Claimed By The Mafia Rogue King (Snow and Cupid) novel Chapter 284

Chapter 284

Snowflakes

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It is like a shrine, like a ritual, only this one unfolds on the Celestial Ground itself, where the veil between flesh and spirit is gossamer–thin.

Aunt Bloom leads me forward, her fingers steady around my wrist, and I step across the final threshold into the holy ground.

The instant my bare feet touch the smooth marble floor, holiness rushes through me like a cold, electric tide, thrilling, terrifying, sacred.

It races along my veins, raising every hair on my body, making my scalp prickle and my breath catch. The air itself feels alive, humming with power older than memory.

The chamber is vast yet intimate. Towering shelves line the curved walls, heavy with ancient tomes bound in moon–bleached leather and silver clasps.

Across from them, a low altar of white stone gleams under soft, floating orbs of light. On the floor, dozens of candles are already lit, tall white pillars arranged in a perfect circle, their flames steady and unnaturally still, as though time itself bows here.

Aunt Bloom turns to Desmond and Cupid, her expression grave.

“Once we begin, there can be no interference. A spell will be cast to draw forth what prevents her transformation. Once the circle is formed, no one may cross its threshold, not even to help.”

Cupid swallows hard. His gaze snaps to me, green eyes wide with fear he cannot hide.

Concern etches deep lines around his mouth; his hands flex at his sides like he wants to reach for me, pull me out of whatever is coming.

I try to give him a small, reassuring smile, I’m okay, I’m here, but it feels fragile, and it does nothing to ease the storm in his expression.

After a long heartbeat he nods to Aunt Bloom reluctantly, pained and she offers me a gentle smile.

“You should kneel, my dear.”

obey without hesitation, lowering myself to my knees in the exact center of the candle circle.

My heart climbs into my throat as she moves around me, placing additional candles at precise intervals until the ring is complete.

The flames flare brighter the moment the last one is lit, forming a perfect, unbroken wall of golden light around me.

She gestures silently to Cupid and Desmond. They step back, far enough that the circle’s edge lies between us. Cupid’s eyes never eave mine. He looks like he is holding his breath.

Aunt Bloom walks to the nearest shelf, selects a slim volume bound in black velvet, and lowers her head in silent prayer.

The instant she does, a soft, cold wind swirls into existence, rising from nowhere, carrying the scent of night–blooming jasmine and

ozone.

My skin prickles violently. I have felt priestesses at Mooncrest perform lesser rites before, but nothing like this. The power here is

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Chapter 284

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immense, ancient, alive.

A low, resonant howl echoes through the chamber not from any throat I can see, but from the air itself.

Then her werewolf emerges seamlessly, spectral, beautiful. A massive silver–white form steps free of Aunt Bloom’s body while she remains perfectly still, eyes closed in concentration.

The spirit wolf turns its luminous gaze on me. I hold my breath as it pads forward, silent, deliberate until it stands directly before

1. me.

It lowers its head, nostrils flaring as though scenting my soul.

Then it leaps.

I nearly scream, the sound lodges in my throat but the wolf dissolves into shimmering mist right before it touches me.

The mist pours into my chest like smoke, and heat explodes inside me fiercely, searing, contradictory.

I am freezing and burning at once. My vision blurs. Reality slips sideways. I feel myself floating, weightless, euphoric for one dizzying second, happy, untethered until Aunt Bloom’s voice cuts through the haze like a bell.

“Do not allow it. You are being deceived. In the midst of the air, of the floating, search for her. Your spirit wolf. Search and you will find it.”

I struggle, squeezing my eyes shut as pain lances through my heart sharply, relentless. I collapse forward onto my palms, gasping. Cupid’s voice cracks through the fog.

“Snow!”

“Stay back, Cupid,” Aunt Bloom warns sharply. “Do not cross the circle. Search through the happy moments, my dear. The sad moments. The loneliness. Where is your werewolf? Why has your spirit guardian chosen to let you suffer alone? You are no human so why are you wolfless?”

“I see it,” I whisper, voice thin and exhausted. “I see it now. A werewolf.”

“Where is it?” Aunt Bloom’s tone sharpens with urgency. “What has happened to it? Tell me, Mooncrest. How?”

Pain surges again, white–hot, blinding. I writhe, curling in on myself. My vision tunnels; darkness creeps at the edges.

“You cannot slip away,” Aunt Bloom commands. “Find your werewolf. Tell me where it is. What has been done to it. Why will it not surface?”

I force myself to reach one more time, desperate, clawing through the haze and then I see it clearly.

A werewolf, magnificent, black–and–white fur shimmering like moonlight on obsidian but bound in thick silver chains that glow with malevolent runes.

It floats in darkness, suspended, helpless, eyes dull with exhaustion.

The candles around me flare once bright, blinding, then gutter out in perfect unison the second I flew my eyes opened.

I collapse forward onto the marble, breath ragged, body trembling.

Aunt Bloom hurries to my side, gentle hands lifting me to sit upright. She cradles my face, thumbs wiping the blood that has

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