Chapter 387: No More Damages

Chapter 387: Chapter 121: No More Damages

Destiny tried to answer, but the words would not come out at all.

But the fascinating thing was she could feel her blood being sucked into the stone. Silver light moved from it stabbing all the cursed wolves in their chest,pulsing in time with Destiny’s heartbeat, or what remained of it.

“It has begun,” the priestess said. “The sacrifice for the cure.”

“Then stop it from taking more of her blood!” Dane snapped.

The priestess looked at him, her face pale. “I don’t know how.”

“You’re the High Priestess. You told us what the stone could do.”

“I told you what the records said. I have never witnessed this.”

Dane’s arms tightened around Destiny. She could feel his anger, his fear, and the terrible helplessness in the way he held her, as though he believed that letting go for even a moment would make her disappear.

Destiny forced herself to look at the priestess.

“Don’t take it away.”

Both the priestess and Dane stared at her.

“If the light stops now,” Destiny whispered, “they may go back to what they were.”

“That’s none of your business,” Dane said.

“No.” She swallowed, fighting the weakness dragging at her. “But look at them.”

Another wolf had fallen. Its body twisted, then shrank, leaving a man curled on the stones, coughing and clutching his chest. A warrior approached cautiously, weapon raised, until the former wolf lifted trembling hands to show he meant no harm.

The warrior lowered his blade.

Around the courtyard, the fighting had become a desperate effort to save those who remained alive. Hannah and Ivy were helping the wounded away from the gates. Henrik was calling for clean cloth and water. Sonia had knelt beside an injured guard, pressing her hands against his bleeding side, while Ramon, human again and cradling one arm against his ribs, stood watch over the nearest transformed wolves.

They were no longer fighting an advancing pack.

They were witnessing its undoing.

The Alpha roared again.

This time, the sound broke into a strangled cry.

The silver light reached the gates and curled around his massive legs. He tried to advance, but his forelegs buckled. The black veins beneath his skin writhed, spreading briefly across his neck before beginning to recede.

Destiny felt the Heart Stone pull at her again.

She cried out, and Dane immediately shifted his grip to support her.

“Enough,” he said, turning toward the priestess. “Whatever this is, it is hurting her.”

The priestess studied Destiny’s face. Then she looked at the stone and the transformed wolves scattered across the courtyard.

“The curse is tied to the Alpha,” she said slowly. “The stone is reaching every creature bound to it. But it is drawing power through Destiny’s blood.”

“Then give it another source,” Dane demanded.

“I don’t know if another source exists.”

Destiny could feel her strength slipping away. Yet beneath the exhaustion, something had changed. The coldness was gone from her limbs, and the wounds that had nearly killed her no longer seemed to be draining her life as quickly. The stone was not simply taking from her. It was also restoring something, though she could not understand the balance.

She looked toward the Alpha.

His body had begun to shrink, but the darkness clung stubbornly to his chest and throat. He fought against the transformation, claws gouging deep grooves into the earth. For an instant, his hollow eyes found hers across the courtyard.

There was no recognition in them.

Only fear.

Destiny knew that fear. She had seen it in the faces of people who had lost control of themselves, in the eyes of those who had been treated as monsters long after the person beneath the curse had begun to disappear.

“Help him,” she whispered.

Dane looked at her as if she had asked him to surrender his life.

“Destiny, he sent them after you.”

“I know. They went around everyone else to get to me.”

“He nearly killed you.”

“I know.”

Her voice was weak, but she held his gaze.

“He’s still one of them.”

Dane’s jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he would refuse. Then he looked at the Alpha again, at the fading black veins and the silver light gathering around his body.

He did not release her at once. Instead, he shifted her carefully into the priestess’s waiting arms.

“Keep her alive,” he told the priestess.

Then he rose.

Destiny tried to reach for him, but her hand fell against the stones. She watched him move toward the gates, calling Ramon and Henrik to clear a path. Henrik shoved a cloak at him as he passed, and Dane dragged it around his shoulders without breaking stride. The warriors drew back as he approached the Alpha, their weapons lowered but ready.

The massive wolf lifted its head and snapped at him.

Dane stopped beyond the reach of its jaws.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

The Alpha’s hollow gaze fixed on him.

Dane held his ground. “It’s over. Whatever has hold of you, let it go.”

The wolf shuddered. Its claws scraped against the earth, and another broken cry tore from its throat.

The Heart Stone flared.

Silver light swept across the courtyard in a final, blinding wave. Destiny squeezed her eyes shut, and the priestess wrapped an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright.

For a moment, there was no sound at all.

Then the light faded.

Destiny opened her eyes.

The cursed Alpha was gone.

A man lay beyond the gates, curled on his side and gasping for breath. His body was scarred, his skin streaked with blood and dirt, but the black veins had disappeared. He lifted his head and stared at the courtyard, his gaze moving over the warriors, the wounded, and the people who had once been his pack.

He looked at his hands.

Then he began to weep.

Destiny’s breath left her in a shaky rush.

The Heart Stone’s light dimmed. Its surface returned to its pale, silver-lined appearance, and the fierce current that had swept through her body settled into a gentle warmth.

The priestess pressed two fingers to Destiny’s throat.

This time, she smiled through her tears.

“Her heartbeat is steady.”

Dane was beside Destiny before the words had fully left the priestess’s mouth. He dropped to his knees and gathered her into his arms, holding her so carefully that she could barely feel his hands.

She reached for his face.

“I’m still here,” she whispered.

He pressed her hand against his cheek and shut his eyes. His shoulders shook once, and when he opened his eyes again, the warrior who had faced the cursed pack without retreating looked like a man who had nearly lost the only person he could not bear to live without.

“Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Despite the pain in her body, Destiny managed the faintest smile. “I’ll try not to get bitten by seven wolves next time.”

A broken laugh escaped him. He lowered his forehead to hers, and for a long moment, neither spoke.

Around them, the courtyard slowly came back to life. Healers hurried among the injured. Warriors helped the newly freed members of the pack sit up, covering them with cloaks and offering water. The man who had been the Alpha stayed where he had fallen, weeping, as Ramon walked out to him without raising a weapon.

Aurora had come up beside them, Elara at her elbow and Vance a step behind. Her hands were empty. She kept one palm flat over her heart, where the pain had been, and she stared at the stone as though she had only just noticed she had let it go. She did not ask for it back.

The curse was broken.

But the Heart Stone still lay warm against Destiny’s ribs, as though it had not finished with her.

The priestess noticed it too. She stared at the stone, then at the crescent birthmark on Destiny’s neck.

Her lips parted, but she said nothing.

Destiny was too exhausted to ask what she had seen. She rested against Dane and listened to his heartbeat, allowing the steady rhythm to pull her away from the darkness that had almost claimed her.

For now, that was enough.

She was alive. Dane was holding her. And the people who had entered the courtyard as monsters were beginning to find their way back to themselves.

Whatever truths waited beyond the gates, whatever her blood and the Heart Stone meant, they would have to wait until morning.

Destiny closed her eyes. This time the dark felt like sleep, and Dane’s arms were around her.

Beyond the gates, one of the freed men, still on his knees in the dirt, lifted his face to the sky and howled. It cracked in his human throat, raw with grief and relief and the plain shock of being alive. A second voice joined him, then a third, until the sound carried over the walls and out across the dark hills.