Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 447

Aurora’s P.O.V

I stepped forward again, refusing to let Ashton’s shouting drown me out. “So tell me, Ashton, what exactly does family mean to you? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like family only matters when it benefits you. When it keeps you in control. When they obey.” My voice grew louder, sharper, and I could see Maggie’s breathing pick up, her conflict burning across her face.

“If family is everything, then why did they turn their backs? Why did Violet have to die without her so-called family by her side? You can scream the word all you want, but it doesn’t make it true.”

“Shut up!” Ashton roared, his face contorting with rage as he took a step forward, but Alice’s shield kept him back, the glow shimmering between us like a wall he couldn’t break through. He slammed his fist against it and snarled.

“Maggie, you’re being a stupid fool! You’ve got the dagger…in your hands and instead of doing what needs to be done, you’re standing there falling for her manipulation! You think she cares about you? She’ll destroy you the second she gets the chance! Do it, Maggie! Prove you’re not weak! Prove you’re still with us!”

Maggie’s jaw clenched, her eyes flicking down to the dagger, then back up to me. Her lips trembled, but she said nothing, her silence louder than anything she could have spoken.

I tilted my head, meeting her eyes, my voice softer now, calmer in the face of Ashton’s storm. “Maggie… you have to ask yourself. Who’s really manipulating you here? The one demanding you kill in the name of family… or the one asking you to think about what family should actually mean?”

Ashton’s voice ripped through the silence, deafening, shaking the air. “Enough! Either you kill her, or you’ve chosen her over us! And if you do… then you’re no sister of mine!”

Maggie’s lips parted in a shaky breath, and for the first time, I saw tears glisten in her eyes as she looked at me, then at Ashton, the weight of his ultimatum pressing down on her like a blade to her own throat.

I didn’t realize it at first, not until Maggie lifted my dagger higher in her hand, her knuckles white as she gripped it tightly, her chest rising and falling in uneven gasps. My breath caught in my throat as the sudden, awful realization hit me, maybe I had made a mistake when I gave her my blade.

“Maggie… what are you doing?” I asked carefully, my voice trembling but trying to hold steady, my heart pounding so hard I thought the sound alone would shatter the silence. She didn’t look at me, didn’t even glance at my face, her eyes locked entirely on Jade, whose body trembled violently as the wraith seeped deeper into him.

Jade’s lips moved then, but the words that came out weren’t his own, they were layered, distorted, the voice of something ancient and cruel wrapped around his own. “Aurora… you were too late. He is mine. You can’t kill me without killing him too.”

His eyes snapped open, glowing with a sickening, unnatural hue, and the sight of it made me stumble back a step, fear clawing into my throat. “Don’t listen to it Maggie!” I shouted, my voice breaking, but Maggie’s hand only tightened more around the dagger, her knuckles pale as bone. “Do it!”

“Don’t you dare!” Harmona screeched, voice raw.

But Maggie’s sob shook the air. “You don’t understand, mother! I’d rather kill him myself than watch you wear his face and use him to hurt everyone I care about. He would want this, he would want me to stop him before it’s too late.”

Her arm moved before I could even breathe, and instead of turning the dagger toward me like I had so feared, she drove it straight into Jade’s stomach, her scream ripping through the air like something jagged and raw.

“No!” I cried out, my hands grabbing her arm too late, my entire chest collapsing as I watched the blade sink deep, and watched Jade’s body jerk violently as the wraith inside him wailed in fury.

Jade gasped, blood spilling from his lips, but at the same time a horrifyingly radiant red light burst out of him, filling the entire place in a blinding wave. I shielded my eyes, stumbling backward with Maggie as the light consumed everything, drowning out even my own sobs. His voice echoed in that light, broken and raw. “What have you done!”

And still, the red light burned, swallowing us whole, leaving me unsure if what we destroyed was Jade… or the wraith that had taken him.