Page 62 of Alpha Charmed

For a long moment, she doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Her carefully crafted mask holds by sheer force of will.

Then it shatters.

“You don’t understand.”

Cordelia’s voice is different. The maternal warmth stripped away, leaving ice and absolute certainty.

“The Severing was necessary. The pairings were consuming both species—making individuals too powerful, too unpredictable. We saved the magical world.”

“You crippled it.” My voice is ice to match hers. “You murdered anyone who remembered the truth. And you’re still doing it.”

“Because people like you refuse to learn!” Her magic flares—darker than I expected, tainted with old power. “Do you know what happened before the Severing? Do you have any idea how dangerous claimed pairs were? They didn’t answer to covens or packs. They answered to no one but each other. They upset every balance we’d spent centuries creating.”

“They strengthened the Warding Lines. They protected their communities. They chose love over your precious ‘balance.’”

“They chose chaos!” Cordelia’s hands spark with power that makes my skin crawl. “And now it’s happening again. Three claimed pairs in Mistvale alone. More forming every month. The Severing is cracking, and when it breaks completely⁠—”

“When it breaks completely, the magic heals. The way it was supposed to.”

“The magic destroys! You’re too young, too naive to understand what you’re undoing.” She’s fully on her feet, power crackling around her like a storm. “If I can’t make you see reason, I’ll stop you myself.”

She attacks.

The blast hits my wards hard—harder than I expected from someone who’s spent decades pretending to be a mild bureaucrat. Dark magic, Preserver magic, designed to overwhelm and incapacitate.

I brace against it, pouring power into shields that flare bright against her assault. But the force is wrong—too much, too concentrated for one person.

“That power isn’t hers alone.” Vera’s voice is tight behind me. “She’s drawing from something external.”

My magic answers clean and strong, steadied by the claiming, fed by the completeness I feel now. But she’s powerful. Stronger than I anticipated. Decades of hidden training, ancient techniques, fury given focus.

“Anouk!” Caius’s voice cuts through the chaos.

“I’ve got it—” Another blast rocks my defenses. I return fire—precise strikes aimed at her casting hands, her power centers, the dark nodes I can feel pulsing beneath her skin.

We exchange volleys across the Elder Council Chamber. Stone cracks. The enchanted windows flicker, their calm illusion disrupted for the first time in centuries. Council members dive for cover, Jasper squealing as a stray bolt singes his robes.

“My robes!” His indignation is almost comical. “These are ceremonial!”

“They’re about to be historical artifacts if you don’t move!” Vera yanks him behind an overturned chair.

I press forward, using the distraction to close distance. My magic shifts—from defensive walls to focused strikes, the precision I’ve honed over years of potion work translating into combat with surprising ease. Cordelia staggers under a barrage of targeted attacks.

“Forty years of work!” She screams, her careful control completely gone. “Generations of sacrifice! And you’re going to destroy it all for what? For love? For a wolf?”

“For the truth!” I slam power into her shields, feeling them buckle. “For Mathilda and everyone else you’ve killed to keep your secrets!”

She staggers but doesn’t fall. Reaches for deeper, darker power⁠—

Movement behind me. I sense it a heartbeat too late—one of Cordelia’s hidden agents, emerging from the crowd with a knife that glints with a poisoned edge.

Caius is faster.

He shifts mid-leap, wolf form crashing into the Preserver agent with the full force of his mass. The knife goes flying. The agent goes down beneath gray fur and very large teeth.

Torin follows a heartbeat later, bear roar shaking dust from the rafters. A second agent—the one who’d been edging toward Vera—finds herself pinned beneath a Kodiak paw the size of a dinner plate.

“Two down.” Elio’s voice is calm, almost bored. “One more somewhere.”