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My eyes widened upon hearing that. I didn’t expect that one bit. “Then why are you here?”

She looked down and noticed Maximus still holding my hand. The corners of her mouth twitched up as she looked at me first. “Checking in. You know, when I placed that curse on your pretty head…” She gazed at Maximus, and I growled. It made her give me a toothy grin, but it didn’t seem like she took offense to it. “I didn’t think you would break it. You weren’t the one I thought could love someone through the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“Looks like I proved you wrong on that one.” Maximus let go of my hand to put his arm around my shoulder. Feeling the heat of his body against mine made me snuggle closer to him. This made Zephyrine’s smile grow. For someone who I thought wouldn’t like seeing us this happy, she looked genuinely pleased.

“You did. It brings me great pleasure seeing someone break a curse like that, actually. It’s not an easy one to break. The magic is binding to the point where it infects every part of you. It’s why it seeped into your child.”

This time, I growled and stepped toward her. “Watch how you speak about that, witch. You almost killed him.”

“Not my intention, Mama Lycan. I thought it would break before you fell pregnant. I was wrong about that, too, which I apologize for.”

Maximus sighed while pulling me back against him. “There is so much I need to apologize for to you, Zeph.”

It annoyed me to hear him use a nickname for her, but I kept it to myself. Now wasn’t the time for me to show jealousy.

“No, you don’t, Max. I wasn’t yours, and you weren’t mine. Someday, I will find my mate and know what it is like to have what you now have. I’m glad you have found Kylie. She is everything I wouldn’t have been as a mate to you. This is who you were meant to be with. It’s why the curse broke in the first place.”

It brought me too much joy to hear those words come out of the witch’s mouth. But something still gnawed at me. “What made the spell break anyway?”

Zephyrine’s smile looked more genuine than I had ever seen. “It was how you chose to work through everything in your darkest moments. That’s what love is, and the spell needed you to be the light against that darkness by loving each other through it.”

When we looked at each other, I felt exactly what those words meant. It was because of each other that we survived the darkest moment of our lives. Maximus leaned in and kissed my forehead. In that moment, I felt Zephyrine’s presence disappear.As much as I wanted to say goodbye to her, I chose instead to rise and capture Maximus’s lips with mine.

“Yo, love pups! Get your asses over here and celebrate with us!” I heard Eli yell out to us.

Maximus let out a throaty chuckle before grabbing my hands and leading me back toward the party. When we got there, he scooped Titan out of Amara’s arms and nuzzled him. The way my heart swelled with happiness was not something I thought I would feel after everything I had gone through in my life. There were no more people trying to tear me down or beat me into submission. When I looked out into the crowd around us, they were all beaming with pride toward their king, queen, and prince. The acceptance I felt through the bonds alone had my eyes stinging from the tears about to spill down my cheeks.

For the first time in my life, I was home.

And no one could take it away from me.

THE END