The Last Moon Sacrifice

Chapter four:The dreadful decision

Kail:

The parchment lay on the stone table between us, pale and unforgiving. My name was already written at the top in formal script, as if the choice had never been meant to be mine.

The council sat across from me in a half circle, their faces calm, merciless and unmoved by the weight pressing down on my chest.

“You have delayed long enough,” Elder Vaelor said. “We have been talking about this for months now, and you kept asking for time to think.”

His voice was steady, practiced, as if he had delivered this sentence many times before.

“This ends today.” He announced like a final verdict.

I dragged a hand down my face and let out a breath that felt too heavy to belong to one lifetime.

“You’re asking me to sentence her to death,” My voice broke mid sentence. “Say it properly.”

Elder Myra did not look away. “We are asking you to release her soul. There is a difference.”

“There is not,” I replied, my voice rough. “Not to her.”

Silence settled over the chamber.

The walls were carved from black stone, runes faintly glowing beneath the surface, reacting to the tension in the room. I had stood in this chamber as Alpha, as Immortal, as ruler of this pack and this town.

I had never felt smaller than I did in that moment.

Love had made me stronger….and weaker at the same time.

“She will not survive another life,” Kaelis said quietly. “You know this. Each reincarnation fractures her further. Her magic grows stronger. Her control grows weaker. The loop is breaking the balance.”

I closed my eyes, and memories rose without permission.

Seris stood beside me on the battlefield centuries ago, blood on her blade, fire in her eyes. She had been my mate, my equal, my anchor. When she died defending our pack, something inside me shattered completely.

I had refused to accept it. I had refused to let her go.

I remembered the ritual clearly.

The Unholy Moon Pact. Forbidden. Ancient and long forgotten.

I had carved the runes myself and fed them my blood. I had asked for immortality so I would never lose love again. I had asked to bring Seris back so we could rule together forever.

But I had not known that Seris had performed a ritual of her own before she died.

I had never learned what it was….only that it had collided with mine and corrupted everything.

The ancestor’s spirit had appeared that night, his presence cold and furious at my act. He had told me I could not bring Seris back. He had told me my soul would be bound to immortality alone. And he had warned me that another woman would come into my life instead, her soul fractured by my corrupted magic, cursed to be reborn again and again.

I had not believed him then…that was my mistake!

Years later, I met Tasha.

She had been reckless, fearless, always running toward danger instead of away from it. I had loved her before I understood what was happening.

She had died suddenly in an accident that left nothing behind but broken metal and silence.

Decades after that, Eden had come into my life.

Fierce, sharp-tongued, alive in a way that had terrified me. We had been engaged. Everything was finally going good, but then she fell sick.

She had died slowly from unknown terminal illness, holding my hand and asking me why I looked so afraid.

And now Angora.

Same soul. Different body. Different flaws.

Same ending waiting for her.

“She keeps coming back because of me,” I said quietly, staring at the parchment. “Because of something I did out of grief and selfishness.”

Vaelor nodded once. “Yes.”

The honesty almost hurt more than denial would have.

“If you sign,” Myra continued, “this will be her final life. The Moonbound sacrifice will free her soul permanently. No more rebirth. No more suffering.”

“If you refuse,” she added, “she will die anyway….hunted by every pack, every territory. And she will return again, more unstable than before. And more dangerous for the lives around her.”

My hands trembled as I reached for the quill.

I thought of Angora’s confusion…the way she looked at me, finding love every day in these tired eyes… forgetting every time that she had done this countless times before.

She did not remember Tasha….

She did not remember Eden…..

She did not remember dying….

She did not remember loving me before…

This was my fault.

And I could not put her through it again just because I wanted her beside me.

So I held my breath…. tightened my grip on the quill….and I signed.

My hands trembled as though I had signed my own death sentence.

The moment my name settled into the parchment, something inside me collapsed entirely.

The council rose, their decision complete, their burden passed onto me.

I let out a hollow breath, dropping the damned quill.

“This was long due, Angora… I’m so sorry.” I whispered more to myself.

Tears blurred my vision as I stared at the hands that had just condemned her forgotten soul.

I left without another word.

I did not remember the walk home.

I only remembered pushing the door shut behind me and standing there, staring at nothing.

The house felt wrong without her voice, without her presence filling the space.

Her scarf lay folded on the table.

Her boots sat near the door, one slightly turned as if she had meant to fix it later.

I sank to the floor and pressed my back against the door as my chest got too tight to breathe properly.

The guilt came all at once….crushing and merciless.

I had destroyed an innocent life to correct a mistake I had made centuries ago.

I had let the wrong soul pay the price for my fear of loss.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the empty room. “I should have carried this alone.”

My body shook as the weight of it finally broke through my control.

“I-I'm so sorry Angora…so sorry!”

I cried until my chest burned and my throat ached, until there was nothing left but exhaustion and regret.

A knock sounded at the door.

I didn’t move at first.

The knock came again, firmer this time.

“Kail,” a guard said quietly from the other side. “She has been transferred. Moonbound Hollow. Beneath the eastern ridge. The council orders are final.”

My heart sank as if it had been torn from my chest.

“If you wish to see her,” the guard added, “this is your last chance.”

I pushed myself to my feet, every movement heavy, filled with exhaustion…..every breath painful.

Then I opened the door.

And I stepped back into the night, knowing I was walking toward the woman I loved for the last time… to answer all her questions.

If she even remembered any.