Chapter 71: Amber
She adjusted the leather at her wrist, fingers trembling faintly though she masked it well. The hum inside her, it wasn’t just anticipation anymore. It was alive, awake and it had settled into a rhythm beneath her skin that didn’t belong solely to her.
Damian stepped behind her, his presence grounding but heavy. He didn’t speak. Instead, he reached for the strap across her back, adjusting it with a deliberate slowness. His knuckles grazed her spine, and her breath caught in her throat. Every touch from him still lit something deep inside her, a fire, yes, but now it was more. Now it stirred that humming core of energy coiled like a storm in her belly, whispering promises she didn’t yet understand.
She turned, their eyes locking.
“I’m ready,” she said, though the words barely held shape. She didn’t know if she meant for the mission, the awakening inside her, or him.
His silver gaze searched hers, lingering in a way that made her heart stutter. There was something wild in his expression, something raw and barely contained. For a breath, she saw it, the urge to pull her back into the tent, to seal them away from everything waiting outside. From the ancient bloodlines, the wolves, the bond that tied them too tightly together.
But the Alpha in him took over. The protector. The leader. He forced the desire back into his bones and gave a sharp nod.
“Then we move at first light.”
But they didn’t move. Not yet.
The silence in the tent pressed in around them like smoke, thick with want and fear and the unknown. Isla reached up slowly, her palm resting over his chest.
She felt the steady thrum of his heart, but more than that, she felt herself, the strange, electric bond that tethered them. It crackled under her skin.
“I know I’m changing,” she murmured.
Damian’s jaw clenched. “You don’t have to face it alone.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think I’m afraid of what I’ll become if I do.”
Without another word, he crushed his mouth to hers. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was fire and desperation, all teeth and tongue and hunger. She melted into it, into him. The tension they’d carried for days unraveled at once, their bodies colliding with a need too long denied.
He lifted her easily, guiding her to the makeshift bed of furs. The armor fell away piece by piece as he stripped it from her, his hands reverent, then rough. She gasped as his lips dragged down her neck, over her collarbone, to the swell of her breast. His growl vibrated through her skin.
“Say it,” he demanded between kisses. “Tell me you’re still mine.”
“I’ve always been yours,” she breathed, curling her fingers into his hair, tugging him closer.
He kissed her again, slower now, as though memorizing her shape with his mouth. When he entered her, it was with a tenderness that bordered on sacred.
Their movements were frantic at first, heat and instinct taking over, but it didn’t stay that way.
Soon, he slowed down and worshipped her, as only he knew how to.
His forehead pressed to hers. “Whatever this bond is... whatever’s waking inside you... I don’t care. I’ll still fight for you.”
Her nails raked gently down his back and he shuddered.
“You don’t have to,” she whispered. “I’m choosing you.”
They moved together, a rhythm born of something ancient. Each cry and moan echoed like a vow, binding them tighter. The air in the tent shimmered with heat and magic, both tangible now, bleeding from her skin like light. When she shattered around him, she felt it pulse through the ground, a tremor that rippled through the forest beyond.
He followed her moments later, burying his face in her neck with a low, reverent growl.
Afterward, neither spoke. She lay in the circle of his arms, his fingers trailing slow, grounding paths along her skin.
She didn’t sleep. Not truly. Her mind was too full of echoes, of names she didn’t remember but somehow knew, of power that stirred just beneath her flesh.
They left before dawn, the path winding into ancient woods, trunks gnarled and twisted with age. Bark carved with symbols that hadn’t been spoken in centuries.
The deeper they traveled, the more the world changed.
The air shimmered, first like heat and then like fog. Cold crept in, thick and pressing. Magic stirred beneath their boots. Isla stumbled. Her fingers reached out instinctively, catching a moss-slicked boulder.
The pulse was stronger now, no longer whispering, but roaring like blood in her ears.
Damian was at her side in a blink. “Isla?”
“I… I don’t know. It’s getting stronger.”
Alaine appeared, pale and focused. “We’re close. I can feel it too, but whatever this is… it’s not meant for us.”
Brienne’s hand hovered near her weapon. “Should we stop?”
“No.” Isla straightened, voice flat. Unflinching. “We keep going.”
The ruins emerged like bones from the forest, stone fractured by time, wrapped in vines. Symbols pulsed along the archway, glowing faintly. She could feel them, like heat on her skin.
A wind rose, circling them, spinning ash and leaves.
A voice, ancient and deep, echoed inside her.
Welcome, blood of echoes.
She dropped to her knees. Visions struck her mind like lightning.
A woman beneath a blood moon.
A man with golden eyes.
A child, marked by fire, as wolves bowed low.
Damian caught her as she fell.
Her eyes opened, and had turned into amber. His breath caught.
“I remember,” Isla said. Her voice carried another beneath it, like two notes on the same chord.
The forest groaned. The ruins pulsed.
The First Bloodline was not a myth and neither was she.