237

237
Malrik POV
The entire ride back from Strowhowl felt like drowning with my heart lodged in my throat. Every mile dragged, each tick of the clock a lifetime.
I’d been a fool a blind, arrogant fool. I’d trusted the wrong man and delivered the very person I’d sworn to protect straight into his hands.
How had I missed it?
How had I been so blind?
Zebulon’s voice wouldn’t stop echoing inside my skull: All your information came from Roarke. He shaped your view. He moved you like a piece on his board.
He hadn’t been wrong. Every step I’d taken had been within Roarke’s shadow, every choice guided, manipulated, orchestrated.
And now
Dravina.
My fingers dug into the edge of the seat until my knuckles cracked. The need to get home burned like acid in my veins.
By the time the gates of my territory came into view, that acid turned to fire real fire.
Smoke rolled skyward in heavy plumes.
Bodies. Blood.
Everywhere.
They hadn’t even tried to disguise the slaughter.
We were too late.
I didn’t need proof anymore. Zebulon had been telling the truth.
And then the enemy was upon us Ashflow traitors mixed with Roarke’s soldiers, a tide of violence breaking before we even had time to draw breath.
I shifted mid-sprint, Hade bursting through them like a storm born of vengeance. Cassian and Quillan followed, feral and relentless.
We fought like men stripped of everything but rage. Because this wasn’t only about Dravina now. This was war.
If Roarke had orchestrated something as monstrous as the Fiji Massacre, then no one no mate, no family, no future was safe.
Politics were over.
This was blood for blood.
If he succeeded, another Mad King would rise and none of us could allow that.
But in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the future. I was thinking about her. Dravina.
Over my dead body would Roarke touch her again. Not after everything. Not after what we had bled through just to reach this chance.
And if he did manage it… then what was I but a failure?
Maybe Cassian was the better mate. At least he hadn’t brought the enemy into his home or exposed her like this.
That thought alone turned me savage.
Hade ripped through the battlefield, snarling with a desperation so sharp it stung. His panic fed mine until I became nothing but muscle, teeth, and vengeance.
We carved through traitors like a hurricane of blades.
The gates gave way under our assault.
We were inside.
The settlement still burned, still bled
and still fought.
Even through the chaos, even with our own people turning against us, they had held the line.
How?
How were they still standing?
Then I saw her.
A sleek wolf, white fur slashed by a single grey streak blue eyes fierce as lightning.
She wasn’t just fighting.
She was commanding.
Compulsion flickered around her like a weapon: shielding, disarming, directing the battlefield as if she were a general moving pieces with her mind.
Around her moved Ansel’s white wolf, Tavian’s grey, my aunt’s golden brown, and others all of them striking Roarke’s forces in perfect unison.
My chest tightened with something far heavier than relief something closer to awe.
She had led them.
My mate.
My Luna.
She had held the line.
And then I saw him.
Roarke’s wolf.
If you could even call that thing a wolf.
Its fur came in patches. Its limbs were grotesquely long. Its eyes glowed too bright, too red, like something unholy burned inside. It was a creature warped by science and obsession a monster of his own making.
And it was moving straight for her.
My vision blurred.
Hade broke.
Because no matter what Roarke believed, he wasn’t getting to her.
Not while I was still breathing.
I couldn’t think straight until the battle was over until I had her in my arms.
When I finally reached her, I buried my face in her neck, inhaling her scent like oxygen. She was here. She was alive. My recklessness hadn’t stolen her life.
She had fought for this
for us, for the future we were just beginning to build.
I held her tighter, and for the first time in hours, my world steadied.
We left the others behind, walking in silence back to our room.
No words were necessary.