Bound By Moonlight to My Mates (by Sofange Daye) novel Chapter 83

Charlotte

The world comes back in fragments. Smoke. Ash. Silence.

The flames that once devoured the temple are gone, leaving only a skeleton of stone and shadow. I push myself upright, the marble cold beneath my palms, and stare at the place where Theo fell. There’s no trace of him now. No body, no blood, only the faint shimmer of silver dust where his heart had been.

The dagger is gone, too.

My breath stumbles out of me. For a heartbeat, I think I’m alone. But then a voice cuts through the stillness, deep, cruel, and too familiar.

“So,” Elder Samson says, stepping from behind the broken altar, “it’s done.”

His robes are singed, his once–grand insignia blackened by soot, but the hatred in his eyes burns brighter than the ruin around us.

“You think you’ve ended the curse?” he sneers. “You’ve only traded one monster for another.”

I rise slowly, my legs shaking. “You don’t understand. It’s over.”

He laughs, making a sharp, ugly sound. “Over? You’ve doomed us all, girl. You’ve slaughtered a god and loosed whatever darkness sleeps inside you.”

He’s lying. He has to be. But the way he’s watching me… there’s something in his gaze that makes my skin crawl.

“What did you do, Samson?” I demand.

He tilts his head, mock sympathy curving his lips. “I preserved us. I kept the sickness contained, kept your kind from spreading it. You were never meant to live this long, Charlotte. The curse should have ended with your death. Not his.”

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. “You took my box. You knew what was inside.”

“Of course I did.” His voice lowers, almost a whisper. “The dagger was forged from divine blood. I wanted it for the same reason the Moon Goddess once did. Power. But you ruined that too, didn’t you?”

Something stirs in my chest. A heat, low and rising, like the breath of a storm. “You murdered to protect your secret. You burned the innocent. You made them believe I was the disease.”

“I made them afraid,” Samson hisses. “And fear keeps people obedient.”

My hands curl into fists. The power inside me pulses harder now, a rhythm that isn’t mine alone. My vision sharpens. Every heartbeat in the room becomes clear. The scent of blood. The faint creak of the floor beneath his boots.

“You’re trembling,” he mocks. “Good. You should be afraid of what you’ve become.”

I take a step forward. The air hums, thick with tension. “You’re right,” I whisper. “I am something new.”

He raises his hand, chanting words older than the packs themselves. The air ripples, a shockwave slamming into me. Pain rips through my chest, and I hit the ground hard.

“You’re nothing but a vessel,” Samson snarls. “A curse wearing a human face.”

I taste blood on my tongue. The world blurs, black and colors colliding, and beneath it all, a voice rises from deep inside me.

‘Enough!‘

The voice isn’t Tala’s. It’s not mine either. It’s older, colder, and yet impossibly alive.

“Who are you?” I whisper aloud, though the answer blooms inside me like moonlight.

‘I am what she could never be.’

Heat floods my veins. My bones crack, rearranging. The world explodes into white pain and wild freedom all

at once.

Samson stumbles back as my scream turns into a growl. My vision shifts, turning sharper and brighter, every scent vivid as lightning. My fingers lengthen into claws. My skin ripples into silver fur that gleams like liquid in the pale light.

The transformation is agony and ecstasy, tearing me apart and remaking me in the same breath. When it’s over, I stand on four legs, taller than any wolf I’ve ever seen.

Samson gapes at me, horror etched across his face. “What are you?”

My voice fills his head, low and resonant, words formed from thought rather than tongue.

‘The one scent to end your reign of terror.‘

He stumbles for a blade at his belt, but I’m faster.

My wolf leaps.

He raises his weapon, but her jaws close over his arm, crushing bone. His scream shatters the silence. She throws him down, claws raking through his robes, tearing through the sigil of his rank. The scent of wolfsbane burns my nostrils; he’s soaked himself in it, but it’s too late for him to use it now.

He gasps beneath me. “You’ll damn us all.”

“No.” Her voice rumbles through the chamber. “I’ll save them.”

And with one swift motion, she strikes.

His body goes still. The sound of his heartbeat fades into nothing.

The silence that follows is different this time, cleaner. The air lightens, the darkness around us lifting as if a long–held breath has finally been released.

She backs away, trembling. Samson’s lifeless form lies on the temple floor, eyes glassy, mouth frozen in a final

curse.

Her chest heaves; anger is still coursing through her veins. Somewhere in the distance, I can feel the bond, Damon, Jake, and Ronan. Their pulses are alive and steady. But not just them, I can feel the pulses of all werewolf kind. They are healed.

The sickness is gone.

I shift back, gasping as the silver fur fades from my skin. My knees hit the ground beside Samson’s body. I’m covered in ash and sweat, trembling, but alive.

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