Celeste's POV
"Start talking." I tried to sit up, but Adrian's hand on my chest kept me pinned. "Now."
The three men exchanged looks. The kind of looks that said they'd all been keeping the same secret and none of them wanted to be the one to confess.
"There's a prophecy," Damien finally said. "About the last Thorne witch and three men bound to her fate."
My magic flared hot. "And you all just forgot to mention this?"
"We didn't forget." Theo's voice was quiet. Guilty. "We were trying to figure out if it was real first."
"How long have you known?"
Silence.
"HOW LONG?"
"Three years," Adrian said flatly. "Since the night I was sent to kill you."
I shoved his hand off my chest. The fire roared back through my veins instantly, but I didn't care. I stumbled to my feet, silver light crackling around my fingers.
"Three years?" My voice shook with rage and hurt. "You've all been lying to me for THREE YEARS?"
"Celeste, please—" Theo reached for me.
"Don't touch me!" I backed away from all of them. "Don't any of you touch me!"
My magic exploded outward in a wave of fury. Silver light filled the apartment, shattering windows, cracking walls. Every protection spell I'd ever cast activated at once, creating a barrier between me and the three men who'd been playing me like a fool.
"Let me explain!" Damien's purple magic slammed against my shields. "The prophecy said—"
"I don't care what it said! You lied! All of you!" Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. "Was any of it real? Our friendship, Theo? Your protection, Adrian? Or was I just some prophecy you needed to fulfill?"
"It was real." Adrian's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "Every second of it was real."
"Liar!"
"I'm a lot of things, Celeste. But I've never lied to you. Not once." He stepped closer to my shields, and they flickered at his approach. "I didn't tell you about the prophecy because I didn't want it to influence your choice. I wanted you to choose me because you loved me, not because some ancient text said you should."
"Choose you?" I laughed bitterly. "You're a hunter! You kill people like me!"
"I killed seventy-three supernatural beings before I met you." His gray eyes were steady. Honest. "And I would kill seventy-three more to keep you safe. That's the truth."
My shields wavered.
Damien moved to the window, his face carefully blank. "The prophecy appeared in the Council archives three years ago. Nobody knew where it came from—it just materialized one night, written in blood on ancient parchment."
"What did it say?"
He pulled out his phone, scrolled through it, then read aloud:
"When the last Thorne witch faces her final breath, three men shall stand at fate's crossroad. The Hunter who forsakes his blood for love. The Prince who surrenders his crown for truth. The Healer who remembers what was lost. Only one can break the curse. Choose wrong and darkness claims all. Choose right and magic transforms."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"The Hunter who forsakes his blood," I said slowly, looking at Adrian. "You betrayed your family for me."
He nodded once.
"The Prince who surrenders his crown." I turned to Damien. "You lost the Council election trying to help me."
"I'd lose it again," he said quietly.
"And the Healer who remembers what was lost." My eyes found Theo. "What did you lose, Theo? What do you remember?"
His hands were shaking. "I don't know. That's the truth, Celeste. I have dreams—memories that aren't mine. A woman who looks like you, dying in my arms. A life I never lived. I've been trying to figure out what it means for two years."
"Two years." The pieces clicked together in my head. "Since the night we met. Since I saved your hospital."
"Since the moment I saw you." Theo's voice cracked. "Something inside me just... knew you. Like I'd been looking for you my whole life."
My magic pulsed, responding to his words in a way that terrified me.
"This is insane," I whispered. "Prophecies aren't real. They're just—"
"Your mother believed it was real." Damien's words stopped my heart. "That's why she came to my father. She found the prophecy twenty years ago and spent her whole life trying to understand it. She thought if she could identify the three men, she could break the curse before it killed her."
"But she died anyway."
"Because she ran out of time." His purple eyes met mine. "And because my father refused to help her. He was afraid of what a Thorne witch with her curse broken would mean for the balance of power."
The room was spinning. I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself.
"So you're telling me," I said slowly, "that my entire life has been decided by some magical prophecy? That I don't actually get to choose who I love—fate already chose for me?"
"No." Adrian's voice was steel. "The prophecy says three men will be at the crossroad. It doesn't say which one you have to choose. That decision is yours alone."
"But only one choice breaks the curse," Theo added. "The others..."
"Lead to darkness claiming all," I finished. "Which means if I choose wrong, I don't just die. Everyone dies."
No one argued.
My phone buzzed. Another text from Vivienne:
Tick tock, cousin. Twenty-nine days and counting. Hope you figure out which one's your soulmate before the auction. Would hate for all three of your boys to watch you die. :)
Then another message, this one with an attachment. A photo.
I opened it and my blood turned to ice.
It was a picture of a ritual circle. Ancient symbols written in blood. And in the center, three names carved into stone:
ADRIAN BLACKWELL DAMIEN ASHCROFT THEO STERLING
"What is this?" My voice was barely a whisper.
Damien took one look and went pale. "That's a binding ritual. Blood magic. Extremely forbidden."
"What does it do?"
"It links the three of us to you." He zoomed in on the symbols. "Our lives, our magic, everything—tied to your fate. If you die, we die. If you choose one of us, the other two..."
He didn't finish, but he didn't have to.
"The other two die anyway," Adrian said flatly. "That's what the prophecy meant. 'Choose wrong and darkness claims all.' It's not just about breaking the curse. It's about survival. Yours and ours."
The room tilted. I grabbed the back of the couch to keep from falling.
"When was this ritual performed?" Theo demanded.
Vivienne's next text answered that question:
Three years ago, the night Adrian was supposed to kill you. The moment all three of you entered her life, I bound your fates together. So go ahead, Celeste. Choose your soulmate. Just know that whoever you don't pick will die screaming. No pressure! :)
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
Three men. Three possible soulmates. And choosing any of them meant killing the other two.
"There has to be a way to break the binding," I said desperately.
"There is." Damien's face was grim. "Kill the person who cast it before the choice is made."
"Vivienne."
"She's protected by the Council. Untouchable." He slammed his fist against the wall. "And even if we could get to her, she's probably layered the spell with fail-safes. Kill her, and the binding might just activate immediately."
"So what do we do?"
No one had an answer.
My phone buzzed one more time. But this wasn't from Vivienne.
It was from the Arcane Council.
An official summons with the Council seal glowing on the screen:
Celeste Thorne is hereby summoned to appear before the Council in 48 hours to begin the Trials of Truth. Failure to appear will result in immediate magical extraction and termination. All three candidates must attend. May the trials reveal the truth.
Below that, a final line that made my stomach drop:
Auction proceeds will go to the Supernatural Children's Fund in the event of successful trial completion. Current bid: 75 million.
Someone had raised the bid. By twenty-five million dollars.
And they were betting I'd fail the trials.
I looked at Adrian, Damien, and Theo. Three men who might save my life. Three men who would die if I chose wrong.
"The trials start in two days," I said quietly. "And we still don't know which one of you is actually my soulmate."
"Then we figure it out." Adrian's voice was calm. Steady. "Together."
"And if we can't?"
Silence.
My phone lit up one last time. A video message from an unknown number.
I pressed play.
The screen showed a dark room. A figure tied to a chair, hood over their head. A familiar voice spoke from off-camera:
"Hello, Celeste. Let's talk about what happens when you don't play by the rules."
The hood was ripped off.
Marcus Chen. My mentor. My friend.
His face was bloody and bruised.
"You have forty-eight hours to appear before the Council," the voice continued. "If you're late, if you try to run, if you refuse the trials..." A knife appeared, pressed against Marcus's throat. "Well. You can figure out the rest."
The video ended.
I stared at the blank screen, my whole body shaking.
"They took Marcus," I whispered. "They're going to kill him if I don't do the trials."
"It's a trap," Damien said immediately. "They want you vulnerable, desperate—"
"I don't care." I grabbed my jacket from the chair. "I'm going to get him back."
"Celeste, wait—"
"No!" I spun to face all three of them. "I've spent three years alone, keeping everyone at a distance, trying to protect them from my curse. And now the Council has my mentor, Vivienne has bound your lives to mine, and I have twenty-nine days to figure out which one of you is my soulmate before we all die." My voice broke. "So here's what's going to happen. We're going to rescue Marcus. Then we're going to survive these trials. And we're going to break this curse."
"How?" Theo asked quietly.
I looked at each of them in turn. The hunter. The prince. The healer.
Three men bound to my fate.
Three men I might be falling for.
Three men, but only one soulmate.
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "But I'm done running. I'm done hiding. And I'm done letting other people control my life."
I opened the door.
"Are you coming or not?"
They followed.
And as we walked out into the night to rescue Marcus from the Council, I felt the binding magic pulse around us like a heartbeat.
Twenty-nine days.
Three trials.
One choice that would save or destroy everything.
The clock was ticking.