Dean’s POV
I nudged Kane toward the door. He understood instantly, moving to assist Stella out of the room. She was barely standing, her limbs trembling, exhaustion evident in the way she leaned heavily against him.
As soon as we were outside, I turned to her, my voice low but demanding.
"How many tis did you cum?"
Stella’s face flushed deeply. She hesitated, eyes flickering with embarrassnt, before finally answering in a small, ashad voice.
"Three tis..."
Fuck.
I ran a hand down my face, exhaling sharply. She had fed it. The entity inside Elena had taken from her, sucked the life out of her through pleasure. Stella looked drained—no, more than that. She looked hollow. Her skin was paler than before, her breathing uneven, as if she had been running for miles with no rest.
That thing inside Elena was stronger than we thought.
I shot a look at Kane, who seed just as troubled. We knew the darkness was feeding off pleasure, but this was more than just feeding. It was growing. Expanding.
If it had nearly drained Stella out—then what the fuck would happen when we tried to go through with the plan?
"How the hell do we know this won’t be the breaking point?" I said, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. "What if, instead of forcing it out, we push Elena straight into its grasp? What if this is exactly what it wants?"
Kane didn’t answer right away. His jaw was clenched tight, the muscles in his neck straining as if he was trying to suppress the sa doubts that were clawing through my mind.
The witches had told us that overwhelming it with darkness—forcing Elena’s body to the brink—was the only way to drive it out. They made it sound logical, calculated. But witches never gave answers without riddles hidden beneath them.
What if we were wrong?
What if we weren’t fighting the darkness inside her, but feeding it?
What if this whole thing—everything—had been orchestrated by it?
"What if it just needs a little push?" I continued, stepping closer to Kane. "What if the mont we do this, it reaches its final stage and Elena is gone? What if we’re the ones sealing her fate?"
Silence.
The only sound was Stella’s shallow breathing and the distant rustling of the forest outside.
Kane exhaled through his nose, his gaze dark. "Then we don’t have a fucking choice," he finally said. "Because if we do nothing, we lose her anyway."
I hated that he was right.
Elena was already slipping. She wasn’t just affected by the darkness—it was consuming her, twisting her. Every climax, every mont of pleasure was another brick in the cage it was building around her soul.
And yet, here we were, about to hand it exactly what it wanted.
Because, in the end, it wasn’t Elena that needed to break.
It was .
I was the only one who could absorb the darkness without completely losing myself—because I was darkness. Kane’s darker half. The result of everything he had buried and repressed over the years.
But absorbing this?
It wasn’t just going to weaken . It wasn’t just going to hurt.
It was going to erase .
Would I really be able to take it all without losing my own existence? Would Kane be strong enough to push Elena over the edge without being the one to break instead?
And if we failed?
Elena would be lost.
Kane would be dead.
And I would fade into nothing.
Fuck.
I dragged a hand through my hair, my frustration mounting. "I don’t trust those witches," I muttered. "How do we know they weren’t helping that thing? How do we know this wasn’t its plan all along?"
Kane t my eyes, his expression unreadable. But deep down, I knew.
We didn’t know.
We never did.
And we were about to find out the hard way.
I exhaled sharply, dragging my fingers through my hair, trying to silence the storm of frustration roaring inside . My gaze flickered toward Kane, who stood rigid beside , his jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might crack under the pressure. He looked ready to punch a hole through the wall—or worse, through .
And honestly, I wouldn’t bla him.
Stella was trembling, her knees barely holding her up after what had just happened inside that damn room. She looked like she had run a marathon barefoot on shattered glass—exhausted, pale, and utterly drained. The air around her still carried the heavy scent of sex, and the unshakable truth was right there, glaring at us.
Elena had fed.
She had drained Stella in a way that should have never been possible. The darkness inside her wasn’t satisfied anymore with just my essence or Kane’s. It was growing, expanding its hunger. The witches were right. We were running out of ti.
Three. That was more than enough for the thing inside Elena to grow stronger, to push its limits, to evolve. And if I was right, every climax it fed off made it harder to stop.
I looked at Kane, my gut twisting. "How sure are we that this plan won’t be the breaking point? What if instead of purging the darkness, this just gives it the last push it needs to completely take over? You saw what happened to Ace. She sucked him dry, and the bastard died with his dick still inside her. What if this isn’t about burning it out? What if it just needs more? More energy, more pleasure—just a little more before it finally consus Elena entirely?"
Kane stayed silent, his wolf flashing behind his darkened eyes.
The witches’ laughter still echoed in my skull, a cruel and taunting lody that refused to fade. They knew sothing we didn’t. And I fucking hated being in the dark.
Kane’s hands balled into fists, his breathing heavy. Then, with a voice that carried both conviction and resignation, he said, "I don’t know, Dean."
He finally t my eyes, and for the first ti, I saw it—acceptance. A painful, soul-crushing kind of acceptance.
"But I will happily die trying to save her."
His words hit like a goddamn sledgehamr, heavier than anything else that had been said before.
I clenched my jaw. "That’s the problem, Kane. You dying won’t save her. You dying is exactly what this thing wants." I pointed back toward the door where Elena still lay, probably waiting for another victim to walk in, another soul to consu in the heat of pleasure. "You saw what happened to Ace. That’s going to be you if we do this wrong."
Kane’s wolf was clawing at the surface, desperate to break free, desperate to fight sothing, anything. His body was wound too tight, his emotions a mix of rage, desperation, and unwavering devotion to the woman behind that door.
And then there was .
I was made from Kane’s darkness. An abomination that sohow split from him and took on a body of my own. My existence was unnatural, born from sothing twisted. And now, I was the only one who could stop this.
The only one who could truly absorb Elena’s darkness without it spreading further.
But at the cost of my own existence.
The witches had made that clear. If I went through with this, if I allowed her to drain completely, it would be different than what happened to Ace. Because unlike him, I wasn’t a normal wolf. I was darkness itself. And darkness couldn’t just be drained. It could be neutralized.
Which ant I would fade.
Not die. Cease to exist.
Like I was never fucking here in the first place.
"You’re not doing this alone," Kane growled, stepping closer. "If anyone’s going to burn it out of her, it’s . If I have to force so much power into her that the darkness fucking bursts at the seams, then so be it."
I shook my head. "You don’t get it, do you? That’s exactly what it wants. If you do that and fail, it’ll consu you completely. And then what? It jumps to soone else? You think I’d let you risk that?"
Kane bared his teeth. "And you think I’d let you risk that?"
We stood there, staring each other down, two alpha souls caught in a silent war of sacrifice.
Then, after what felt like forever, Kane exhaled, his voice hoarse but filled with steel.
"We don’t have a choice, Dean."
I knew he was right.
And that fucking sucked.
Because in the end, one of us was going to be erased from this world forever.
I turned back to the room, where Elena lay waiting, her body a vessel of desire and destruction, her mind no longer her own.
The battle had already begun.
And I wasn’t sure we were going to win.
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