Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 536

Eve

I touched her face, even if there was no face to touch. At the simple contact of my fingertip, her nose crumbled like it was made of dry wood. My stomach lurched and I bit back my tears, trying to hold the broken parts of me together.

She had given everything.

Burned herself from the inside out to buy us time. To save me. To save all of us. And this was what remained—charred bone that disintegrated at the slightest pressure, a body that looked more like kindling than a person.

Her soul was refusing to leave her body, anchoring itself to dying flesh long past the point where any mortal would have crossed over.

"Ellen," I whispered, though I knew she couldn't hear me. Knew she was too far gone to respond even if some part of her was still aware. "I'm so sorry. I'm so—"

A delta knelt beside me, her hands already glowing with healing magic. She reached toward Ellen's chest, where that impossible heartbeat still flickered, and the moment her magic touched the charred flesh the light went out.

Not dimmed. Not weakened. Just—gone. Snuffed like a candle flame.

The delta gasped, pulling her hands back. Tried again. Same result. The healing magic sparked to life in her palms, touched Ellen's body, and died instantly.

"What—" The delta's voice shook. "I don't understand. There's nothing to—the magic has nothing to hold onto. No tissue to repair, no cells to regenerate. She should be—"

"Dead," another delta finished quietly. She was older, her face lined with exhaustion and too many years of battlefield medicine. "She should be dead. Any other person would be dead."

But Ellen wasn't.

Her chest still moved. Barely. That half-inch rise and fall that defied every law of biology and magic. Her soul tethered tight to life, her life force too strong to simply shut off or be snuffed out like a normal person's would.

So it would go gradually.

I could see it in the deltas' faces. The terrible understanding of what was coming. Ellen's organs would fail. One after the other. Slowly. Agonizingly. Her heart would keep beating as long as it could, stubbornly refusing to stop even as everything else shut down, until finally—finally—there would be nothing left. Just ash and the memory of the woman who'd burned like the sun to save us all.

My hands shook as I pulled them away from what remained of her face. I couldn't touch her. Couldn't risk crumbling more of her away. Could only kneel there, useless, watching my sister die by inches.

"Eve."

The voice cut through my spiral. Familiar. Exhausted. Alive.

I turned.

Hades stood at the entrance to the medical tent, his vampire form still partially visible—wings torn and dragging, skin pale as death, crimson eyes dulled with fatigue. Cain was on his side and draped across his arms was a figure covered in bloody clothes. Concealed. I couldn't see who it was.

Cain raced to Ellen.

Our eyes met. Hades and I.

For a moment neither of us moved. Just stared at each other across the tent, taking in the damage. He looked like he'd been through hell. I knew I looked worse.

Then we were moving.

I tried to stand, but my legs gave out immediately. Hades crossed the distance in three strides, dropping to his knees beside me, and we reached for each other at the same time. His hands found my face—gentle, so gentle despite the claws—and mine found his shoulders, and we just held on.

"You're alive," he breathed, his voice cracking. "Goddess, you're alive. I felt you die—felt the bond go dark—"

"I'm here." My own voice was barely a whisper. "I'm here. The pups—"

"The pups." His eyes went wide, frantic, and he pulled back just enough to look down at my stomach. Blood still seeped through the bandages wrapped around my torso, my skin mottled with bruises and barely-healed wounds. "Are they—"

"They're alive." I caught his hand, pressed it against my belly where our daughters still held on. Still fought. "The deltas checked. They're okay. We're okay."

Something broke in his expression. Relief so profound it looked like pain. He dropped his forehead against mine, his breath coming in shaky gasps, and then he was moving lower. Pulling up the edge of my shirt—careful, so careful not to hurt me—and pressing his face against my belly.

His shoulders shook.

I felt wetness against my skin and realized he was crying. Hades, who never cried, who held everything together no matter what, was sobbing against my stomach.

"Thank you," he whispered against my skin. "Thank you for keeping them safe. Thank you for—"

Around us, wolves had stopped. Gammas, deltas, even the ones being treated for injuries—all of them watching their Alpha and Luna reunion with expressions that ranged from relief to grief to exhaustion so bone-deep it looked like surrender.

We'd won.

But the cost was written on every face.

I touched Hades's hair, running my fingers through it, and let myself feel the weight of everything we'd survived. Everything we'd lost.

Then I remembered the covered figure Hades had been carrying.

"Who—" I started to ask, my eyes going to the body he'd set down carefully beside him. "Who is that?"

Hades lifted his head, his eyes meeting mine, and something in his expression made my blood run cold.

"Lyra," he said quietly. "Your mother."

The world stopped.

"What?"

"Malrik had her. The horn—" His voice caught. "The horn was inside her body. He turned her into a living vault. I had to—" He couldn't finish. Just looked at me with eyes that held such profound guilt and grief that I understood immediately what he'd had to do.

What it had cost him to get that horn.

My mother.

My mother had been alive.

And now she wasn't.

My eyes wandered to the bloody cloth lump as the deltas picked it up, my throat closing up. "Wait," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "I want to see her."

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