpower it."

Victoria looked up at her with eyes wild with desperation. "Then what do I do?!"

"You don’t," Selene said quietly. "I do."

She gently moved Victoria aside and placed both hands on Lilith’s chest....directly over her heart where the curse was strongest.

Divine magic was different from witch magic or wolf magic or any mortal power. It came from the Moon Goddess herself, channeled through her Guardians, and it operated on laws that superseded mortal limitations.

Selene called on that power now.

Silver light blazed from her hands....not warm like healing magic, but cold and absolute like moonlight on ice. It poured into Lilith’s body and wrapped around the curse.

Not fighting it. Not trying to destroy it.

Just containing it.

Holding it still.

Giving Lilith’s body a chance to stop tearing itself apart.

The convulsions slowed. Then stopped.

The bleeding continued but it was no longer hemorrhaging. No longer seeping through her skin like she was dissolving from the inside out.

Lilith’s eyes, which had been rolled back in her head, slowly closed.

Her breathing, which had been ragged gasps between seizures, steadied into something that almost looked like sleep.

Selene held the magic for another thirty seconds. Then she slowly withdrew her hands.

"She’s stabilized," Selene said quietly.

"Stabilized?" Victoria demanded. "Not cured? Not...."

"I can’t cure her," Selene interrupted. "This curse is beyond my ability to break. All I can do is hold it still. Give her body time to rest. But Victoria....." She looked at the witch with sympathy. "This is temporary. Hours. Maybe a day. The curse will adapt to my magic and start growing again. And when it does...."

"She’ll die," Victoria finished, her voice hollow.

"Yes," Selene confirmed.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Then Sebastian moved. He knelt beside Lilith and carefully gathered her into his arms again. This time she didn’t convulse. Didn’t scream. Just lay limp and unconscious against his chest with blood still staining her skin.

"We need to get her inside," Sebastian said, his voice rough. "Clean her up. Make her comfortable."

"She needs medical attention," Nicholas said.

"She needs a miracle," Lucian corrected bitterly.

Nicholas looked at Victoria. "Can you..."

"I don’t know," Victoria interrupted. "I need to research. Need to find..." She stopped and pressed her hands to her face. "I need to find a way to save her because what I’ve been doing clearly isn’t working."

Selene stood and looked at the three Alphas holding their dying mate. "There may be a way. But you won’t like it."

"Tell us," Nicholas demanded.

"The bonds," Selene said. "They’re what’s keeping the curse anchored to her. If you sever them..."

"No," all three brothers said simultaneously.

"The bond severance would kill her," Victoria added. "Even if we did it perfectly. She’s too deep into the connection now."

Selene’s expression was grave. "Then you need to find another solution. Fast. Because that girl has maybe a day before the curse finishes what it started. And when it does, nothing I do will be able to stop it."

She turned and walked away, leaving them with Lilith unconscious and bleeding and dying.

***

Sebastian carried Lilith through the destroyed estate with her blood soaking into his shirt and his whole world narrowing down to the weight of her in his arms.

She was so still.

Too still.

Like she had already left and her body just had not gotten the message yet.

Behind him, Nicholas was giving orders, sending people to clean up the battlefield, organizing medical care for the wounded, coordinating with Victoria’s coven to maintain what was left of the defenses.

Leading because that was what Nicholas did.

Even when his mate was dying. Even when his world was falling apart. He led.

Lucian walked beside Sebastian in silence, his eyes never leaving Lilith’s face.

They carried her to her room, the one she had been using before everything went to hell. Someone had already changed the sheets and opened the windows and tried to make it look welcoming.

It looked like a tomb.

Sebastian laid Lilith carefully on the bed and immediately started trying to clean the blood off her face with shaking hands.

"Let me," Victoria said quietly from the doorway.

Sebastian looked up at her with eyes that burned. "You said you could save her."

"I said I could TRY," Victoria corrected. "There’s a difference."

"Then try harder," Sebastian said.

"I AM!" Victoria’s composure cracked. "Do you think I want to watch her die?! She’s my NIECE! She’s the last family I have left! And I’m watching her slip away because nothing I do is WORKING!"

Sebastian stared at her and saw his own helplessness reflected back at him.

"Then what do we do?" he asked quietly.

Victoria looked at Lilith lying pale and still on the bed. "I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. Even if I have to tear apart every book in existence and call in every favor I’m owed. I will find a way to save her."