Page 32

NICHOLAS

T he black mist coiled like vipers around them, each tendril seeking weakness. Nicholas felt his tiger clawing beneath his skin, desperate to break free and protect what was his. The relic hovered before them, spinning faster, its malevolent energy pulsing outward in waves that made his teeth ache.

"Stay behind me," Nicholas growled, his voice deepening to something barely human. He pushed Sylvie back as another vision materialized, this one showing her crumpled on the forest floor, candle magic extinguished forever.

"This isn't real," Sylvie said, but Nicholas barely heard her.

His tiger surged forward, pushing against his human restraint. Partial transformation ripped through him—claws extending, spine cracking as it began to reshape. Pain blinded him momentarily as his face elongated, canines lengthening.

The relic sensed his instability and struck. Black lightning forked across the circle, hitting him square in the chest. Nicholas roared, stumbling backward.

"Nicholas!" Sylvie moved toward him, but he snarled, tiger eyes flashing.

"Stay. Back." Each word was agony, his vocal cords halfway between human and beast.

Another vision erupted: Nicholas fully shifted, but wrong. Corrupted. His tiger's beautiful stripes twisted into morbid shadows as he rampaged through Briar Hollow, terrorizing everyone he'd ever cared about. Ending with Sylvie, her throat in his jaws.

The shock of it pushed him further toward transformation. Fur sprouted along his arms, his clothes tearing at the seams. The tiger was winning, dragging him under a tide of protective rage.

"Nicholas. Look at me." Sylvie stepped directly into his path, placing herself between him and the relic. "Not at that thing. At me."

His tiger's eyes tracked her, predatory instinct warring with the bond that glowed golden between them. A snarl tore from his throat.

"I know you're in there." She raised her hands slowly, palms out. Her scent cut through the corruption trying to cloud his senses. "Both of you. Man and tiger. I need you both right now."

The relic shrieked, sending another barrage of visions of their future torn apart, their bond corrupted, twisted into something unrecognizable.

Nicholas saw himself alone, prowling the sanctuary grounds as a monster, neither fully tiger nor man, but something else entirely, a creature of shadow and rage.

He saw Sylvie's apothecary burned to ash, her grimoire pages scattered like fallen leaves.

His chest heaved violently as he fought against his transformation, caught between forms, muscles rippling beneath skin that couldn't decide whether to remain smooth or erupt into striped fur.

The tiger inside him paced frantically, desperate to protect her, but the relic was cunningly twisting that protective impulse into something destructive, poisonous.

"Remember last night?" Sylvie's voice remained steady, cutting through the chaos like a beacon in a storm.

Her words anchored him to reality, to the present.

"How the candlelight looked on your skin?

The way the shadows danced across your face?

How we fit together, like we were carved from the same stone? "

His breathing slowed incrementally, the tiger's frantic pacing inside him calming slightly. The memory of her body pressed against his, warm and real, pushed back against the relic's illusions.

"I never believed in fate," she continued, taking a careful step closer, the hem of her layered skirt brushing against the ritual circle's edge.

Her stormy grey eyes never left his, unwavering despite the amber glow and vertical pupils that had overtaken his human irises.

"Still don't. But I believe in you. In us.

What we chose. Not what some ancient piece of cursed jewelry thinks we should be. "

The relic spun violently in response to her defiance, its obsidian surface fracturing with veins of crimson light.

It shot tendrils of darkness directly at Sylvie's unprotected back, aiming for the vulnerable space between her shoulder blades.

Nicholas lunged forward with inhuman speed, a guttural sound erupting from his throat.

His partially clawed hands closed around her waist to pull her against his chest, his body curving protectively over hers, shielding her completely.

The darkness struck his back instead, searing pain lancing through him like molten metal poured into his veins.

"Nicholas!" Sylvie wrapped her arms around him, fingers clutching desperately at his torn shirt.

Their golden bond vibrated between them like a plucked string, humming with power and possibility.

He could feel her heart racing against his chest, her scent wrapping around him like a shield against the darkness.

"I've got you," he managed, his voice a rumbling mixture of human and tiger, deeper than usual and rough with pain. His arms tightened around her, claws carefully retracted to avoid hurting her. "Won't let it hurt you. Not while I still breathe."

"And I won't let it have you." She pressed her forehead against his chest, right over his thundering heart. "Tiger or man, you're still Nicholas. Still mine."

The simplicity of those words— still mine —rippled through him. His tiger, poised to break free completely, instead settled beneath his skin, alert but no longer fighting him. They were in agreement: protect Sylvie, defeat the relic, preserve their bond.

Nicholas felt his form stabilize, caught between human and tiger but no longer painfully shifting. He turned, keeping Sylvie behind him but maintaining enough clarity to think.

"This ends now," he growled at the relic, feeling Sylvie's hand press against his lower back, grounding him. Whatever happened next, they would face it together. Man, tiger, and witch against an ancient darkness that had finally met its match.