Stefan’s POV
It’s not until I watch the flames engulf her body that all hope dies within me. Gwen is gone. She is dead.
When I saw her at the castle two nights ago, I thought I had time. Now, I have all the time in the world, but I don’t have her.
I have nothing.
And it’s all my fault.
If I’d never let her leave, this would not have happened. Heck, if I’d left her alone that night I found her at the nightclub, she would be alright.
‘You can delay fate, but you cannot change it.’
That’s what Eric said when I woke up in the middle of the jungle after he went off running last night.
She was meant to die, that’s what he meant. That it didn’t matter what I did or failed to do. She would have died anyway, at that exact time.
He said the High Priestess never mentioned it. She told him about his own demise, but not a word about Gwen’s.
Why did she insist on sacrificing Gwen in her past life when she must have known she would die young? Because then, she must have known that Gwen was not a threat to werewolves. Was her entire prophecy a lie? Or did her stupid ritual end up fucking up Gwen’s fate?
There are so many questions and no answers.
Even if there were, they wouldn’t change anything.
All the answers in the world wouldn’t bring her back.
Even as reality sinks in, it still feels as if I’m living someone else's life. As if any second now, I’ll hop back into mine, and Gwen will be there, and I’ll have all the time to make up for everything.
Not once while we were apart did I imagine it would end like this. That she’d hate me forever? Yeah, that was a possibility. Forbid me from seeing her again? That was another. But dying on me?
It was never part of the scenario.
It wasn’t for Eric, either.
Back at the castle, Eric was so confident that nothing would happen to her because he knew he was meant to die before her. So when he felt the bond shatter, it was a huge shock.
One moment she was there, and then she wasn’t.
The funeral rites ended a while back, and most of the pack members have gone back to the compound.
Levi is still nearby, and so is Lucy. The latter is waiting for me to hand over the baby in my arms. I don’t think I want to.
I look down at Alexandra.
She’s only a day old, but the resemblance to her mother is uncanny. She’ll look exactly like her when she grows up.
I don’t know what to think about that.
I failed Gwen, and it feels like I’ve already failed Alexandra too. How can I look into this face everyday and keep breathing when it reminds me of the biggest fuckup of my life?
And yet, I can’t bear to let her out of my sight. I made that mistake with her mother. It’ll kill me inside until the day I die, but I don’t get to run or hide. I deserve all the pain, loneliness, and self-loathing in my future.
Alexandra lifts her arm, and I present my thumb. She grips it in her small fist. Her brown eyes, gleaming in the glow of the fire, fixate on my face.
“It’ll be okay, baby girl,” I whisper. “Daddy is here.”
Lucy comes forward a few minutes later, but I send her back to the compound. I’ll take Alexandra to the nursery when we are done saying goodbye to her mother.
Levi steps from the shadows about ten minutes later. Or it could have been an hour. I don’t know. I’ve lost sense of time and everything else around me.
He says nothing. He grips my shoulder and gives me a squeeze, then makes his way back to the compound.
His silent support is more than enough. I know he understands what I’m going through. It’s been five months since Hanna left, and I don’t think he has made even the tiniest bit of peace with it. If he’ll ever.
Hanna is alive somewhere, and Gwen is gone, but we have one thing in common. We’ll never see them again.
We’d hoped. That as long as Hanna was alive, there’d be a way. But that was before Andreas told us about the Rebirth.
Hanna is the reincarnation of the Supreme Dragon. The Supreme Dragon is the ruler of all dragons, reborn every thousand years after the end of each life.
For the first hundred years of the reincarnation’s life, they are like every other dragon. And then at a hundred years old, they undergo the Rebirth, when they assume their true identity as the Supreme Dragon.
I don’t know what was more shocking, finding out that Hanna was a dragon or that she was a few months shy of her hundredth birthday.
The Supreme Dragon is reborn in a different family every cycle. Before their rebirth, their power is unawakened and they are vulnerable. Enemies of the dragon realm–outsiders and rebels alike–take this chance to hunt them down and try to eliminate them before their Rebirth, at which time they become invincible.
Hanna was born to the head family of the Guardians, a clan that oversees the realm during the one thousand year period when the Supreme Dragon is missing. Her family successfully hid Hanna’s true identity for nine decades before the realm’s enemies found out.
That’s when they decided to hide her in the human world. She was to go back to the dragon realm right before her Rebirth.
Now, the deal with the Rebirth is that she’d lose her memories as Hanna and regain the ones from her past lives as the Supreme Dragon. The first hundred years of her life would be erased, replaced by the thousands of years she had lived before.
She would not remember Levi.
I would have stayed there all night until the last embers died out if I didn’t need to put Alexandra to sleep.
Her nursery is right next to my room. I’m tempted to move her crib to my room, but that would be inconvenient for her nurse.
I change her before bed and get distracted by the birthmark on her chest before I dress her and put her to sleep.
The birthmark is star-shaped, and what’s really odd about it is that it’s not just a splotch or some mark that resembles a star.
It’s a perfect star, with five distinct points.
I trace it with the tip of my finger. She thrashes her arms and legs, the way babies do when they are excited. I pull my finger back, and she goes still. I trace it again and she gets excited again.
‘She’s so cute,’ Eric mumbles.
He has been very silent since we left the castle.
I dress Alexandra up and hold her against my chest. I kiss the top of her head. “She is perfect.”
She is everything I have.
There’s an emptiness in my chest that I know I’ll carry to the end of my days. But I’ll be here for her. I’ll love her with whatever is left of me.
I’ll protect her until my last breath.
This time, I’ll die before I break that promise.