Page 66 of Alpha Charmed

At the claiming between us.

“Get down!” I throw myself toward Anouk, but the magic is faster. It hits us both like a wall of ice and fire and wrongness, drilling into the place where my awareness of her lives.

The place that’s been steady and warm since we claimed each other.

The place that suddenly feels like it’s being torn apart.

Pain.

Not physical—I’ve been hurt before, badly, and I know what that feels like. This is different. This is the sensation of a fundamental part of myself being ripped away.

The sense of her stutters and fades like a candle in a hurricane.

No.

This isn’t supposed to be possible. The claiming is permanent. Unbreakable. The magic chose us, bound us, made us⁠—

The awareness of her vanishes.

I can’t feel her. I can’t feel where she is, if she’s hurt, if she’s⁠—

Panic claws at my throat. I’ve faced rogue shifters, territorial disputes, magical creatures that could tear a wolf apart. None of it scared me like this. None of it made my heart pound with pure, animal terror.

Because none of it threatened to take her from me.

I try to reach for her through instinct alone, the way wolves find their pack across miles of wilderness. But there’s nothing. Just absence. A void where she should be.

“Caius!”

Her voice. Real. Present. Close.

I force my eyes open. Anouk is three feet away, on her knees, one hand pressed to her shoulder where my claiming mark rests. Her face is pale, jaw clenched, but her eyes are focused. On me.

“I won’t allow it.” Her voice is steady, analytical even through obvious pain. “The ritual—it’s trying, but it’s not working.”

“Impossible.” Cordelia’s snarl cuts through the chaos. “The severing ritual is ancient. Perfect. It should be tearing you apart!”

“Should be.” Grandmother Peach’s voice carries an edge of satisfaction that seems slightly inappropriate given the circumstances. “But the magic you’re invoking is older than your ritual. And considerably more stubborn.”

The dark light around us flickers. Pulses. Strains against a force invisible and immovable.

I reach for Anouk’s hand. Our fingers interlock, and I feel it—the claiming mark on my shoulder flaring with heat, matching the one I left on hers. The compass in my chest spins wildly, searching, desperate⁠—

And locks back into place.

She’s here. She’s alive. She’s mine.

The ritual shatters.

Cordelia screams.

It’s not a sound of pain—it’s fury. Pure, concentrated rage at decades of planning crumbling around her. The dark magic rebounds, backlashing through her own power reserves, leaving her crumpled on the floor with smoke rising from her bound hands.

“No.” She’s struggling to rise, voice cracking. “No, that’s not—the ritual was perfect. I tested it. I prepared for years⁠—”

“You prepared for ordinary claimings.” Grandmother Peach moves with a grace that belies her apparent age, circling Cordelia like a predator assessing wounded prey. “Recent pairings. Shallow roots. You weren’t prepared for what happens when stubborn people wait entirely too long before admitting what they feel.”

“What does that mean?” Rhodes has his documentation out. The man would take notes at his own funeral.