Page 47

Gideon’s smile broke into something vicious and wild, and before I could even breathe, he lunged.

Not as a shadow this time.

Not as a whisper.

Solid.

Magic and rage poured off him like smoke, curling and burning with each step he took. His eyes were locked on me, pupils like slits, too bright and too empty all at once.

I barely managed to raise my hands when Keegan moved.

Fast.

So fast, I didn’t see the moment he left my side, only the blur of his body cutting through the air and slamming into Gideon with a force that cracked the stone beneath their feet.

The impact sent out a wave of air, snapping nearby torches and shaking dust from the high arches.

They hit the floor hard. Rolled.

And then the fight began.

It wasn’t clean.

It wasn’t choreographed.

It was fury unleashed.

Keegan roared, low and primal, as he drove his shoulder into Gideon’s chest, pinning him to the ground for a heartbeat before Gideon’s magic flared, dark and searing.

A blast of energy cracked the floor like a lightning strike and sent Keegan flying back, but he twisted midair, landed in a crouch, and surged forward again without hesitation.

Gideon laughed.

“You always were the dog,” he spat, circling now, slow and deliberate. “Chained to whatever cause made you feel noble.”

Keegan didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

He threw a punch, solid, fast, knuckles glowing faintly with runes carved into his skin. It connected with Gideon’s jaw, and the sound of it echoed through the corridor like thunder off canyon walls.

Gideon staggered.

But not far.

He recovered, sliding back like oil across glass, and sent a volley of shadow-blades toward Keegan. They spun like razors, sharp and hungry.

Keegan ducked one, twisted past the next, then caught the third, letting it shatter in a spray of sparks and shadow.

The moment he was in close, he drove a boot into Gideon’s ribs, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him against a pillar.

Stone cracked. Dust exploded.

Gideon dropped to one knee, teeth bared, blood at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re stronger than I remember,” he growled.

Keegan spat, eyes glowing now with that faint amber hue that always came when his shifter blood surged. “You don’t remember anything right. That’s why you keep losing.”

Gideon snarled and flung both hands wide.

The air ripped.

Magic poured out, a cyclone of dark energy twisting upward into the ceiling, slamming into the protective wards Stella and Ardetia had raised.

Nova shouted from behind me, anchoring the shield with a counter-spell just in time to keep it from collapsing on top of us.

But Keegan didn’t flinch.

He ran through the cyclone.

The moment he broke through, his body shifted, not fully into his wolf form, but enough. His hands gleamed with clawed magic, his jaw lengthened just slightly, and his eyes were all predator.

He barreled into Gideon like a wall of fury, claws raking across the magical illusion shielding Gideon’s chest. Sparks flew. Gideon shrieked and retaliated, conjuring a whip of darkness that coiled around Keegan’s leg and yanked him off his feet.

Keegan slammed to the ground, rolled, and used the momentum to launch himself back up, dragging the whip taut and snapping it at the hilt. The weapon unraveled in Gideon’s hand.

They clashed again—magic and muscle, rage and resilience.

I couldn’t look away.

Every blow Keegan landed cracked the very air around them. He moved like water, always adjusting, always reading Gideon’s next move. And Gideon, he was pure chaos. Power leaking from his fingertips, spells muttered under his breath between curses.

The floor around them was scorched. Cracked. Smoking.

But Keegan didn’t back down.

Not once.

Not even when Gideon drove a spike of shadow through his shoulder.

Keegan roared , the sound animal and furious, and he kept going.

He caught Gideon’s wrist in one hand, his blood dripping down his arm, and squeezed .

Gideon shrieked as the bones cracked.

Keegan pulled him forward, landed a brutal punch to the gut, then lifted Gideon by the front of his coat and slammed him down onto the floor hard enough to shake the walls.

For a heartbeat, there was only silence.

Then Gideon’s lips curled.

And he whispered, “You’re too late.”

That’s when the floor beneath them cracked.

I shouted his name.

Keegan turned toward me, just a glance.

And in that moment, Gideon vanished in a ripple of magic.

Not dead.

Not broken.

But retreating.

He sank through the floor like smoke, leaving only the echo of his laugh and the scent of scorched air behind.

Keegan collapsed to his knees, panting, blood soaking the front of his shirt. His hands shook. One eye was already swelling.

But he looked up at me and smiled.

“I told you,” he murmured. “He keeps losing.”

I was already running to him. I dropped beside him and touched the wound on his shoulder.

“It’s deep,” I whispered, eyes burning.

“I’ve had worse,” he said. “He’s gone?”

“For now,” Nova said from behind me, her voice grim. “But he’s not done. That wasn’t a final act.”

“No,” I said, pressing my palm to Keegan’s chest. “That was just the warning.”

Keegan hissed as the light from my hand began to seal the bleeding, but he didn’t pull away. He just watched me with quiet eyes and steady breath.

“He won’t stop,” I whispered. “Not until the curse breaks. Or until we do.”

He reached up, his fingers curling around mine. “Then we don’t break.”

And something in me clicked into place.

Because if Keegan could stand after that…

If we could still be here after all of it…

Perhaps, Gideon didn’t understand the one thing that truly made us dangerous.

We had each other.

And we weren’t giving up.

The Moonbeam had faded.

The curse still coiled around the Academy.

And Gideon was now fully corporeal, stronger, smarter, and worse… he knew I was hiding something beneath the surface. Something I couldn’t let him near.

In a way, I might be able to use his curiosity against him.

“You shouldn’t be moving,” I whispered, but even as I said it, Keegan’s body tensed.

“I’m not letting him walk out again,” he growled.

Then the floor trembled beneath us.

Gideon’s laugh echoed, not from far off, but from below , as though he was walking just under our feet, watching, waiting for the moment to strike again.

The very stone beneath my knees rippled, and Keegan shoved me aside just as a burst of shadow tore through the ground like a geyser, splintering tiles and shooting upward in a jagged, snaking arc.

He stood slowly, blood still trailing down his arm, but his shoulders rolled back and his head lifted.

And then, I felt it.

A change.

A shift not in the walls, not in the air, but in him.

Keegan’s magic stirred the air with a different weight this time. A low, bone-deep rumble hummed in my chest as he took a step forward. His skin shimmered, the faintest glow racing up his spine.

I knew what was coming. I’d seen it before, his shift, his wolf form. But this time, it didn’t come with a warning or violence.

It came with purpose.

The air bent around him as the transformation took hold.

His limbs stretched, reshaped. Fur burst from his skin, not like fire, but like wind made solid. His eyes turned molten amber. He grew—not just taller, but larger , broader, until the massive black wolf stood where the man had been.

And the moment he finished shifting, Gideon rose again.

Face marred by bruises, shadows trailing off him like smoke, teeth bared in something that was no longer a smile.

Keegan let out a low, guttural growl that reverberated through the stone beneath us.

The air crackled.

Even Gideon hesitated.

“I thought the dog was done,” he sneered.

Keegan snarled in response and launched.

The impact thundered.

They collided midair. Gideon with a blade of shadow twisting in his fist, Keegan with fangs bared, claws extended.

The wolf slammed into Gideon’s chest, dragging him across the floor and into the shattered remnants of a column.

Dust and stone exploded as they hit, and the two of them became a blur of motion, rage, magic, and pure force.

This wasn’t a duel.

It was war.

Gideon retaliated fast, shadow-blades spinning in every direction, but Keegan moved like wind, like instinct given muscle. He ducked, twisted, tore into Gideon’s side with his jaws, and flung him back like a rag doll.

The force shook the walls.

But Gideon was fast, too.

He struck with a spear of night, ramming it into Keegan’s ribs. The wolf yelped in pain, then spun with surprising grace, catching the weapon between his teeth and snapping it with a vicious crack.

They circled now like two predators.

And then, in the middle of it all, Keegan turned.

His amber gaze found mine.

Everything slowed.

The roar of magic dulled. The chaos blurred.

And all I saw was him.

Not just the wolf.

But the man beneath.

The one who was doing this not for glory.

Not just for the Academy.

But for me.

For the truth I carried. The secret I still held back. The life I had only just begun to rebuild.

His eyes burned through me with that wordless vow. That this was his choice, that even if the cost was everything, he’d face it.

For me.

My chest stilled.

My heart cracked open.

And I didn’t know if it was fear or love or grief blooming in my throat, but I knew in that moment that no one, not even Gideon, had ever seen me like Keegan did.

Then he turned and leapt.

Straight into Gideon again, slamming him into the far wall. They tore into each other with claw and blade, teeth and fury. Sparks burst from every clash of power. The entire hall trembled with the force of it.

Gideon struck him across the snout with a burst of red light, knocking Keegan back for half a heartbeat, but Keegan recovered, jaws snapping, dragging Gideon down again.

They were fire and night, fury and will, colliding in a dance that could only end one way.

“Maeve.”

The voice behind me startled me from the trance.

Stella’s eyes flicked toward the fight, and her face went pale. “He’s trying to end it here. He wants this to be the moment we break.”

“He doesn’t know us very well,” I whispered.

But even as I said it, the floor behind Stella cracked.

A web of dark magic spread across the stone.

And a second presence began to rise.

A new shadow.

Familiar—

But not Gideon.

Not exactly.

I turned toward it as the light began to die around us, realization freezing my blood.

“Oh no,” I breathed. “There’s more.”