Chapter 2 – You Can’t Run From Magic, But You Can Make It Bleed
1189 Words
Nora Hale pov
I didn’t sleep.
Again.
By the time morning light smeared across the sky like a tired painter’s brushstroke, I’d already cleaned the entire bookstore twice, alphabetized the nonfiction shelves (again), and changed the store’s warding runes with Reya’s latest “hex-the-stalker” blueprint.
When the front door finally chimed, I flinched. Then cursed myself for flinching.
It was just Lyra.
She wore oversized sunglasses and carried a bag that smelled suspiciously like chocolate croissants.
“I brought emotional support carbs,” she said, holding the bag up like an offering to the moon.
I collapsed into one of the armchairs near the window. “Tell me there’s one with raspberry filling.”
“There are three.”
I took two.
She sat across from me, kicked her heels up on the coffee table, and studied me over the rim of her espresso. “You look like death lightly toasted.”
“Thanks. That’s the goal. Keep death confused so it doesn’t snatch me.”
She grinned. “So. Still haunted by whispers in the wind?”
I sighed. “Only every three hours. You think it’s connected to the bond ritual?”
“I think we called on something older than moonlight and now the universe is being a petty ex.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Ever since we’d severed our mating bonds at the Moonfire ruins, nothing had felt…normal. Not even supernatural normal. The kind of normal where monsters wear tailored suits and soulmates can kill you with a look.
We were different now. Untethered. But not unmarked.
And last night—the voice, the black rose, the fake note from “Darius”—that wasn’t just petty. That was a threat.
“We need answers,” I said, biting into my croissant like it had personally wronged me.
Lyra leaned back and crossed her arms. “Then we go to the Temple again.”
My stomach tightened. “The Moonfire Temple?”
She nodded. “We did something there that night. We woke something up. If someone’s coming for us, it’s because of that.”
I thought about it. About the altar, the fire, the way lightning cracked the sky when we chanted that final line. We’d wanted revenge.
But what if we summoned more than revenge?
later at the Moon fire Temple Ruins,
The ruins hadn’t changed. Still cracked stone and creeping ivy, still echoing with ancient magic like an unspoken hymn. Still the scent of burned jasmine and wet earth.
Mei, Zara, and Reya were already waiting by the altar when Lyra and I arrived.
Zara tossed a blade into the air and caught it again without looking. “Any ghost-whispers today?”
I shook my head. “Just the usual sleep paralysis and cryptic threats.”
Reya tapped on her phone. “My tracker spell pinged something weird in this location last night. A flicker of energy—old magic. Like…pre-Lycan Empire old.”
Mei tugged her sleeves over her hands. “Do we really want to poke it again?”
“We already did,” I said quietly. “Now we deal with it.”
We circled the altar. Linked hands again.
No whiskey this time. No desperation.
Just five women standing under a silver sky, armed with truth, regret, and a hint of rage.
Zara spoke first. “What do we say?”
I didn’t know.
But my mouth moved anyway.
“We broke what broke us.
We severed what bound us.
Now we ask—what wakes beneath?”
The wind stilled.
The trees bent inward.
And then… the altar cracked.
Literally cracked, a fault line splitting it down the middle with a deafening CRACK. Dust flew. Light flashed.
And from the heart of the stone, a pulse of energy shot out, knocking us all back.
I hit the ground hard. Dazed.
Then a voice rang out—not loud, but everywhere.
“The broken have called. The curse is alive.”
I looked up.
A figure floated above the ruins.
She was made of shadow and starlight. Her eyes were silver moons.
“Who are you?” Zara asked, half-standing, blade in hand.
The figure smiled faintly. “I am what you invoked. Vespera. The Sixth Moon. Banished goddess of endings.”
Mei gasped. Reya went pale.
Lyra cursed under her breath. “We really know how to pick ’em.”
Vespera floated down to meet us eye to eye. Her presence was ancient. Heavy.
“You burned the bonds,” she said, eyes on me. “And now your former mates burn in return. Their wolves are lost. Their power fractured. The balance is broken.”
“We didn’t mean to break the world,” I said quietly. “We just wanted to survive it.”
Vespera tilted her head. “And now the world will break to survive you.”
She raised her hand.
A shimmer of magic danced across her fingers. Then it shot out—into each of us.
Pain. Pure, burning magic. It slithered into my veins, scorching and bright.
Then it stopped.
And I felt it.
Something inside me had changed.
Back at the Club HQ,
“I can feel people’s lies now,” I said, staring at my hands. “Like, literally hear them when they talk.”
Zara lit a cigarette. “I tried to track my ex last night and almost broke through a blood ward. Without a spell.”
Reya: “I read a forbidden code in a banned grimoire. Without going blind. That’s not supposed to be possible.”
Mei: “I talked to a ghost.”
Everyone froze.
Lyra blinked. “What ghost?”
She looked at us. “My sister. She’s been dead for six years.”
The silence stretched. Long. Heavy.
Then Zara muttered, “We’re witches now, aren’t we?”
“Cursed witches,” Reya added.
“Warrior witches,” I said slowly.
Lyra grinned. “Witch wolves. I like it.”
Reya looked thoughtful. “If our powers are growing, and our exes are weakening… this isn’t just personal anymore. It’s political.”
“More than that,” I said. “It’s war.”
Meanwhile at Darius's park house,
Darius hadn’t left his training room in a full day. His knuckles were raw, shirt soaked in sweat.
His Beta, Leoric, stood at the door. “You’re bleeding.”
Darius didn’t stop hitting the reinforced stone wall. “I can’t feel Fenrir.”
“He’s not gone. Just… somewhere else.”
“Find her.”
Leoric’s eyes narrowed. “You rejected her.”
“I didn’t know,” Darius snapped. “I thought she was weak. I thought—” He stopped. The words rotted on his tongue. “I made a mistake.”
Leoric sighed. “You always do. But this one might destroy us.”
A knock echoed through the hall.
Then a scroll slid beneath the door.
Darius picked it up.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was an invitation.
The Divorce Alpha Club
Official Warning #1:
Stay away from Nora Hale.
Or you’ll lose more than your wolf.
- Writer
