soul for soul
603 Words
The howl shattered the skies.
Not a wolf’s cry but a sound ancient and wrong. Like bones breaking in reverse. Like time unraveling.
The Original Wolf stood fully formed now, towering over the war camp. Eyes like hollow moons. Horns blacker than the void. Chains dragging behind him, each link whispering names of the dead.
And Mira… was on her knees.
Blood spilled from her chest in rivers. Not from a wound but from inside her, as if her very spirit had cracked open.
Tessa’s blood ritual tethered the beast to Mira’s cursed lineage. Her mother had sealed it away using her own death and now, Tessa was unlocking it using Mira’s life.
“Mira!” Kade’s voice roared across the field.
He was pinned, clawed, bloodied Lucan holding him down in monstrous wolf-form, fangs buried in his shoulder. Kade writhed, but couldn’t shift again. He was weakening.
Maelra was surrounded, blades flashing, taking down enemies left and right—but she couldn’t reach Mira fast enough.
And Tessa calm, cruel, victorious watched it all from her stone altar.
“This is what your mother feared,” she hissed, walking slowly toward Mira. “This beast was never just a curse. It was your inheritance.”
Mira’s eyes flickered, black and gold warring in her pupils. Her breath came ragged, but she lifted her chin.
“Then I’ll be the one to end it.”
She dug her nails into her palm, drawing her own blood and began chanting.
Not in wolf-tongue. Not in any earthly language.
In blood-magic.
The kind only passed through cursed bloodlines.
The sky darkened. The chains on the beast clattered as if reacting to her power. It turned its massive head acknowledging her.
Tessa’s smirk faltered. “No. No, that’s not possible”
Mira’s voice rose, her hands glowing. “By the blood of my mother, by the fire of the first moon, I command you Return to shadow!”
The beast growled.
Chains tightened around its limbs. The ground cracked with fire.
Mira screamed, her body lifting into the air. Her veins glowed. Bones ached. Her soul was splitting.
But the seal was working.
The beast roared again louder this time. Furious. Wounded. Its form began flickering, fighting the spell.
But it wasn’t enough.
It was tied to her soul and the only way to fully trap it again…
Was to let it take her with it.
“MIRA!” Kade broke free with a snarl, his eyes wild. He reached her just as she began to burn from the inside.
“No!” he cried, pulling her into his arms. “Don’t do this!”
She sobbed, shaking. “I have to. He’ll kill everyone. I’m the lock. I’m the curse. I end with him.”
“I won’t lose you too,” he whispered. “Please…”
She touched his face, lips trembling. “Then give me a reason to stay.”
He kissed herhard. Desperate. Furious. Bloody. His tears mixed with hers as magic coiled around them.
“I’ll carry the curse with you,” he whispered. “Bind me to it. To you.”
Her eyes widened.
And then…
She whispered a new spell.
Chains snapped from the ground twisting around both their wrists. Around both their souls.
The beast howled.
And vanished.
Sealed againbut not by death.
By bond.
Kade collapsed. Mira followed.
Silence.
Then…
Tessa screamed.
“You FOOLS! You think love can contain the apocalypse?”
Mira stood, shaking, blood-soakedbut alive.
“No,” she said, voice low. “But it can delay it. And that’s enough for now.”
- Writer
