Chapter 27: The Exorcism of the Dark Moon

Aurelia’s POV

Caelen steps directly into my personal space, lowering his head until his striking sapphire irises are locked into the absolute core of my gaze. "Listen to my voice, little bird," he whispers with an intense, calculated gravity. "His primary vulnerability is entirely detached from a physical parameter—his weakness remains the memory of his fated fount. Force the mention of her name into his awareness, and his cognitive defense will completely disintegrate."

My brow furrows in deep confusion. "Identify her designation... who was she?" I recognized the truth that his first fated union had been fractured by death, and my memory registered the reality that he had subsequently selected my mother, Morgana, to serve as his submissive companion, but the true history of his original mate remained a complete mystery to my mind.

"Does your memory track any mention of our Aunt Ava?" he prompts quietly.

I shake my head mutety, my thoughts spinning. "Her flame was extinguished shortly after the hour of my first breath, Caelen. I have heard whispers of her grace within the ancestral records, but my eyes never formally met her structure. Did a rogue raid dismantle her sanctuary?"

"She rests in the dirt, yes," Caelen whispers, his voice dropping into a chillingly cold register that turns the air to ice. "But her extraction was explicitly not executed by rogue claws. Malakor slaughtered her with his own bare hands."

An absolute, freezing horror grips my throat, my face completely dropping at the implication.

How could a supernatural leader systematically destroy the fated fount his soul was mandated by the heavens to protect and cherish throughout existence?

The realization is absolute: he is a fundamentally sick, unhinged son of a bitch.

"Let's initiate the terminal parameters of this duel!" Malakor spits across the clearing, his impatience breaking.

I smoothly step past Caelen’s shadow to enter the ring. The exact micro-second my feet clear the line, Valerius captures my structure from behind, pulling my back tightly against his massive chest. He leans his head down, crushing his lips against mine with an absolute, overwhelming torrent of pure love and devastating sadness—a frantic, breathless embrace unlike any connection his soul has ever delivered. I look up into the smoldering depths of his beautiful chocolate eyes, reading the profound, breaking agony fracturing his beast.

"Aurelia... do not permit your flame to be extinguished tonight," he pleads, his voice a hoarse, desperate rasp that shakes my spirit. "My soul registers the absolute certainty that your claws can conquer this monster... so please, return to my chest. Do not leave my crown to navigate an eternity of darkness without your light."

"I will return to your arms, Valerius. I swear this promise to your soul," I whisper softly, heavy tears finally breaking free from my lashes to trace a path down my cheeks. "I revere your existence."

I forcefully tear my structure away from his powerful embrace, marching into the center of the ring without casting a single glance backward—knowing with an absolute certainty that if my eyes map his sorrow a secondary time, my defensive resolve will dissolve completely, and this campaign requires an unyielding malice.

Before my stance can fully prepare its defenses, Malakor lunges with an ungodly velocity, catching my senses completely off guard. His heavy, balled fist smashes straight into my jaw line with a sickening impact. A sharp hiss of physical pain escapes my throat as the force throws my structure into the dirt. I spit a thick torrent of crimson lifeblood from my mouth, scrambling back onto my boots as a freezing, lethal glare consumes my features. I refuse to project a single shred of vulnerability to his malice.

Letting a slow, sadistic smirk touch my red lips, I drive my weight forward in an explosive counter, tackling his massive frame straight into the frozen earth. I straddle his midsection instantly, anchoring his torso to the dirt as I repeatedly drive my balled fists straight into his face, shattering his features. I continue the onslaught until he executes a frantic, desperate maneuver, swinging his legs with immense force to shatter my balance and hurl my structure off his lap. I crash heavily onto the rocky terrain, a ragged groan of physical torment escaping my chest.

He struggles to rise, and using the window of his disorientation, I swipe my leg across the dirt, attempting to shatter his balance; he stumbles violently but manages to maintain his standing alignment. Charging back into my personal space like a rabid beast, he locks his long fingers around my jugular in a vice-like grip. My counter-maneuvers fail to breach his mass as he forcefully drives my spine back into the hard earth, straddling my midsection to unleash a merciless, brutal barrage of heavy fists straight into my face.

The structural integrity of my facial bones begins to fracture under the impact; I can distinctly feel my copper lifeblood trickling down the contours of my skin, a dark, heavy cloud of absolute unconsciousness beginning to haze over my cognitive faculties. But through the encroaching blackness, Freya’s harsh, unyielding vow echoes directly behind my eyes:

“You fight with an unyielding malice, and when your muscles fail, you push harder!”

The memory ignites a catastrophic explosion of raw, primitive power within my veins. I conjure every single calorie of long-term physical agony, every shred of psychological torment, and every micro-ounce of unyielding resilience my childhood hoarded within those cells, channeling the volatile fire into a singular, explosive expansion. I drive my knees upward with monumental force, completely throwing his heavy structure off my frame; his body flies backward through the air, crashing heavily into the dirt.

I scramble back onto my boots, my limbs trembling violently as I stagger across the neutral zone toward his dazed form. I refuse to grant his beast a single corridor of recovery. I drive my balled fists into his face over, and over, and over again with a terrifying velocity.

The structural boundaries of his skeletal frame shatter beneath my knuckles, my unmitigated fury beating his system within a literal inch of absolute execution. My logical mind registers the certainty that if my hands do not cease the violence, his flame will be permanently extinguished before the ledger can be properly balanced—but the reservoir of my ancestral rage is far too absolute to control.

"I was a innocent child!" I scream hysterically into the empty clearing, driving another brutal punch straight into his shattered jaw. "Your executioners ruthlessly tore away EVERY SINGLE SHRED of my fated sanctuary! My existence deserved zero percent of the hell your hands inflicted upon my youth! I explicitly did not deserve the torment!"

Malakor has completely ceased all physical movement at this juncture, his shattered frame pinned to the crimson snow, though my supernatural senses verify his pulse still draws breath. "I loathe the very fabric of your existence!" I shriek, my voice breaking cleanly into a raw rasp. "I HATE YOU!"

I reach into the concealed lining of my athletic garments, extracting the heavy steel syringe as his glazed eyes slowly flutter open, consciousness returning to his fractured mind. He splutters a thick stream of crimson from his mouth, weakly rolling onto his side as a violent, shallow fit of coughing deforms his chest.

Yet, the primitive malice within his beast refuses to surrender; he forces his trembling limbs to launch a final, desperate strike, his fingers reaching to clamp around my throat.

"So... your hand intends to execute my slaughter... utilizing the exact same strategy... your malice deployed... to destroy Ava's flame?" I choke out through the pressure, forcing the words past my lips.

The exact micro-second the fated designation clears my throat, an absolute, cataclysmic shock completely paralyzes his posture. His golden irises widen to an impossible degree, and the entire pressure of his grip drops completely from my jugular as his shattered body collapses heavily onto his knees in the dirt.

"Did your sadistic pride register a magnificent satisfaction... watching the final spark of light slowly evaporate from her eyes as your bare hands systematically extinguished her existence?" I snarl venomously, standing over his cowering form like an absolute executioner. "All because the cowardice in your soul was terrified of the unyielding alignment of love? Tell me, parasite... how do your thoughts calculate she would evaluate your crown tonight, possessing full knowledge of the systematic atrocities your hands served to an innocent child? How do you live within your own skin? Her spirit would project nothing but absolute, pure disgust for your name. I swear by the heavens... her ghost is actively turning in her grave at the mere phantom of your memory."

"Shut your mouth!" he wails hysterically, actual, heavy tears of raw psychological torment breaking from his eyes as he clutches his head.

I refuse to grant him mercy. Reaching down, I plunge the heavy steel syringe Valerius provided straight into the muscle of his neck, depressing the plunger to let the silver-and-wolfsbane chemical cocktail systematically flood his bloodstream.

"WHAT ATROCITY HAS YOUR HAND DELIVERED?!" he screams in sudden, primitive panic as the invasive virus begins to systematically dismantle his internal network. He desperately attempts to realign his stance, but his knees buckle instantly under the weight of the suppression, crashing his form back into the dirt.

The advanced cellular regeneration of his Alpha line has completely ceased to function, and the torrent of crimson pouring from his shattered features compounds at a terrifying rate. I bend down to his level, locking my fingers into his greasy hair to forcefully tilt his face up, compelling his fading focus to look directly into my black irises.

"Stripped of your inner beast, your title holds absolute zero authority under this sky," I spit flatly, my voice a cold, terrifying rasp. "You are no longer an Alpha, Malakor. You possess zero supernatural power. How does it feel, parasite, to watch every single shred of the dominance your pride held dear be ruthlessly ripped from your existence? How does it feel to walk this earth as a completely powerless, fragile human? Does a single calorie of guilt finally pierce your consciousness? Let my tongue articulate what my soul calculates: I know for a fact that your flesh deserves every single ounce of the unmitigated torment that is currently steering toward your future. Your soul has earned zero percent of sovereign mercy. Did your handlers ever grant my small form a single window to explain the parameters of that forest clearing when my father’s flame was extinguished? NO! Your pride simply directed the full force of your grief and pained malice onto the skin of an eleven-year-old child, systematically torturing my youth for seven long years! My entire sanctuary was completely broken because of your choices! Your hands ruthlessly stole my life, my childhood, my happiness, and my absolute innocence—for zero logical reason! I have been mandated to exist beneath a suffocating cloud of false guilt my entire life because YOUR malice forced my mind to believe my father’s slaughter belonged to my name! You are an exceptionally sick, unhinged son of a bitch, and I pray to the high heavens that the executioners show zero leniency to your human skin; you deserve absolutely none of it. You explicitly never deserved Ava’s grace, and your pride had to completely ruin her flame, mirroring the exact architecture of destruction you served to my older sister, and served to my mother! I loathe your very shadow, Malakor, and my soul harbors absolute zero sadness for the living hell that awaits your human existence."

I wind up, driving a final, explosive punch straight into his shattered nose, before turning my back on his whimpering form to march triumphantly toward the open arms of my pack.

Through the clearing air, Valerius’s thunderous, terrified scream suddenly fractures the silence, ordering my structure to move—but the warning breaches my focus a fraction of a second too late.

An instantaneous, sharp, freezing agony ignites within the center of my back.

I stumble forward, my breath catching cleanly as I force my head around to map the attacker. Standing directly behind my perimeter is my mother, Morgana—her features contorted into a mask of pure, psychotic madness as her hands plunge the long steel hunting knife deep into my stomach cavity.

My knees turn to water, and my structure cascades heavily onto the frozen dirt. The final visual my fading consciousness registers through the rising crimson is the frantic, panicked horror detailing Valerius’s beautiful chocolate eyes—before the absolute darkness ruthlessly snatches my flame back into the void.