<h4>Chapter 331: _What It Means To Fight For Control</h4>


    Marcellus’ POV


    *****


    The violet mes burned brighter with each breath Odessa took, and for the first time in a long time, Marcellus felt the weight of something foreign press against his chest.


    Fear.


    It didn’t make sense.


    He had fought wars, in monsters in the dark, stolen power from witches, wolves and even humans. He had wed his way up from nothing, reforged himself in stolen blood and forbidden magic.


    Fear was not anguage he spoke anymore.


    And yet, when her eyes glowed with that impossible violet light, he understood in his bones that she was far from the powerless witch everyone mocked.


    She was something more.


    And that made her dangerous.


    Marcellus spat to the side, licking his lips like a man savouring the taste of battle.


    "You think fire will scare me?" He snarled, gathering green-ck energy into his palms. The tendrils writhed like snakes, hungry, eager. "I was born in fire. I bled for every scrap of this power. You? You were handed it like a spoiled child."


    Her gaze sharpened, unwavering. She gave no words, no retorts, no trembling. Just silence, and the mes roaring louder around her.


    The sound alone felt like judgment.


    "Answer me!" Marcellus bellowed, his voice cracking as he flung his hand forward. The tendrils shot out, coiling through the dome surrounding them like vipers.


    Odessa met them with a wave of violet fire, and to his horror, they burned as though her mes could unmake what he had so painstakingly stitched together.


    He recoiled, sweat stinging his eyes. His teeth bared, his chest heaving as he tried again, sending another wave of energy, another dark construct. But each one fell to cinders under her mes.


    This wasn’t supposed to happen.


    She was supposed to falter. To break. To weep under the memory of Caroline’s broken body.


    He had thought her grief would be a weapon he could use, but instead it had hardened into a de pointed squarely at his throat.


    He couldn’t let her see the crack in hisposure.


    So heughed cruelly, the sound of a man already drenched in blood.


    "You think this makes you strong?" His voice echoed in the dome around them. "Caroline begged before she died. Begged me to let her live. Do you think your mes can erase the look in her eyes when she realised she was nothing but meat in my hands?"


    Yes, that was obviously a lie...but Odessa didn’t know that. So he watched as his words affected her in the grandest way possible.


    Her eyes narrowed, the mes around her spiking violently.


    Yes! There it was. The crack.


    "Pathetic," Marcellus hissed. "You’ll burn yourself out like every weakling before you."


    But deep inside, behind the venom, he felt the first threads of panic coil tighter.


    His body was heavy, his magic sluggish. He had spent too much energy battling Caroline before his escape, let alone the moonstone explosion in his residence.


    The fog, the tendrils, the bone-breaking theatrics... it had taken more from him than he wanted to admit.


    Odessa, on the other hand... was growing stronger. Feeding on something deeper than magic. Her fury.


    And fury never ran dry.


    The energy dome shuddered violently above them, cracks of violet light searing through its green-ck surface. Marcellus dug his nails into his palms, forcing more power into it, sweat trickling down his temples.


    He refused to die like a rat in a cage.


    Meanwhile, outside the dome, voices were shouting.


    Kaelos watched his mate with worry, seeming like he wanted to break through the dome and kill him himself. Janelle and Thorian were with him, their silhouettes clear against the fractured green barrier.


    They soon began pounding against it, but Marcellus smiled coldly.


    Let them try.


    This cage was his kingdom.


    His gaze cut back to Odessa.


    "They can’t save you. No one can save you. When I’m done, they’ll be ashes. And you..." He raised both hands, channelling everyst fragment of stolen life force into his core "...you’ll be my masterpiece."


    The air warped as he spoke.


    Green-ck energy spun into a vortex between his hands, howling like a hurricane, its edges razor sharp. It was raw destruction, condensed into a de of reality-rending death.


    The ground trembled beneath his boots as it grewrger, heavier, the dome itself groaning under its weight.


    The strain tore at him. Blood dripped from his nose and even his ears, but he grinned through it.


    "Do you see, Odessa?" His voice rasped, thick with mania. "This is power earned! Not gifted, not born! I bled for this!"


    He stopped talking and hurled it at her.


    The vortex screamed across the dome, cutting through the air, ripping into her shields one after another. Force bubbles shattered like ss, each one a desperate defence torn apart in seconds.


    The st barreled toward her chest, seeming inevitable and unstoppable.


    Marcellus could almost taste the victory.


    And then...


    Her voice rang out like thunder:


    "You think I don’t know what it means to fight for control?"


    The st slowed, causing his eyes to widen. The green-ck energy, his masterpiece, flickered, just for a second, then began to bleed with a violet light.


    No.


    No, no, no...


    Odessa’s mes surged into the vortex, infecting it, warping it and consuming it from the inside out. His creation turned against him, spiralling back with a screech of power as violet overtook green.


    Marcellus screamed, pouring more of himself into it, but the more he fought, the faster it unravelled. His veins lit with pain as his magic rebelled, violet fire eating away at his core.


    He staggered back, choking on smoke. "Stop... STOP!"


    But Odessa didn’t stop.


    She walked forward, mes wreathing her like a goddess of vengeance. Each step shook the ground, her eyes locked on him with unbreakable resolve.


    "This ends tonight," she said, her voice echoing like a prophecy.


    The vortex copsed, a tidal wave of violet fire bursting outward.


    Marcellus raised his arms, screaming as it engulfed him. His own energy shrieked as it burned, twisting and breaking apart. He tried to teleport... but nothing happened . Tried to shield... but it shattered.


    The fire wasn’t just burning his body. It was burning his entire being.


    His stolen life force screeched as it was torn away, decades of stolen souls erupting from his veins, shrieking as they were freed into the mes.


    His knees hit the ground. His arms twisted grotesquely, bones snapping under the sheer pressure of power. His skin peeled, ckened, melted.


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    And through the agony, through the blinding violet storm, his mind clung to onest bitter thought:


    ’So this is what control feels like... and it isn’t mine.’


    Then he copsed, the fire consuming him whole.


    And just like that, the great right hand of the lord of the North had fallen.