134

134
Kieran's POV

The mud dragged at my boots, trying to swallow me whole every time I pushed forward. Onyx didn’t care. He tore through me like a blade unsheathed, and the shadows answered before I even called them, black ropes lashing out, splitting a mirehound’s jaw and stuffing smoke down its throat until it choked on the darkness.

Even with claws buried in rot, I felt her.

Maeve.

Her heartbeat thudded through the bond like a broken drum, too slow but she was Alive. Terrified. Screaming. And every scream burned through me like it was mine.

I vaulted a carcass slick with oil and lightning-char, slid under a shade-stag’s antlers, and came up with shadow already scything. The stag folded like wet canvas. Bonecrow wings thundered overhead. The ground shook with the lycans’ line bracing and breaking and bracing again.

“Maeve!” My roar split my throat, useless against distance and the storm, but I couldn’t stop it. If I stopped I’d drown in what I heard in our tether—her breath hitching like sobs, the scrape of chains on something softer than bone.

Rowen slammed into my side, Axel ripping a crow in half above us so the corpse rained feathers and black fire. “Stay with me!” he barked, bleeding from one ear, eyes bright and feral.

I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t. Onyx’s voice rumbled in my skull, deep and certain: She is ours. She is dying. Tear the world apart if you must, but bring her back.

“I will,” I snarled, shadows snapping out to hook a mirehound’s hind legs and yank until its hips broke with a wet pop. My hands shook. My veins were on fire. Let me burn. If it brought me to her, I’d scorch everything in my path.

Lucian’s command clawed the back of my head: Do not engage her. Kill the beasts. Hold the lines. No one touches the girl.

“Fuck your orders,” I hissed—whether he heard me or not. “She’s not a weapon. She’s our mate.”

Brinley hit the mud beside us, Raiyna shouldering her skin aside midair. Red fur, bared teeth, a streak of fury that leapt for the nearest stag and tore its throat clean. She landed, shaking blood from her muzzle.

Another beast lunged for me. Onyx flowed up my spine; my fingers went to claws, and for one hot second I let them stay just to feel how close the edge was. The shadows surged like a tide. They wanted everything. They wanted me.

Brinley skidded to a halt, shifting hard enough that her scream scraped the air. Human again, panting, blood up to her elbows. “She’s alive,” she gasped. “She answered. I felt her.”

My head whipped toward her. “Where?”

“Everywhere.” She looked half-frantic, half holy. “She’s everywhere and she’s terrified.”

The bond thrummed with her words—and then I heard it.

…Kieran.

Her voice. Weak. Cracking. But hers.

My knees almost gave. “I’ve got you,” I rasped. “I’m here… I’m—”

She won’t let me, that voice broke, raw with tears. She’s too strong.

The bond twisted—Maeve thrashing, clawing, screaming. Her pain flayed me raw. I couldn’t breathe around it.

And I knew.

Rowen’s face was ash. “What the hell is happening?”

Brinley’s voice shook. “The night Delilah died… that’s when it started. Delilah was one of the Children of the Moon—the coven that slaughtered the golden wolves. Maeve didn’t just kill an enemy. She spilled blood tied to that massacre. That’s when Valeriese must have started to come forward... She mentioned a darkenss taking over...”

The words stabbed, one after another. Thornwell. The cutting. Maeve whispering kill her when she goes too far. All of it snapped into terrible focus.

“Gods,” I said, tasting copper. “We let her fight this alone.”

Onyx snarled, molten with fury. Then fight now. Tear it out. Tear her free..

I roared until my throat tore. Shadows erupted from me, a black tide slamming bonecrows out of the sky so bodies rained, snapping necks on the wall. The line cheered and someone screamed and it all blended to a single sound: war.

“I know,” I said to a storm that didn’t care. “I know, I know—I swear to the gods, I’ll save you. Even if it kills me.”

Somewhere under the scream of wind, Stormi howled back—thin, breaking, alive.

I jerked my chin at the ridge where Maeve.. Valeriese—stood in stormlight like a crowned executioner.

Lucian’s command slammed into us again, hard enough to spark: Hold the line! Do not—

“—engage her,” I finished flatly, already moving. “I’m done obeying orders that let her drown.”

Rowen’s gaze cut to mine. He nodded once. No question. No hesitation. He was done too.

Brinley grabbed my shoulder. “If we rush that ridge, she’ll use you. Both of you. She’s already in your shadows, Kieran—I can feel her clawing at you through the bond.”

On cue, the world tilted. Black crept in at the edges, not like Onyx, not like my power—colder, older. A voice that sounded like Maeve but wasn’t purred in my ear: You’ve always loved the dark. Why pretend? Step into it and I’ll give her back to you. For a price.

I snapped my teeth on the offer so hard pain flared up the hinge of my jaw. “You sound like a liar.”

Valeriese said sweetly. "You of all people should understand that."

Onyx surged, a growl that shook my bones. We are the night by choice, not by chain. Get out of my head.

The pressure eased—a fraction. Enough to breathe.

I pulled power the way Maeve taught me when my hands still remembered her warmth: three points on the ground, count your breaths backward, pull from your shadow, not the earth—never the earth.. Not that she listened.

I inhaled. Than exhaled. Built a wall of ink-dark between our wedge and the nearest swarm. It rose slick and high, catching bonecrows mid-dive so they crumpled, beaks breaking on a surface that shouldn’t have been there.
.
“On me,” Rowen barked. He took point, Axel low and lethal. Brinley slid to my left, Raiyna riding the edge of her skin, claws itching to break free. We moved. A wedge. The lycans caught our flanks because they’re smarter than their size makes them look, and because dying beside wolves is something they’ve always done proudly.

We punched into the tide. Hound, stag, crow. Blood, lightning, smoke. Twice I saw students I’d trained go down, and twice I ripped the thing that took them apart like it owed me an apology. The third time I was too late. I didn’t look at his face. I already knew it.

You like this, Valeriese cooed. You always have. You were born to hunt.
“I was born to love her,” I snarled aloud. “Everything else is a side effect.”

Her laugh curled sweet through my veins. Then come collect what’s yours.