Chapter 19 – THE END: Sanctuary of the Betrayed

                The air in the room seemed to vanish, sucked out by the sheer gravity of the words I was about to speak. I looked Romani dead in the eyes, ignoring the heat of his skin against mine, and anchored myself in the truth I had discovered.

                “I, Ana Perreira, daughter of the Moonlight Walkers Gamma and blood-heir to the Night Fall Coven, reject you, Prince Romani, as my fated mate. From this moment on, we share nothing but the common blood of our kind. The tether is cut. The debt is canceled. You are nothing to me but a stranger with a crown.”

                The Crown Prince let out a roar that was more wolf than man.

                His Lycan side was in total revolt, the rejection hit him like a physical blow, sending a shiver of ancient fear through the foundations of the Palace. Acknowledging that his prize was slipping away, that his elaborate plan to farm my blood and spirit was failing, was a bitter pill for a Royal to swallow.

                “Don’t provoke me, Ana!” he snarled, the sound ripping through his throat as his eyes glowed a dangerous, predatory deep blue that promised a swift and violent end to my rebellion. “I won't accept a rejection. We’ve gone too far. For the past few hours, you gave yourself to me in every way a female can surrender. You took everything I had to offer with every breath. You begged for more until your voice was a ghost of itself. You need this pleasure only I can give you. You are mine by blood, by act, and by the very law of our ancestors!”

                Again, I laughed, a sound as dry and brittle as autumn leaves

                “Believe what you want, Romani. Wrap yourself in the comfort of your own delusions,” I mocked. “If you don't accept the rejection, that burden is yours to carry, not mine. The bond only works if I allow it to bind me, and I have just burned the bridge. Remember, Elara won't wait for you a lifetime while you pine for a mate who isn't there.”

I batted my eyelashes with a cold, hollow indifference.

                “And I have all the time in the world. I will live for myself, and I will never again risk my life for a hollow sentiment called mate bond. The sky will never be my limit, I’ll reach for the stars you tried to hide from me behind your Palace walls. But listen, I really can't leave without a parting gift, a reminder of what happens when you try to harvest a witch.”

                Romani’s jaw worked silently, like a fish gasping on dry land. My tone had finally alerted him that I wasn't just making threats, I was weaving reality.

                I leaned in, my hair brushing his shoulder as I whispered each word with deliberate, surgical cruelty directly into the shell of his ear, making sure the heat of my breath felt like a branding iron.

                “A spell, Romani. One that strips you of heirs, of legacy, and of the very power you sought to breed through me. You wanted a factory? You wanted to trade in the lives of my pups? Here is a seal of barrenness. You will be infertile and impotent for the remainder of your days. Your loins will be as cold as the stone beneath this Palace.”

                The Prince froze, a mask of pure disbelief shattering his regal composure, leaving behind a raw, terrified man.

                “You wouldn’t dare. You are a White Witch... your lineage is built on mercy and healing... you cannot twist it so.”

                “Watch me,” I whispered, my voice as cold as a mountain grave.

I closed my eyes and summoned the ancient, dormant power of my ancestors, the women who knew that sometimes you have to burn a forest to save the soil.

                We were healers, yes, but even the earth knows how to salt the fields so nothing can grow. I muttered the incantation, a string of guttural, forgotten sounds that tasted like copper and ash on my tongue. I felt the magic leave my fingertips, a searing, violet light that thrummed with the weight of a thousand betrayed women. It sank into his skin like needles of ice, a permanent frost settling into his marrow and his very essence.

When I opened my eyes, Romani was staring at me with genuine horror.

                “There it is,” I declared, devoid of pity. “The spell has taken root. Your line ends with you, Romani. Your dynasty dies in this bed. You are the final heir of a corrupt bloodline.”

                His eyes widened, fury finally igniting into a blaze.

                “You treacherous witch!”

                He lunged for me, his hand outstretched, claws beginning to sprout from his knuckles in a desperate, last-ditch effort to reclaim his property.

                But I was already moving.

                I raised my palm, spoke the binding word— Aethel —and his body locked mid-air. His muscles strained against the invisible chains, his jaw clenched in a silent scream, but he was a statue of flesh and bone.

                “You’ll stay frozen for three hours,” I said, looking down at the man, feeling nothing but a cold, distant relief. “Long enough for me to clear the gates. Long enough for you to realize that being a Prince isn't a license for evil. See you never, Romani.”

                I slid from the bed, my movements fluid and determined, refusing to look back at the ruin I was leaving behind.

                Era shifted within me, her form sleek and ready to run, her earlier hesitation replaced by a sharp focus. To the Secretary and the guards outside, we were still lost in the throes of a Royal mating.

                 That ignorance was my only shield.

I moved to the window, slipping past the hanging ferns and out into the damp, night air. The scent of rain-soaked earth greeted me, the scent of freedom. My heart pounded against my ribs like a drum counting down the seconds, but my path was clear.

                ‘Are we certain, Ana?’

                Era’s voice was small, trembling with the weight of what we had just done.

                 ‘Are we sure this is the only way?’

I clenched my fists as I hit the ground running. “If we stayed, we were nothing but a blood bank. A factory for his empire. Is that the life you wanted?”

Era let out a long, resigned sigh that felt like the closing of a heavy book. ‘No. You’re right. Better to be a ghost in the city than a slave in a Palace.’

                We fled, a blur of silver in the shadow, weaving through the outskirts of the Lycan territory where the trees grew tall and dark, whispering secrets of my escape to the wind. We ran until the neon hum of Human Town flickered on the horizon. The city loomed ahead, vast, chaotic, and beautiful in its indifference.

                It was a sanctuary where the laws of wolves held no sway.

I paused at the edge of the paved streets, my breath was catching in my throat, not from the run, but from the sheer, terrifying scale of my new life.

                “We made it,” I whispered to the rising sun.

Era’s purr was soft, a vibration of weary relief and quiet pride. ‘Yes. We made it. But he will never forget this, Ana. He will never forgive you. He will hunt the memory of you until he turns to dust.’

                I smiled, a bitter, triumphant thing that tasted of iron and victory. “Good. Let him choke on his silence. Let him remember that I was never his to claim.”

                I stepped onto the asphalt, leaving the frozen Prince and the shattered bond behind me in the fading moonlight.

                Ahead lay the unknown—a life of struggle, perhaps, but a life that belonged solely to me.       For the first time since I could remember, the sky was wide open, and I was the only one who decided where I would fly.

Valentine’s Day loomed on the horizon, but its rituals belonged to another world I had already left behind, a world where love was a luxury I could no longer afford blindly.