POV: Xavier

"She's my mate!" I'd shouted, knowing it would make things worse. "And I won't let you touch her."

Damien had raised his clawed hand for the killing blow. I remembered accepting it, knowing I'd die protecting her.

Then golden light had exploded through the room. Thelma's power, raw and untrained but massive, had erupted. She'd stood between me and death, her eyes blazing with fury and love.

"You will not touch him," she'd said, and her voice carried the weight of Alpha command. "He's mine."

She'd saved me. Even knowing I'd been sent to kill her, even knowing I'd lied, she'd saved me.

That was who Thelma was. Someone who loved so fiercely, so completely, that she'd burn down the world to protect those she cared about.

"Xavier." Theo's voice brought me back. "You're crying again."

I touched my face and found it wet. "The memories won't stop. Every moment we shared, every time she smiled at me, laughed with me, saved me. It's all playing through the bond like some kind of goodbye."

"It's not goodbye," Theo said, but his voice lacked conviction. "She's strong. Stronger than any of us."

"She's also alone in there." I looked at the cave entrance, where darkness churned. "Facing something none of us understand."

Luna started a fire while Elena unpacked supplies. I found Thelma's cloak where she'd left it before entering the cave. The fabric still smelled like her, that mixture of pine and something sweet that made my wolf whine.

I wrapped it around my shoulders and sat by the fire, staring at the cave entrance.

Night fell. The others eventually slept, taking turns on watch. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, another memory pulled me under.

Thelma teaching me to dance in an abandoned room, both of us laughing when I stepped on her feet.

Thelma crying in my arms after a nightmare, whispering about feeling trapped.

Thelma's face when we completed the mate bond, full of joy and wonder and love so pure it hurt to remember.

Each memory was a knife in my chest. Each one reminded me of what I'd lost, what she'd lost, what we'd had together.

Around midnight, the attack came.

Shadow creatures materialized from the darkness, different from the guardian at the cave. These were smaller, faster, and clearly hostile. They moved like liquid smoke, reforming when struck.

"Morgana's soldiers!" Luna shouted, blasting one with magic. "She's found us!"

I shifted partially, claws extending, and tore into the nearest creature. It screamed, a sound like tearing metal, and dissolved into mist. But three more took its place.

Theo fought beside me, his Alpha power crackling. We moved in sync, covering each other's backs. Despite everything between us, despite the complicated history and the tension, we worked together seamlessly.

"On your left!" he shouted, and I ducked as he took the head off a shadow creature.

"Behind you!" I returned the favor, shredding two that tried to flank him.

Elena was chanting, her hands glowing with protective wards. Luna fought with controlled fury, her power precise and deadly.

We drove them back, slowly, painfully. When the last creature dissolved, we stood panting, covered in cuts and bruises.

"That was just a scouting party," Luna said grimly. "Morgana knows we're here. She'll send more."

"Let her." I was still riding the adrenaline, the desperate need to fight something, anything. "Let them all come."

Theo grabbed my arm. "Calm down. You're no use to Thelma dead."

"I'm no use to her alive either!" The words burst out. "I can't reach her. Can't help her. Can't even hold her without feeling the emptiness where her heart used to be. What's the point, Theo? What's the point of any of this if she never comes back?"

He was quiet for a long moment. Then, surprisingly, he pulled me into a rough hug. "The point is we don't give up. On her or on you. I've watched you these last few days, Xavier. The way you look at my sister, the way you suffer for her. That's real. That's the kind of love that doesn't quit."

I sagged against him, exhausted. "I don't know if love is enough."

"It has to be," he said. "Because it's all we have."

We broke apart, and I saw a new respect in his eyes. Something had shifted between us during that fight, during this conversation.

I went back to my spot by the fire, wrapped in Thelma's cloak, and tried to find some kind of peace.

Instead, the mate bond pulsed again, weaker this time. Fading.

And then I heard it.

A scream. High and terrible, full of pure, raw terror. It echoed from the cave, bouncing off stone walls, drilling into my skull.

Thelma's scream.

Everyone froze. Luna's face went white. "That's impossible."

"What?" Theo demanded.

"She can't feel fear," Luna whispered. "The curse took her emotions. She shouldn't be able to scream like that. She shouldn't be able to feel the terror I just heard."

The scream came again, longer this time, full of agony and horror.

I was on my feet, running for the cave before anyone could stop me. The shadow guardian moved to block me, but I didn't care. That was my mate in there. My Thelma. And she was terrified.

"Xavier, stop!" Theo tackled me before I reached the entrance. We went down hard, rolling in the snow.

"Let me go!" I fought him like a wild animal. "She needs me!"

"You'll die if you go in there!"

"I don't care!"

The scream cut off abruptly, leaving a silence that was somehow worse.

I stopped fighting, stopped breathing. Through the mate bond, I felt, nothing. Absolute nothing.

"Thelma," I whispered. The cave entrance yawned before us, dark and silent. And from somewhere deep inside, something laughed.