All Chapters of Temptations of The Coven: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The cottage felt different after everyone left. Not lighter. Not safer. Just… occupied.Not by danger. Not by magic. It was full of Dyaln and everything left unsaid between us. Dylan didn’t say a word as he closed the shattered door as best he could and turned back toward me. He didn’t have to ask. He didn’t have to gesture. I simply nodded in understanding and headed to the bedroom.The Grove’s hush pressed in from outside, like the forest itself had curled around the cottage to keep anything else from happening tonight. Not another spell. Not another intrusion. No more revelations.Just room to breathe. Just the roof and walls. Just the two of us and our grove.The bedroom smelled faintly of pine and moonlight, something that clung to Dylan’s skin now as naturally as warmth. The bed — mine… ours — looked impossibly soft compared to the wooden porch steps and dirt path.We didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. He lay down on his back, staring up at the ceiling as if he could force his newly

I didn’t sleep again. Dylan did — eventually — but only after staring at me long enough to burn a hole through my skull. Even then, he didn’t so much fall asleep as choose to rest, like a guard dog who hated non-productivity.I lay beside him, staring at the ceiling, counting the ways my life had gone off the rails.One.The dead wouldn’t shut up.Two.The Council wanted to sacrifice a girl who definitely did not sign up for it.Three.The Grove seemed to have decided I was its emotional support witch.Four.Dylan’s arm was wrapped around me like he owned the patent to my ribcage. I tried not to think about that one too hard.The dead whispered again. Your mother moves at dawn. Her spell begins. The wolf's girl is marked.I swallowed. “Not anymore,” I whispered into the dark. “It’s on me now.”The room didn’t react. Dylan didn’t stir. But the whispers shifted, sliding like cool water over my skin. Yes. The corruption follows the strongest thread. Though it's not yet set in stone.“We

Dawn had barely cracked the sky by the time we reached the boundary of the Grove. Mist hung low, thick as soup, curling around roots and stone like it was trying to hide something. Spoiler: it was definitely trying to hide something. The Grove had learned subtlety by observing my mother and decided it, too, would weaponize passive aggression. Dylan walked half a step ahead of me. Not behind. Not beside. Ahead. Shielding without admitting he was shielding. I didn’t call him on it. That would require acknowledging how good it felt. Dakota led the way but kept glancing back with tight shoulders and a look that bounced between worry and this is very much above my pay grade. Tonya, still pale but no longer writhing in pain, hovered just behind me like she refused to leave until I was literally ripped from her hands.

The Hall didn’t explode. It folded. The air caved inward like something massive had inhaled all the oxygen. Light shattered in a ringing burst—glass or magic, I couldn’t tell—and every orb suspended above us flickered out at once.Darkness swallowed the chamber. Not empty darkness. A living darkness. The dead surged through it like a second tide. Whispers became voices. Voices became screams. Screams became… something else.Awaken. Awaken, Gate. Awaken, Child of Death.“Oh, perfect,” I muttered. “We’ve hit the chorus section of their performance.”A cold wind slammed across the Council. Robes whipped. Hair flew. A few elders shrieked like toddlers pushed off a swing.Dylan pulled me into his side with a grip strong enough to bruise. He crouched slightly—protective, primal—and a low growl rolled out of his chest like a warning siren. His eyes weren’t glowing anymore. They were a blazing gold-blue. Electric and wild. “Stay behind me,” he murmured.“No.”“Yes.”“No.”He turned his head j

The Grove felt wrong-not the kind of wrong you notice on a casual stroll—no, this was the kind of wrong that crawled under your fingernails and rearranged your molecular confidence. Even the trees looked uneasy, like they were trying to ignore the fact that something important and terrible had just shifted.Tonya was the first to sense it. Not the dead clinging to my heels. Not even Dylan with his hand in mine gripped tight. It was my precious Tonya. She stopped walking, her spine going rigid, her head turning toward me with the slow, precise motion of a wolf scenting something dangerous. “Thea?”I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yeah?”She walked up to me with her small, fierce hands curled like she was ready to shake answers right out of my bones. “You’re pale,” she said.“I’m always pale. The vampires are especially jealous, you know.”“No, you’re beyond the usual graveyard pale.”Dylan stiffened beside me, his hand tighting ever so slightly around mine.Dakota frowned. “She look