Page 61 of Claws for Celebration
"How did the planning go?" she asked, looking up with brown eyes that held exhaustion mixed with determination.
"As well as can be expected when preparing for something that's never been attempted before," he replied, settling on the arm of her chair so he could wrap protective arms around her shoulders. "Callum's bringing a full pack. The Cherokee shamans and Appalachian Fae are sending specialists. We'll have more supernatural backup than any ritual in recorded history."
"And if backup isn't enough?"
"Then we trust in each other," Lucien said simply, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "The same way we've trusted eachother through every impossible thing that's happened since you arrived in Hollow Oak."
"Tomorrow we visit the binding site," Moira said, leaning into his embrace with a sigh that carried the weight of inherited responsibility. "See where Seraphina made her sacrifice, understand what we'll actually be attempting."
"Are you ready for that?"
"I don't think anyone can be ready to visit the place where their ancestor died performing blood magic," she replied honestly. "But I need to see it. Need to understand what she was thinking when she made the choice to bind something that powerful instead of trying to destroy it outright."
"Maybe she knew that destruction would just scatter the entity's essence, allowing it to reform elsewhere," Lucien suggested. "Binding it to a specific location might have been the only way to ensure it could be dealt with permanently by future generations."
"Future generations like me," Moira said with a rueful smile. "Lucky me, getting to be the descendant who either completes her work or watches it all fall apart."
As they prepared for bed in his apartment behind the bookstore, Lucien found himself cataloging every detail of their domestic routine with the desperate intensity of someone who knew it might not last much longer. The way Moira hummed softly while brushing her teeth, the graceful efficiency with which she braided her mahogany curls, the trusting way she curled against his chest once they were beneath the covers.
"Lucien," she said quietly in the darkness. "If something goes wrong during the ritual, if the dimensional magic overwhelms our bond, I need you to know that these past weeks have been the happiest of my entire life."
"Nothing's going wrong," he replied fiercely, his arms tightening around her as his panther roared silent protestagainst even considering such possibilities. "We're going to banish this entity, save the world, and spend the next fifty years arguing about whose turn it is to make coffee in the morning."
"Fifty years," she repeated with wonder. "That sounds perfect."
"Only fifty? I was hoping for at least a century of domestic bliss."
Her soft laughter vibrated against his chest, and for a moment, the weight of approaching danger lifted enough to let them simply be two people in love planning a future together.
But as sleep finally claimed them both, Lucien's last conscious thought was a prayer to whatever forces governed the supernatural world: let their love be strong enough to anchor them through dimensional magic, let their bond prove capable of channeling power that could tear reality itself apart, and let them both survive to build the life they'd only just begun to imagine.
Because losing Moira now, when they'd finally found each other, would be a tragedy that made ancient evil seem like a minor inconvenience in comparison.
36
MOIRA
The morning air felt heavy with approaching change as Moira stood in the rebuilt bookstore, surrounded by ancient texts that Elder Varric had spread across every available surface. Four days until the Convergence, and they were finally piecing together the complete truth about what Seraphina had sacrificed herself to contain. She had wanted to go to the ritual site, but with new discoveries and a closing deadline, this took precedence at the moment.
"Here," Varric said, pointing to a passage in a leather-bound journal that looked like it had survived multiple supernatural catastrophes. "A firsthand account from the Seelie Court archives, written by a witness to the Third Realm War."
Moira leaned closer to read the elegant fae script, her newly claimed mate bond allowing her to feel Lucien's growing tension through their connection as he studied the text alongside her.
"Malphas the Destroyer," she read aloud, her voice catching on the name that had haunted Lucien's research for days. "Originally a fae lord of considerable power and nobility, corrupted by exposure to shadow magic until his very essence became a fusion of light and darkness. The combination grantedhim abilities that transcended normal fae limitations, making him nearly unstoppable in direct confrontation."
"I was hoping I was wrong about the identity," Lucien said grimly, his hand finding hers. "Malphas isn't just powerful. He's intelligent, charismatic, and capable of corruption that spreads like a plague through supernatural communities."
"The account gets worse," Varric continued, turning to another section of the journal. "By the time the various supernatural factions united against him, Malphas had already conquered most of the Eastern territories. His army included corrupted fae, enslaved shifters, and vampires who'd been promised eternal dominion in exchange for service."
"How did Seraphina stop something like that?" Moira asked, though she suspected the answer would make her stomach churn.
"She didn't stop him," Elder Bram said from the doorway, his usually pristine appearance showing signs of a sleepless night spent researching in the Council archives. "She trapped him at the moment of his greatest victory, using blood magic techniques that required her to weave her own life force into the binding spell."
"The ritual took place during a Convergence," Varric explained, opening another ancient text to reveal detailed diagrams of magical workings. "When dimensional barriers were thin enough for Malphas to attempt a final assault on the mortal realm. Seraphina and her sisters created a binding that used the Convergence energy to lock him between dimensions, but the magical cost was enormous."
"She knew she would die," Moira said with growing understanding of her ancestor's sacrifice. "The binding required her life force as the primary component."
"More than that," Bram continued with his characteristic pessimism. "The spell was designed to require Shadowheartblood magic for both creation and dissolution. Seraphina built in a failsafe that ensured only her direct descendants could either maintain or modify the binding."
