CHAPTER.17
1037 Words
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Chapter 17 – The Night That Changed Everything
The fire in the hearth was dying, but the air between them burned hotter than ever.
Selene sat at the edge of the bed, wrapped in the heavy velvet robe Valerian had draped around her shoulders hours ago. Her fingertips toyed with the seam of it, but her thoughts were far from the softness. She could still feel the phantom of his touch, lingering like an echo on her skin. His scent was embedded in the fibers of the robe, earthy and cold like midnight.
And yet, he was nowhere to be found now.
He had left the room shortly after whispering something cryptic — “Don’t open the door, no matter what you hear.” She didn’t know whether it was a warning or a test. But it left her haunted.
The Night King.
Her bonded mate.
And a liar.
Because the truth… the truth had begun bleeding through the cracks of her dreams. Memories that weren’t hers. A golden forest. A blood-soaked altar. A promise sworn under an eclipse.
Selene exhaled, grounding herself. “It’s not real,” she whispered. But the ache in her chest told a different story.
Then — a sound.
Not footsteps. Not a knock.
A whimper.
Low, guttural, and pained.
It crawled beneath the door like fog — begging, breaking, becoming unbearable.
“Valerian?” she whispered, standing slowly.
The door pulsed with energy. That same cursed magic that cloaked the palace hallways, threaded through the tapestries, lived in the walls. But now it was moving, coiling, reacting to her.
“Don’t open the door…”
But she did.
The corridor beyond wasn’t empty.
At first, she saw only shadows. Then shapes. Then—him.
Valerian was on his knees.
His head bowed, hair wild and damp with sweat. His back arched like something inside him was tearing free. His claws had returned, digging into the marble floor, leaving deep, glistening gouges.
“Selene,” he rasped. “You weren’t supposed to—”
“Valerian,” she gasped, rushing toward him.
“No!” he growled, his voice thick with venom and pain. “Stay back.”
But she was already beside him, her hands reaching, her omega instinct overriding every warning, every ounce of fear.
He was burning up.
His skin was blistering with a strange, dark magic. Like ink veins, it pulsed under his flesh, surging up his neck and curling down his arms. The bond between them thrummed in response — not weak, but desperate. As if it was begging to be completed.
“What’s happening to you?” she asked, trembling.
“I fought it,” he said, voice fractured. “The bond. The curse. The prophecy. I thought I could hold it back long enough to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From me.”
She touched his face, and his eyes snapped open — but they weren’t the same.
Not red.
Not gold.
Not anything natural.
They glowed with ancient runes. Abyssal. Full of time and sorrow and punishment.
“I was supposed to die,” he confessed, panting. “Long ago. My death was written in the scrolls, Selene. I was never meant to live long enough to find my fated mate.”
Selene’s heart fractured.
“You told me fate brought us together.”
“It did,” he breathed. “But fate… fate is cruel. She gave me you, only to test me with your destruction.”
The weight of his words hit her like ice water.
The letter she had never sent—the one he had read in her dreams—had told her everything she had tried to bury. That she had known him once before. In another life. A memory of a moonlit garden. His hand in hers. His lips on her shoulder. The moment she had been sacrificed to save him.
“Valerian… I remember,” she whispered. “The altar. The blade. I remember bleeding and looking up at you, wondering why you didn’t save me.”
His head lowered in shame.
“Because I was afraid,” he said. “Afraid that if I defied the curse, it would claim you. And now—now the curse wants you anyway.”
Behind them, the air crackled.
The palace was waking.
The wards along the ceilings glowed crimson. Every stained-glass window trembled. The curse had sensed the weakness in the bond — and it had found its opening.
Selene turned toward the source of the energy, instinct taking over.
Her blood was no longer just omega blood.
It was bonded blood.
Marked by prophecy.
Crowned by the night.
“Valerian,” she said softly, standing tall. “If you die, I die. If you fall, I fall. We were fated. That means this curse — whatever it is — wasn’t meant to destroy us. It was meant to transform us.”
His eyes widened. “Selene—”
She pressed her hand to his heart. “Let me in. All the way. No more fear. No more restraint.”
And then—
The bond snapped.
Like the sound of a thousand bells cracking the sky.
Magic poured through them both.
He cried out. She did, too. But it wasn’t pain—it was power. Electric. Intoxicating. Their blood ran gold and violet, interweaving like vines reclaiming a ruined castle. The curse recoiled. The runes on his skin shattered like glass, revealing the man beneath.
Valerian fell into her arms, gasping.
“It's over,” he whispered.
But Selene knew better.
This was only the beginning.
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They sat in silence hours later, on the balcony overlooking the kingdom that had nearly killed them both. The sky was bruised with stars, the moon swollen with new light.
“So what now?” Selene asked.
Valerian took her hand. “Now, we write the story ourselves.”
She looked out at the horizon, then down at the folded letter resting in her lap — the one she had never meant for him to read.
It had changed everything.
She turned to him and smiled. “Then let the ink run wild.”
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- Writer
