~Narrator~
Odette’s world shattered the mont her knees hit the earth.
The pain was unbearable. It was too much. She was being consud by it.
’This was so unfair’ she cried to herself.
She wailed uncontrollably.
The rogues surrendered the minute they learned of their leaders death.
But Odette couldn’t be bothered to care. Not even a little.
Her mother was dead in her arms, and it was her fault.
She’d failed.
Lilith had destroyed the remaining Turned
But she couldn’t care.
Onyx was worried. Nuzzling her with his snout, trying to provide her comfort. But it didn’t help.
Violet laid limp in her arms.
She couldn’t get the image of her mother burning out of her mind.
Ash ca rushing over from across the battlefield. He felt it too. The shift when Ezelreth was burned alive. The emptiness when Violet had died.
In the blink of an eye Ash had covered the distance. He dropped to his knees and sobbed, he tried to pull Violet too him, but when Odette looked up her eyes were still glowing white. Her face had cracks that leaked white light. She looked as shattered as she felt.
She was still running on adrenaline, her brain couldn’t think about anything. And that ant anything that touched her mother would et a fate worse than death.
And Ash felt that in Odette’s threatening glare. Her aura was deadly, suffocating, palpable.
He backed off and just crouched over them. Grieving as close as his daughter would allow him.
Desperate to hold his wife in his arms.
He didn’t even get to say goodbye. Ash was as shattered as Odette.
He saw his queen crumbled and fragile in his daughter’s arms.
Odette’s fyre reignited, coating her and Violet once more.
To everyone around her, it looked like suicide. Everyone charged forward, trying to stop Odette. But the fyre seared anything that got too close.
When they reached out to stop her, the fyre bit them, and they’d retract their hands as fast as they’d inserted them.
Odette was pulled inwardly.
The Fyre was protecting her. Healing her. Bringing her closer to Artemis.
When Odette opened her eyes. Violet wasn’t in her lap anymore. Panic flooded her chest as she frantically looked around, that’s when she realized she wasn’t even in her world.
She was sowhere else. Sowhere that looked like Phera’s ho, but different. It retained that sa ethereal beauty. The air glittered with magic, she was sitting on a white, flat stone. It was warm, which is the opposite anyone would think a stone would feel like. Waterfalls fell from clouds that moved close to the ground pristine, crystal clear puddles and streams ran all around her. The sky was a soft periwinkle and moonless. It was awe inspiring. The place brought a sense of peace to her; one she’s only ever felt once before. When she t Artemis, her goddess mother.
A glowing white figure glided across the water against the stream. The water didn’t even seem to notice.
"My have you grown in such a short ti." The closer the figure got, the clearer she beca.
Hair the color of moonlight white, and eyes that glowed silver. Atop her head sat a large crown made of stars. She wore a glittering silver gown that looked like it had diamonds sewed in with moonstone colored threading. She looked Divine. Untouchable. Eternal.
Despite the peace Odette felt, the pain creeped in alongside it.
Odette just stared, no words ford on her lips. She had nothing.
Artemis just smiled and knelt down before her goddess daughter and lifted Odette’s chin gently, tilting her head upward to et her gaze.
A small smile appeared on her lips. Words didn’t leave her mouth instead it was a feeling that spoke to her.
’Live.’
The feeling was like a whisper and then the peaceful world she was in faded away and when she blinked her eyes again she was back in her world.
The sll of burnt flesh stung her nose.
The pain crashed into her again. Everyone who was still alive now surrounding her. Watching the scene unfold. Unable to do anything to help.
The Fyre burned out, the flas flickered out and when they’d gone.
Violet opened her eyes.
She blinked repeatedly. Trying to make sense of everything.
The world was too bright.
The sounds were too loud.
The pain was too much.
Violet cried out.
It was just Violet. Her cry. Her voice. No echo. No depth. Just soft and sweet.
Odette was speechless. Her body was shaking. The shock had taken over.
"Violet..." Ash was the first to speak. Cautious to reach out again. But Odette didn’t fight back this ti, her grip on Violet weakened. Ash scooped Violet into his arms and pulled her close. Sobs left him, his body shuddered. Violet curled into his embrace. Pulling in his warmth and feeding off his energy. Replacing his pain and fear with a soothing calm he had so desperately missed. A peace he didn’t know how badly he needed.
"I’m hungry." Violet’s words were barely above a whisper, her voice cracked, her throat dry and scratchy.
Oliver was the first to laugh.
"That’s my sister-in-law." He couldn’t contain himself. The rest of them followed suit and laughed.
The pain of loss could wait for a mont. They needed to savor this. This was the calm after the storm. They would face whatever happened next when the ti ca.
But right now. They won. They freed Violet from her chains. They defeated Ezelreth. Once and for all.
Onyx shifted back, his naked body closed in around Odette protectively. He held her close and rocked her back and forth.
She was still reeling in all the emotions, everything that happened. It was processing.
Raven ran up just then.
"Ambrose. It’s Damon..."
Everyone fell silent. The joy of the mont gone. Odette and Ambrose looked up at Raven in disbelief.
"What about him?" Ambrose growled dangerously low.
"He’s hurt bad."
The words had Odette and Ambrose on their feet in an instant.
Ash took off his shirt and tossed it to Ambrose.
"Your dick is swinging, and I don’t want my wife seeing my daughters husbands cock dangling between his legs." Ash growled.
Violet and Oliver both laughed. It was almost normal.
Almost.
Odette took one last look at her mother. Afraid to leave again.
But Violet just nodded and pushed the thought, ’Go, you are needed.’
Odette nodded and followed after Ambrose and Raven.
Damon wasn’t just their Beta; he was their friend.
Bloodied corpses were discarded all over the ground. Blood and death stained the land once more. Carnage swept through like a bad storm, destroying everything in its path.
But the pack boundaries remained intact. The rogues and monsters never made it past the doors.
And that brought comfort to her. The injured inside was safe from the enemy outside the boundaries.
Inside the pack hospital and pack house it was packed with shifters and vampires alike. People with missing limbs and shattered bones. Blood decorated the floor like an ugly rug.
They hadn’t gotten a head count yet, so they didn’t know the death toll. But most of the remaining rogues had been captured, a few stragglers were being tracked through the forest. But, they won’t get away, those bastards would face judgent, and justice will be served.
"He’s this way." Raven continued.
They followed raven through the winding halls. Even after all these years, she still rembered the packhouse like the back of her hand.
They entered a luxurious room and found Damon lying bloodied and unmoving on a bed in the center.
Emalea was kneeling beside the bed. Tears pooling in her eyes, salt streaks stained her cheeks. Her eyes bloodshot and puffy.
"Help him." Emalea pleaded with the kind of sad desperate voice that would break anyones heart.
Odette and Ambrose glanced between each other unsure what to do.
Odette felt a pull, like she did with her mother. Sothing dragging her back under.
Her feet moved beneath without her knowledge. Like she was moving unconsciously taking a seat at his side on the bed. Her hand having a mind of its own reached out and touched his. Her eyes glowed white and body ignited in a white fyre once again. Just like with Violet, spreading over him. Everyone, except Ambrose panicked. They heard rumors of what had happened on the battlefield out front. Nothing concrete yet. But they said the moon goddess herself ca and ended the battle. Heard the moon goddess burned the demon alive.
But the gnashes started to close, the bruising had lightened up, color returned to his cheeks. Just as suddenly as it ca, it disappeared.
Odette ca too and was blinking continuously, trying to reorient herself and put the pieces of what just happened together.
She looked at Damon, who laid perfectly still, eyes closed, but at peace.
Was the goddess healing her people through her? How is this possible?
Her Divine Fyre kills, not heals. That was a fact she had always been sure of, sothing everyone was always so weary about.
But at the mont, the evidence was showing the contrary.
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