Selene Ravencourt was dying.
The infamous Witch-Queen of Ebonmire clutched the hilt of the blade buried in her chest, dark blood spilling over her trembling fingers.
Shadows curled around her in a desperate attempt to mend what was already broken, but even her magic could not defy death.
Across from her, the heroine—her foe, her greatest mistake—stood panting, sword slick with victory. A flicker of regret crossed her eyes, but she did not lower her weapon.
"It's over, Selene," she whispered.
Selene forced a smile, teeth stained red.
"No," she rasped. "Not yet."
With the last of her strength, she lunged, fingers curling around the protagonist's wrist, dragging her forward. Their bodies slammed together—one collapsing, the other caught in the fall.
A shocked gasp echoed through the chamber as Selene's lips brushed the heroine's ear.
"If I go," she whispered, "I'm taking you with me."
A second blade, concealed beneath Selene's robes, found its mark. The protagonist's breath hitched—then, silence.
The chamber trembled. Stone cracked.
The palace, their kingdom, their battlefield—crumbling.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
**
"And that's the end of it," Lena murmured, typing the final words.
She leaned back in her chair, fingers hovering over the keyboard, her breath slow and measured. The End.
It should have felt satisfying. It should have felt like closure.
Instead, an odd emptiness settled in her chest.
Her laptop screen reflected back at her—those two words staring back like an accusation. The final book in the Bloodbound series was done. She had finally ended it. And yet…
Her phone buzzed, shattering the moment. She sighed, rubbing her temples before answering.
"Lena Carter speaking."
"Lena! You cannot do this to me."
A smile tugged at her lips despite the exhaustion weighing her down. "Hello, Margot."
"Don't hello, Margot me. You just sent the final pages. The final pages. As in, you're ending the series?!" Her editor sounded breathless, like she had just sprinted across the office.
"That was the plan," Lena said, stretching her arms. "I told you the book would be finished today."
Margot let out an exasperated noise. "You told me that, but I didn't think you'd actually do it! The fandom is obsessed with this world, Lena. They want more."
"They don't know what they want," Lena countered, propping her feet up on the desk. "They think they want more, but if I dragged the story past its natural conclusion, they'd hate me for it."
Margot huffed. "You say that, but this is the same audience that demanded steamy werewolf sex in book two and then complained it wasn't graphic enough."
Lena groaned. "Don't remind me."
"I will remind you because you're leaving money on the table! There's demand for a spin-off, maybe a sequel about the heroine's fate—"
"No."
Margot paused. "No?"
Lena closed her eyes, exhaling. "I'm done. No sequels. No spin-offs. No prequels. I love this world, but I need a break. I haven't lived outside my own head in years."
There was a beat of silence before Margot sighed. "Alright, alright. I won't push. But at least consider a break instead of an official hiatus."
"I'll think about it," Lena lied.
She could hear Margot rolling her eyes. "Fine. I'll let you enjoy your moment of peace. Call me when reality bores you."
"Doubtful."
They said their goodbyes, and Lena set the phone down with a sigh.
Her apartment was silent except for the low hum of her laptop. The final words of her novel remained on the screen.
The End.
Her chest ached, but she didn't know why.
Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the weight of letting go. Or maybe it was the lingering attachment to the world she had built, the characters she had breathed life into.
Her fingers twitched. Just one last reread.
She scrolled up, eyes scanning the final scene.
Selene Ravencourt, dying. Blood. Shadows.
A final act of defiance. A cruel, poetic end.
Lena's stomach twisted.
Something was… wrong.
The words on the screen shifted.
She blinked. The letters stretched and swirled, melting together like ink dropped in water. For a moment, she swore she saw—
A figure.
A silhouette stood in the reflection of her screen. Tall. Watching.
Her breath caught. She whirled around, heart hammering against her ribs—
Nothing.
The apartment was empty.
A chill spread down her spine. Her hands trembled as she turned back to her laptop.
The words were normal again.
She squeezed her eyes shut. You're sleep-deprived, that's all. Too many hours spent staring at a screen, too much time lost in the world of her book.
She just needed sleep.
But then she felt it.
A pressure. Not in the room, but inside her head.
It started as a whisper—like a page turning in the dark. Then came the words. Not written. Felt.
A rush of emotions slammed into her—rage, sorrow, betrayal, pain. The kind of pain that didn't belong to her.
Selene.
It was Selene's pain.
Lena gasped, gripping the edges of her desk as the room spun. Words—disjointed, scattered—flashed through her mind like someone was branding them onto her skull.
The bond. The curse. The end. The beginning.
Her vision blurred. Her body was no longer her own.
The pressure in her chest collapsed inward—a sharp, twisting force pulling her from herself.
She tried to scream but she barely registered her own strangled cry.
Pain—sharp, searing, absolute—ripped through her.
The last thing she saw was the reflection in her laptop screen.
It wasn't her own.
Then—
Darkness.
*****
Lena woke with a strangled gasp, her lungs burning as if she had been drowning in the dark.
The cold beneath her was the first thing she noticed. Not the soft, familiar feel of her bed or the cushion of her office chair—but stone.
Hard, unyielding, wrong.
A dull ache throbbed through her skull, her mind still sluggish, heavy with the remnants of—what? A dream? A nightmare?
Her hand twitched against the ground, and—wet.
She inhaled sharply, blinking through the haze as she lifted her fingers. Even in the dim light, the dark crimson streaks against her pale skin were unmistakable. Blood.
A sharp jolt of panic shot through her. She wasn't hurt. Was she?
Frantically, she patted herself down, expecting searing pain, an open wound—something. But her body felt intact.
Then whose blood was this?
Her heart pounded as she struggled to process what she was seeing. Her mind scrambled for logic, for reason, for an answer that made sense—
And then, a name slipped past her lips, her voice hoarse but laced with irritation.
"Margot… I know this is you."
She exhaled sharply, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before looking around again.
What kind of joke was this?
Everything—the cold stone, the eerie silence, the unsettlingly familiar setting—it had to be a setup. Some kind of twisted prank.
"I'm not continuing the book," she muttered, forcing the words out as if saying them would make them true. "So whatever this is, just—enough."
Silence.
No laughter. No teasing reply. No Margot appeared from the shadows, shaking her head with that exasperated look she always got when trying to convince Lena to write just one more book.
Just silence.
And it stretched too long.
A flicker of unease wormed its way through her chest. Something wasn't right.
Slowly, she pushed herself up, wincing as her muscles screamed in protest. That's when she felt it.
The weight in her limbs—different. The way her body moved—different. The ache in her chest wasn't from exhaustion; it was something deeper, something wrong.
Her gaze flickered downward, taking in the long, tattered gown pooling around her. Dark, luxurious fabric—elegant, unfamiliar. Not hers.
Her breath hitched as she looked around, finally taking in the full scene before her.
The shattered glass littering the floor. The broken banners hanging limply from their high perches. The twisted remains of a once-grand throne.
And the bodies.
Lena's stomach lurched.
Soldiers—some in armor, some in tattered robes—lay strewn across the chamber, their lifeless eyes staring at nothing. The aftermath of a battle.
A battle she knew.
Panic clawed at her throat. She turned sharply, her body reacting before her mind could catch up—only to halt when something caught her eye.
A mirror. Or what remained of one.
It was shattered across the floor, its jagged shards reflecting the dim glow of the dying torches on the walls.
And within those broken pieces—
Lena felt her world tilt.
The woman staring back at her was not her.
Dark, flowing hair cascaded over pale shoulders. Amethyst eyes burned with an unnatural glow. Her face—elegant, sharp, inhuman—was framed by streaks of blood smeared across her porcelain skin.
Selene.
Her breath stilled. Her hands trembled as she reached up, fingers tracing her own face. Not hers. Not hers.
But the reflection mimicked every movement.
"No," she whispered.
The voice wasn't hers either. It was lower, richer—silken and dangerous.
Panic surged, white-hot and blinding. She staggered back, but there was nowhere to go. No escape from the truth.
She wasn't just in Selene Ravencourt's chamber.
She was in Selene Ravencourt's body.