Chapter 240

Agnes

The drive to the highest vista in Silvermoon was quiet. James drove with Elijah riding shotgun, while I sat in the back with Olivia. The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife.

I kept stealing glances at Olivia, trying to read her face in the dim glow of passing streetlights. She didn’t look at me. Or any of us, really. And eventually, I got so exhausted that I even nodded off briefly.

Finally, the car slowed and turned onto a gravel road that wound its way up a steep hillside. The headlights swept across a few copses of trees and underbrush before coming to rest on a small clearing at the top of the vista.

“We’re here,” James announced.

The vista was nothing special—just a simple overlook with a rusted guardrail and a couple of weathered picnic tables. But it offered an unobstructed view of the night sky, where the full moon hung low and heavy, and it was the highest point in the pack’s territory. It was as good a spot as any.

“This will do,” Elijah said as he stepped out of the car.

We all followed him out. Olivia even went willingly, clearly having lost any desire to fight back against the inevitability of her mate bond breaking with Elijah. The night air was cool and crisp, carrying the scent of pine.

Elijah turned to Olivia. “Are you ready?”

She shrugged. “As long as you give me what I was promised.”

He nodded. “A lessened sentence. The paperwork is filled out; just needs my signature.”

“Then I’m ready.”

The two of them walked toward the edge of the clearing, leaving James and me standing by the car. I watched them go, biting my lip until it almost bled.

“Do you really think this will work?” James asked quietly.

I tore my gaze away from Elijah and Olivia to look at him. “It has to.”

“And if it does? What then? You think it’ll help with your…” He gestured vaguely to my hands. “Situation?”

I nodded. “My running theory is that once Olivia is unmarked, Elijah will be able to mark me properly. And once we’re properly mated, I should be able to control my powers better. Maybe my wolf will even emerge.”

James made a thoughtful noise. “You already seem to have pretty good control, if you ask me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The cave,” he reminded me.

I looked down at my palms, spreading my fingers in the moonlight. He wasn’t wrong. A couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of deliberately calling forth my fire abilities, let alone trying to use them underwater. But I’d done it, and I’d managed to keep the heat contained enough to help rather than harm.

A small, reluctant smile tugged at my lips. But I didn’t let the hope settle in too heavily. Not until this “ritual” was over. Not until I was certain Olivia wasn’t just fucking with all of us. Again.

Elijah and Olivia had reached the edge of the clearing, where the moonlight was strongest. Elijah pulled the stone out of his pocket. Its blue glow had intensified in the moonlight, casting eerie shadows across his face.

I twisted my wedding band nervously around my ring finger, watching as Elijah placed the stone on the ground between their feet. He took Olivia’s hands, and both began to speak.

At first, nothing seemed to happen. The stone glowed, Elijah and Olivia chanted, but there was no visible effect. I felt my heart sink. Had Olivia been lying after all, or perhaps just mistaken?

But then, just as I was about to accept the fact that we’d failed, a gust of wind swept through the clearing. I swore it came from nowhere and everywhere at once, whipping around Elijah and Olivia in a tight circle.

I felt it too—a pulse of magic that made my skin tingle and my heart race. Leaves and small twigs were caught in the vortex, swirling around Olivia and Elijah. Olivia’s hair whipped around her face, and both she and Elijah were bathed in that strange, unearthly blue light.

Then, the mating mark on Olivia’s neck began to glow. It started as a faint shimmer, barely visible, but quickly intensified until it was almost too bright to look at. Elijah’s mark glowed too. I held my breath.

The wind grew stronger, the glow more intense. James and I both had to shield our eyes from the brightness, but I couldn’t look away. This was it—the moment we’d been working toward for months.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The wind died, the glow faded, and the clearing was quiet once more.

For a moment, no one moved. Then I was running, crossing the distance to Elijah in seconds. He turned to me with wide eyes.

“Look,” he said, tilting his head to show me his neck.

The mark was gone. Where once there had been a distinctive silvery scar, there was now only smooth skin. I reached out to touch it, to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light, and felt nothing but unmarked warmth beneath my fingertips.

I turned to Olivia, who was touching her own neck with her fingertips. Her mark was gone too.

“It worked,” I breathed, hardly daring to believe it. “It actually worked. Olivia, thank you.”

Olivia pressed her lips into a thin line and straightened her shoulders. “Now you can’t say I didn’t help you anymore,” she said coldly as she turned and began walking back to the car.

I watched her climb into the car, a complex mix of emotions swirling through me. Relief that the unmarking had worked, guilt over what Olivia had lost, but mostly a wild, soaring hope for what this meant for me and Elijah and even Thea. For all of us.

Elijah must have felt the same way, because the next thing I knew, his hands were on my waist, and he was pulling me close. His eyes were dark with an intensity I hadn’t seen before—he didn’t even look at me like this when we made love.

“Your turn,” he said, his voice low and rough.

My heart skipped a beat as I realized what he was saying. “Here? Now?”

He nodded, a slight smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Under the full moon, with the stone’s power still in the air. There’s no better time, right?”

I swallowed hard, suddenly nervous despite having wanted this for so long. “What do I do?”

“Just stay still,” he whispered.

And then, in one fluid motion, he dipped me backward, supporting my weight with his strong arms. His lips brushed my throat, sending a shiver down my spine, before his teeth found the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder.

The bite itself was quick—a sharp pain that immediately gave way to a rush of warmth that spread through my entire body. My eyes widened as sensation after sensation washed over me: heat, pleasure, a profound sense of connection, and something else—something old and achingly familiar. A presence.

My wolf.

After eight long years of silence, I could feel her stirring, stretching, coming alive after a very long sleep. She was stronger than I remembered, fiercer, more present. As if Elijah’s mark had not just broken a barrier but had somehow amplified what lay beyond it.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “But you have to mark our mate so I can come back fully. Mark him, Agnes.”

She didn’t need to tell me twice. Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around Elijah’s neck and pulled myself up to meet him. His scent filled my nostrils. My mate’s scent. He tilted his head, exposing his neck, and smiled. The rest of the world faded away—just the two of us, wrapped up in each other… whole.

My wolf growled in approval as I pressed my lips to Elijah’s throat, then bit down.