Against Devil

First Look at the Final Book of the Series

Ten Years Later

The wind at the summit wasn't cruel. It didn't bite or scream or tear—it whispered. Like it recognized me. Like it knew what I had become.

The white stone stood where it had always stood. At the center of everything. A monument of ancient magic, smooth and warm to the touch despite the thin veil of mist curling over the mountain's edge.

Behind it, the mountain loomed—silent, towering, eternal. Just like in my dream all those years ago.

Only now, it wasn't a dream.

I stood barefoot, my hands trembling at my sides, my heart quiet but full. This was where it had always been leading. Every battle. Every scar. Every whispered warning from the moon.

This was the moment the prophecy became memory.

The moment Eliphir awakened.

I was no longer just Isabella Sage.

I was the fifth element—the living force of pure energy. The one the old world tried to erase. The bond between matter and magic. The heartbeat of the Harridan bloodline.

The final Harridan.

The mate of the Knight.

The carrier of origin.

Eliphir.

Alex stood at the edge of the circle behind me, silent as always, his presence like gravity itself—steady, immovable. The air around him shimmered faintly, his armor etched with runes that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Our bond crackled, not with heat, but with something older. Something sacred.

We hadn't spoken since dawn. There were no words left that could hold what we knew. What we were about to become.

I took the dagger from the ceremonial cloth at the foot of the stone. Its blade was pale gold, not forged, but grown—carved from something the earth had hidden away just for this.

My fingers didn't shake when I pressed it to my forearm.

The cut was deep.

The blood came fast.

It splashed onto the white stone, vivid and red, and then began to move—threading along carved channels in the rock, as though the mountain itself had been waiting to drink from me. 

The blood flowed down into the labyrinth carved into the earth, winding in sacred lines toward the standing circle.

Six women.

Six points of power.

The four Harridan lines—the original daughters of the elements—stood in place.

Another girl stood on the opposite side of the white stone. I'd never seen her before, but she had that ethereal, elfish look—fine-boned, silver-eyed, like she belonged to the forest more than the world. Probably another survivor of the Green Canyon Pack, pulled from ashes the way so many of us were.

She didn't speak.

She didn't need to.

I could feel it in her aura—like mine, it hummed with something ancient. She was mated to a Knight too. Not by force. Not by prophecy. Just... coincidence.

The universe had a twisted sense of humor that way.

Other people lined the perimeter—Alphas, sentinels, warriors. Even a few children who had snuck into the outer ring, fidgeting, whispering to each other as if this was just another rite-of-passage they weren't old enough to understand.

I wish I hadn't seen them.

Their wide eyes. Their innocence.

Lizzy had been smart. She sedated their youngest before leaving the pack lands with Nate, making sure her own little pup wouldn't follow them up the mountain. She knew better. She knew this wasn't the kind of story you wanted your child to see unfold in real time.

Because the truth was—no one knew what would happen next.

Not the Alphas. Not the sisters of the elements. Not even me.

And maybe that's why it had always been called:

Expectatio Universum.

The Expectation of the Universe.

It was named for a reason.

Because this wasn't just magic.

This was a wager.

A hope.

A plea whispered from the first Harridan to the last one standing.

As I stood over the cracked white stone, my blood glowing as it spread beneath the circle, I realized something vital:

This wasn't about survival anymore. It was about surrender. Not to death. But to change. 

Change can lead to a chemical transformation.

The kind of change that rewrote bloodlines. That bent history backward and forward at the same time. That burned away old gods and gave the new ones breath.

Alex stepped to the edge of the circle, his eyes never leaving mine.

My mate. My Knight. My mirror.

"I'm with you," he said.

"I know," I whispered.

And as the final light flared across the labyrinth, as the earth pulsed beneath our feet like it was breathing again for the first time in centuries, I let go of fear.

I let go of the past.

And I reached into the heart of the unknown—

Not because I had answers.

But because I finally understood the question.

To be continued...