Chapter 350: You Have To Wake Up

She moved to the bed and placed her hand on Lilith’s forehead. Her magic pulsed once....gentle, checking, and then withdrew.

"She’s in a coma," Victoria said quietly. "Deep one. Her body shut down to conserve energy. To give the curse less to feed on."

"Will she wake up?" Lucian asked from the doorway.

"I don’t know," Victoria admitted.

Nicholas appeared behind Lucian, his face carefully blank but his eyes burning with the same desperation they were all feeling.

"How long?" Nicholas asked.

"How long what?"

"How long do we have?" Nicholas clarified. "Before the curse kills her. Selene said maybe a day. Is that accurate?"

Victoria was quiet for a long moment. "I’d say less. Twelve hours. Maybe eighteen if we’re lucky. The divine magic Selene used will slow the curse temporarily. But it’s already adapting. Already finding ways around the containment. When it breaks through...." She stopped.

"She dies," Sebastian finished.

"Yes."

The four of them stood around Lilith’s bed in silence.

Watching her breathe.

Watching her chest rise and fall with shallow breaths.

Watching her die slowly.

"I’m not giving up," Victoria said finally. "I’m going to find a solution. I’m going to save her."

She turned and left the room, her robes swirling behind her.

Nicholas looked at his brothers. "One of us should stay with her. Always. She shouldn’t be alone when she..." He stopped. Could not say the words.

"I’ll take first watch," Sebastian said immediately.

"I’ll take second," Lucian said.

Nicholas nodded. "I’ll coordinate with the Guardians. See if Selene knows anything else about the curse that could help."

He left.

Lucian hesitated at the door, looking back at Lilith one more time. "She’s going to wake up. She has to."

"I know," Sebastian said, even though he did not know anything anymore.

Lucian left.

Sebastian was alone with Lilith.

He pulled a chair beside the bed and took her hand, the one that was not covered in blood and held it gently.

"You have to fight this," he whispered. "You have to wake up. Because we can’t lose you. I can’t lose you."

Through the bond he could feel her....distant and fading but still there. Still tethered to him by threads of magic and love and desperate hope.

"Please," Sebastian whispered. "Please don’t leave us."

But Lilith didn’t answer.

Couldn’t answer.

She just lay there in the darkness, fighting a battle no one else could see.

And Sebastian sat beside her and prayed to a Moon Goddess who had cursed them all that she would have mercy on the one person who did not deserve any of this.

***

Dawn came whether Nicholas wanted it to or not.

He stood at the edge of the estate grounds and watched the sky lighten from black to grey to pale pink, and felt absolutely nothing.

Numbness had settled over him sometime during the night, a protective shell that let him function when feeling anything at all would have destroyed him completely.

Behind him, the estate was a ruin.

The front entrance was still nothing but empty door frames and shattered stone. The eastern wall had a massive hole blown through it from demon fire. Scorch marks covered the lawn. Bodies...or what was left of them after the demons dissolved, lay scattered across the grounds waiting to be collected.

And everywhere, everywhere, there was blood.

Pack blood. Witch blood. The blood of allies who had come to help and died for their trouble.

Nicholas had been counting since the sun rose.

Seventeen pack warriors dead. Twelve more critically wounded and uncertain if they would survive.

Four of Victoria’s coven members killed in the fighting. Another six injured badly enough that they had to be evacuated to safer territories.

Three Moon Temple Guardians injured. One dead, the youngest of them, barely a century old, who had taken a demon’s claws to the throat protecting a group of Omegas.

And an unknown number of allied wolves and witches from the reinforcements who had arrived to help. Nicholas did not even know most of their names yet. Just that they had come when called and died fighting someone else’s war.

All of it his responsibility.

His pack. His territory. His mate who had drawn Thalia’s attention and brought this destruction down on everyone.

"Not Lilith’s fault," Kael growled in his chest. "Thalia’s fault. The curse’s fault. Not our mate’s."

Nicholas knew that intellectually. Knew Lilith had not asked for any of this. Had not wanted to be the last Morvaine witch or the focus of a dark witch’s obsession or the vessel carrying a curse that wanted her dead.

But knowing it did not make the weight any lighter.

"Alpha."

Nicholas turned to find Callum approaching, the eldest Beta’s face grey with exhaustion and grief. He had been coordinating the cleanup all night, organizing burial details and medical care and everything Nicholas should have been doing but could not make himself focus on.

"Report," Nicholas said, his voice coming out flat.

Callum’s expression flickered with concern but he did not comment on it. "We’ve recovered all the bodies. Pack members are in the eastern chapel preparing them for burial rites. Victoria’s people are handling their own dead according to their traditions. The allied forces...." He stopped. "We’re still identifying them."

Nicholas nodded mechanically. "Wounded?"

"Dr. Aldric has the critical cases stabilized. We’ve called in healers from three neighboring packs to help with the overflow. Most of them should survive." Callum paused. "Most of them."

Not all. Never all. Because war always took more than you expected it to and gave back nothing but grief.

"The estate?" Nicholas asked.

"Structural damage is extensive but not catastrophic. The wards are shattered completely, we’ll need Victoria’s people and the Moon Temple Guardians to help rebuild them. It’ll take weeks. Maybe months to get back to full strength."

"And Thalia?"

Callum’s expression darkened. "No sign of her. Scouts tracked her magical signature east for about twenty miles and then it just disappeared. She’s gone to ground somewhere we can’t follow."