Not just the lion, or the man—both, now. Magic fused with soul. His fur shimmered with threads of midnight and starlight, golden flecks woven like sigils from her own spell. He wasn’t what Thaloryn had cursed.
He was what Lillith had chosen.
Behind them, thunder split the sky. Magic warped the clouds. And Thaloryn rose, reeling, but not broken—yet. Blood slicked his silken tunic. His silver hair was matted with dirt and gore. But his eyes—those glacier-sharp eyes—still burned with unholy resolve.
“You imbeciles,” the prince spat, his voice no longer smooth velvet but serrated glass. “You think this ends with a scream and a pet shifter?”
He lifted both hands. Glamoured fire roared into existence, an inferno shaped like serpents, like jagged wings of heat. Ley lines cracked behind him, spitting raw energy. Shadow beastsflickered around his feet, malformed and writhing, all of what was left of his army.
Lillith rose slowly, her body shaking but her spine straight. She stepped beside Dominic, her hand hovering above his mane, steady as steel.
“No,” she said, calm and clear. “It ends because you don’t belong here. Not in our world. Not in our hearts.”
Dominic growled, deep and resonant before he moved.
He launched like a bolt from a drawn bow, faster than thought, muscle and magic and intent all aligned.
Thaloryn hurled the fire and Dominic tore through it. Illusions bled around him, but none of them could pierce his vision anymore. The bond inside him, what Lillith had reforged, was a beacon.
This wasn’t about vengeance.
It was about love.
Dominic slammed into the prince, their bodies colliding like gods in a tempest. They tumbled across the field, Thaloryn clawing and shrieking in ancient tongues, trying to worm glamours into Dominic’s mind but they splintered against the lion’s will.
Dominic pinned him. Claws dug into soft, gilded fabric and the flesh beneath.
Thaloryn howled, thrashing.
“You don’t get to touch her again,” Dominic growled. “You don’t get to touchanythingagain.”
Thaloryn’s face shifted, glamour fraying. Beneath it: decay. A creature born of ambition and lies. Beautiful once, maybe. But the rot had settled too deep.
Dominic opened his jaws, and magic surged through him—Lillith’s magic, threaded with his own wild power.
He bit down.
The sound was final. Not just flesh torn—power torn.A scream erupted from Thaloryn that cracked the air and ripped through every living thing in the glade. His body spasmed, light exploding from within, and then he burst.
Not into gore, but into ash and silence.
The ley lines snapped shut behind him like a book slammed closed. The shadows he commanded screamed, and were gone, sucked into the void left in his wake.
Smoke rose. The earth hissed.
It was over.
Dominic shifted back, collapsing to his knees, gasping.
Lillith stumbled forward, her face slack with disbelief, awe, and something else—something like heartbreak that came too late.
“Dominic,” she whispered, and then she was in his arms.
He collapsed into her, letting her hold all his weight. Her fingers raked through his hair, anchoring him as she’d done before, but this time with nothing to save—just to keep.
“You came back,” she said.
“You called,” he rasped.
