Knots of the Hybrid Queen: Claimed by Four Alphas

Chapter 51: Between

Three weeks without demon attacks and honestly I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because peace didn’t stick around in my experience, except apparently when you had six months before the next apocalypse you were supposed to use that time for things like training and research and pretending life was normal.

Normal. Right. Because living with four mates in a pack house full of supernatural creatures while hunting a three-hundred-year-old witch who’d summoned a demon was totally normal.

Training with Morgana had shifted from emergency magic control to actually understanding what hybrid power could do when I wasn’t panicking, which turned out was a lot more than breaking crystals and accidentally vaporizing things.

"Focus on the thread." Morgana’s voice cut through my concentration—or lack of concentration, my brain was doing that thing where it wandered off mid-task. "Hybrid magic isn’t just wolf and vampire combined. It’s the space between them. The contradiction made manifest."

The space between. Great. Very specific. Extremely helpful.

I closed my eyes and reached for that spot where wolf shadows met vampire blood control, except instead of trying to use both at once I just—sat there. In the gap. In the place that shouldn’t exist but did anyway because my biology was basically one big middle finger to supernatural genetics.

Something shifted. Not power exactly, more like awareness of power that had always been there but I’d been too busy surviving to notice.

"There." Morgana sounded satisfied. "That’s your hybrid core. Pure contradiction. Use it."

Use it how? I didn’t ask because she’d just tell me to figure it out myself, which was her teaching style apparently—vague instructions followed by watching me fail until I accidentally succeeded.

I pushed intent at the contradiction without knowing what I wanted it to do, and the magic that responded was neither shadow nor blood but something else entirely, something that tasted like twilight and felt like the moment between heartbeats.

When I opened my eyes the training dummy across the yard was frozen mid-motion, caught in stasis that shouldn’t be possible.

"What—" My voice came out strangled. "What did I just do?"

"Temporal manipulation." Morgana made notes on her tablet like I hadn’t just broken physics. "Hybrid magic at its core is about existing between states. Time. Space. Life and death. You’re learning to occupy those in-between moments."

Occupy in-between moments. My brain was trying to process that and mostly just coming up with static because time manipulation was not what I’d signed up for when I agreed to be Hybrid Queen.

The dummy unfroze and collapsed, whatever magic I’d accidentally used dissipating.

"Can I—" I had to stop because the question was too big. "Can I do that in battle? Freeze the demon?"

"Potentially." She pulled up more notes. "But temporal magic is volatile. Freeze the wrong thing and you could stop your own heart. Or age yourself fifty years in three seconds. Or create a paradox that collapses local spacetime."

Oh good. So the answer was yes but also I might accidentally kill myself or everyone around me or break reality. Very reassuring. Love that journey for me.

"Practice." She gestured to a new dummy. "Small freezes. One second. Two seconds maximum. Build tolerance before you attempt anything larger."

Right. Practice not destroying spacetime. Simple. Totally achievable.

I spent the next two hours freezing training dummies for progressively longer intervals until my nose started bleeding and Morgana called it quits, which meant I’d pushed too hard again but at least this time I hadn’t passed out.

Small victories.

Kael found me in our room an hour later while I was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about how I could apparently manipulate time but couldn’t bring back the eighty-one people who’d died.

"You’re spiraling." He closed the door behind him. "I can feel it through the bond."

"I’m processing." The distinction was blurring. "There’s a difference."

"Is there?" But his voice was gentle, understanding, and when he sat on the edge of the bed I rolled toward him because gravity worked different around him.

"I can freeze time." The words came out flat. Disconnected. "Morgana says it’s temporal manipulation. Hybrid magic occupying in-between states. I froze a dummy for three seconds and it felt—" I had to stop because I didn’t have words for what it felt like, that moment of holding everything suspended.

"Powerful?" He guessed.

"Terrifying." More honest. "What if I freeze the wrong thing? What if I accidentally stop someone’s heart or age them or—Morgana said I could collapse spacetime and I don’t even know what that means but it sounds bad."

"So you practice until it’s not terrifying." Simple. Direct. Pure Kael logic that made everything sound achievable even when it wasn’t. "Same as you did with shadows. Same as blood control. You learn."

Right. Learn. Just learn to manipulate the fundamental fabric of reality without killing anyone. No pressure.

Through the bond I felt his amusement mixing with concern and tried not to be annoyed that my existential crisis was funny.

"Come here." He pulled me up and into his lap, arms coming around me solid and grounding. "You’re exhausted. You’ve been training eight hours a day for three weeks while also researching Cassia and managing alliance politics. You need to rest."

Rest sounded impossible when my brain was cataloging all the ways temporal magic could go wrong, but arguing seemed exhausting so I just pressed my face against his neck and tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest that had nothing to do with physical pressure.

"Draven found something." His voice rumbled through his chest. "In the coven archives. A reference to Cassia being seen in northern Maine fifteen years ago."

Fifteen years. That was—wait, fifteen years was recent in immortal timescales. That was a real lead.

"Where in northern Maine?" I pulled back to look at him.

"Small town called Millbrook. Population three hundred. Mostly human but with a witch enclave on the outskirts." His hand traced my spine. "We’re sending a team to investigate tomorrow."

We. As in not me. freёwebnovel.com

"I’m going." The words came out before I could stop them.

"Absolutely not." Four voices through the bonds, overwhelming in their united opposition.

"It’s my responsibility—" I started.

"It’s reconnaissance." Kael cut me off. "Low risk. We send scouts to verify the lead before you go charging into potential danger."

Low risk except Cassia had evaded capture for three hundred years which meant she was either extremely good at hiding or extremely good at killing people who found her, and I wasn’t sure which option was worse.

"How long?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

"Two days. Maybe three." His hand cupped my face. "Marcus and two of his wolves. They report back and then we decide next steps."

Two days of waiting while someone else chased the lead that might save Draven’s life. Two days of sitting here useless while—

Okay I was catastrophizing again. This was definitely catastrophizing. Marcus was competent and experienced and wouldn’t do anything stupid.

Probably.

"I hate waiting." The confession came out quiet. Honest.

"I know." His forehead pressed to mine. "But you’re not waiting alone. You have me. And Riven and Draven and Thorne. And an entire alliance that’s not going anywhere."

An entire alliance. Right. One hundred sixty-seven fighters who were counting on me to destroy the demon permanently instead of just wounding it again.

No pressure.

Through the bond I pushed exhaustion mixed with frustration mixed with please just let me have one day without feeling responsible for everyone, and got back understanding layered with love so fierce it made my throat tight.

"Tonight." His voice dropped. Rougher. "Tonight you’re just Selene. Not Hybrid Queen. Not alliance leader. Just you and me."

Just us. When was the last time it had been just us? The claiming felt like years ago instead of weeks, and everything since had been battles and recovery and research and training.

"I’d like that." The words came out hoarse. "Just us. No prophecies. No demons. No—"

His mouth found mine and the kiss was slow and deliberate and tasted like the promise of normal we’d probably never actually get but could pretend at for a few hours.

When he pulled back his eyes had gone dark and through the bond his desire crashed into mine sharp enough to make me gasp.

"Tell me what you need." His hands were already working my shirt off. "Right now. What do you need?"

"I need to stop thinking." Honest and raw. "I need to not be the Hybrid Queen for like five minutes. I need—" I couldn’t finish because what I needed was complicated and messy and probably impossible.

"I know." He understood anyway. "Let me take care of you."

Let him take care of me. Right. Except I didn’t know how to do that, didn’t know how to stop carrying everything long enough to just—

He kissed me again and this time I let myself fall into it, let myself stop thinking about temporal magic and demon summoners and eighty-one casualties, let myself just be Selene with Kael.

Just us.

For tonight that was enough.