Chapter 338

Nathan

I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, the quiet of the night broken only by Olivia’s gentle snores next to me. I glanced at her, her face so peaceful in sleep.

It was hard to reconcile this gentle image of her with the heated argument we’d had earlier, the tension of our recent therapy session heavy between us.

All I wanted was to make her realize that these cookie-cutter ‘exercises’ that the therapist gave us, these catch-all solutions, wouldn’t work for us. Not when it came to our struggles. It was more than just a disagreement or a difference in opinion that had led us to this point.

It was a literal life or death situation, a battle against something dark, evil, and very, very old.

The room suddenly felt stifling, the walls closing in on me, each tick of the clock mocking my restlessness. Realizing that sleep was not going to be my friend tonight, I sighed and swung my legs over the side of the bed, careful not to wake Olivia.

I padded through the dark house, stopping in front of the twins’ nursery. They were sleeping peacefully, just as they should be.

Gone already were the days of barely sleeping through the night, waking up every few hours for feedings or changings. But those days would return soon, once we had another child of our own.

In a strange way, I was looking forward to that beautiful, beautiful exhaustion. And right now, I honestly yearned for it.

“What’s eating away at you?” My wolf, Steel, finally broke the silence. “You should be in bed, holding our mate, not wandering aimlessly around the house like a lost pup.”

“Can’t sleep, of course,” I grumbled out loud, shuffling away from the nursery and into the living room.

“Why?”

I scoffed. “Why do you think? I can’t get over this whole therapy and mediator thing. I thought we’d go a couple of times, sort things out, not be doing ‘homework’ and ‘exercises’.:

“Yeah, but Olivia thinks we need it,” my wolf said, his voice heavy.

“But why?” I asked with a shrug. “Why can’t we sort this out like we’ve sorted out everything else?”

My wolf paused before speaking again. “I thought you were the one who ultimately decided to go.”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “You’re right. I wanted to give it a shot, but… I don’t think it’ll help us now that we’ve gone. I don’t see why she doesn’t get that.”

“Because maybe this isn’t like everything else?” My wolf threw the question back at me, forcing me to ponder it. “She’s your fated mate. If she thinks we need this, shouldn’t you support her?”

I stopped in my tracks, leaning against the wall. The exercises from earlier were still spread across the coffee table: Olivia’s beautiful, half-finished drawing, and my scribbles. “I guess so, but it all seems so stupid. An outsider, meddling in our relationship. I hate it.”

“Why do you hate it?” my wolf pressed, and there was something in its voice, a probing curiosity that I couldn’t ignore.

I hesitated, and then it hit me. “You know, Olivia said something earlier. About me never being allowed to be vulnerable because of how my father raised me. I shrugged it off then, but now that I think about it, maybe she’s right. Therapy feels like a sign of weakness to me, and I don’t like feeling weak.”

“So why don’t you tell her that? She’s your mate; she’d understand.”

I sighed. “I guess I should, shouldn’t I?”

But before I could dwell on that thought any further, my phone suddenly buzzed on the kitchen counter. I picked it up, my eyes scanning the caller ID quickly. It was from Levi.

“We found the witch’s hut,” he said when I answered. “Different location. Should we burn it down now?”

My heart rate spiked, the surge of adrenaline kicking in. This was it. The opportunity to end a reign of terror that had plagued us for too long. My lips parted, poised to tell Levi yes, to end it all now. But something held me back.

“No,” I found myself saying. “Don’t do anything. I want to be there. I want to see her burn myself.”

“Understood. We’ll wait for you.”

“I’ll be there soon. Keep an eye on the hut, make sure she doesn’t slip through our fingers again.”

With that, I hung up. The room suddenly felt even quieter than before, and heavier. We had found the witch’s hut… Did that mean that all of this would be over tonight? That my family would be free for once and for all?

…

I parked the car about half a mile away from the coordinates sent to me. My wolf was eager to end this, practically jumping out of his skin.

I moved through the dark forest with a quiet determination, my senses hyper-alert. After a few minutes, I saw the outlines of my men encircling a ramshackle hut, blending into the shadows like wraiths.

I gave them a curt nod as I joined them, my eyes never leaving the ominous structure before us.

“Salt?”I whispered to Levi.

“Done. We already spread it all around,” he answered, his voice barely above a breath.

I fumbled in my pocket for the box of matches, my fingers trembling slightly as I took one out.

“This ends now,” I murmured, my voice laced with an intensity I could hardly contain. I struck the match, the small flame flaring to life, but before it could touch the salt circle, a gust of wind roared out of nowhere.

The match went out, and the salt scattered, destroying the protective circle.

“What the—” I started, but before I could finish, the door of the hut burst open.

The witch stepped out, her face shrouded in darkness, her eyes glittering like coal. “So, what do we have here? Visiting again, dearie?” she sneered.

“You know exactly what this is. We’re here to end you. Your reign of terror stops now,” I said, my voice icy with resolve as I gestured for my men to spread another circle of salt before she could get away.

She laughed, a sound that sent shivers down my spine. “Oh, you think it’ll be that easy? You really are a fool.”

“A fool who’s about to end your miserable life,” I snarled, losing my patience.

My bones cracked and shifted as I transformed into my wolf form. I lunged at her, my jaws wide open, intending to rip her to shreds. But she vanished at the last moment, her laughter ringing in my ears. I went skidding into the ground where she once stood, shaking my head to come back to my senses.

“Missed me,” she taunted, reappearing behind me.

I whipped around to face her, my teeth bared.

She sighed, almost theatrically. “You don’t get it, do you?” she hissed, her teeth somehow almost as sharp as mine in the glimmering moonlight. “If you kill me now, your unborn child will die.”

The words slammed into me like a wrecking ball, freezing me in my tracks. Despite my better judgment, I found myself shifting back into my human form, my eyes wide and my fists clenched. I put my hand up, signaling my men to stop circling the house with salt.

“What did you say?” I growled.

The witch sneered. “Oh, you heard me. Kill me, and you condemn your own blood.”