Chapter 16: The Finish
1110 Words
They stood locked in place, barely a breath between them.
His fingers were still curled around her wrist—from when the Mate bond had detonated through them like a star collapsing inward. His skin had burned beneath her touch, not with pain, but with something deeper. Hotter.
Something that didn’t want to let go.
Sofia could feel it still—etched into her bones, threading through her blood. It wasn’t just a bond. It was a rewrite. A truth she hadn’t asked for, didn’t believe in. Not until now.
Around them, the warriors she had outmaneuvered circled again. Blood on their blades, fury in their eyes—but none moved. Not without him.
They were waiting.
He hadn’t looked away. Not once.
He was terrifying. Beautiful. Mythic.
A single warrior stepped forward, uncertainty in every breath.
“Tlayecuele,” he said, raising his other hand to stop his warriors' movement.
It wasn’t a shout. It was a command.
And it stopped the others cold.
His gaze shifted again, piercing hers like he could peel her apart with his eyes alone.
“¿Ixchele?” he asked. The word was a blade wrapped in silk—sharp, sacred, unyielding.
Sofia nodded. “My grandmother… She was from the northern tribe. The one that was destroyed.”
His headdress shifted as he tilted his head—feathers catching the moonlight like flame. He studied her like he was seeing a vision only spoken of in prophecy.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Sofía Moon.”
He stepped back.
The name landed like a blow. No expression, no sound—but she felt it. The tension that rippled through his frame. The fire that had bloomed in his eyes flickered—then dimmed.
“Eres loba? You’re wolf,” he asked, voice quiet now. A weight behind it.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
And that was the breaking point.
Something cold moved behind his eyes. Like a door closing. Like the light going out in a room you didn’t realize you loved until it was gone.
“Yecoa nite,” he said. A word like a verdict. Dismissive. Final.
Then he turned his back to her.
The warriors who had held still for so long shifted. Weapons rose.
He didn't speak again.
He didn’t have to.
They advanced.
Sofia didn’t move at first.
She stood there, stunned—her hand still tingling from where it had touched his. The bond still thrummed in her chest like a second heartbeat, too loud, too raw to ignore.
But he had turned his back.
Just like that.
She didn’t understand.
The words he’d spoken—Yecoa nite—were foreign, sharp. She didn’t know what the words meant.
But the way he said them—sharp, final—cut just the same.
Dismissal.
Rejection.
She blinked, her breath catching. Wasn’t this what fate was supposed to be? Wasn’t this the pull her mother had talked about in quiet moments? The tether she had laughed at, denied, only to fall into it headfirst?
Why did it feel like he’d just walked away from all of it?
She didn’t have time to answer.
The warriors moved.
She saw it in their shoulders first—how the tension snapped into motion. Blades raised. Feet shifted.
Her body reacted before her mind could catch up.
She ducked the first strike, pivoted, twisted past another blade. It was like her blood had remembered something ancient. Her uncle Metz’s drills. Her own relentless training.
She didn’t attack. She didn’t kill.
But she didn’t fall.
Their blades glinted. Their painted faces snarled. They moved in rhythm, a pack of shadows.
And still—she slipped between them.
She was smaller. Faster. She spun low, hands brushing the dirt, leapt high over a swinging blade. One breath after another, like each one might be her last.
Then—an opening.
A break in their formation.
She burst through it, feet pounding the earth toward the open terrain. Her lungs burned. Her heart thundered.
But she didn’t look back.
Not even when she felt his heartbeat echo in her chest.
Not even when the bond pulled at her like a hook buried in her ribs.
Not even when her soul screamed to turn around.
She ran.
Through the chaos of battle, the smoke, the ash, the metallic tang of blood—
She ran.
It wasn’t until the sounds of fighting dimmed behind her that Sofia let herself slow.
Her lungs burned. Her legs shook. Her body buzzed with adrenaline, with confusion, with ache.
The bond coiled behind her ribs, wild and unyielding.
She ducked behind the twisted wreckage of an overturned truck, crouching low. Her heart pounded in her ears. The smoke still stung her eyes. And the world felt like it was trying to spin out from under her.
Then—
A sound.
A whimper.
Small. Frantic. Close.
She turned, breath caught.
There—beneath the chassis—curled into himself, face pale and streaked with tears, was a boy.
Joaquin.
His wide eyes locked on hers, glistening with recognition and fear.
“I was looking for my dad,” he whispered, the words brittle as glass.
Sofia’s throat tightened.
“Hey,” she breathed, crawling carefully toward him. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
He flinched as she reached for him but didn’t pull away as she drew him into her arms, cradling him against her chest. He was shaking. Small. Real.
Alive.
She held him tighter.
Let her eyes fall closed for just a moment.
And she breathed.
☽
From the shadows, he watched her go.
The girl—his girl—disappeared into the smoke with a child clutched against her chest, her back straight, her steps steady, even as the battlefield howled around her.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
Xiuhcoatl’s chest ached.
Not from injury.
From something deeper.
Something old.
Of all the nights. Of all the battles.
Why now?
Why her?
She was wrong for him.
Wolf-born and everything he had been taught to despise.
And yet—
When she touched him…
The world had changed shape.
The fire in her eyes. The storm in her blood. The impossible gentleness with which she had held that boy.
He could still feel her skin on his. Still smell her—sun after rain, wildflowers crushed beneath bare feet. Like life. Like freedom. Like something his blood had forgotten it could want.
Mine.
The word tasted like betrayal.
But the bond did not lie.
It burned behind his ribs. It pulled at something primal.
And watching her walk away—
It hurt more than it should have.
- Writer
