Chapter 187 the queens property
chapter 187: queens property
Damon pov
"They have breached the border with at least two hundred soldiers. Alpha, we need you now!"
The world seemed to tilt sideways. Milo was pregnant, vulnerable, carrying our child. And the Queen… the monster who had caused us bloodshed and heavy losses was at our gates.
"How long do we have?" My voice was steady despite the fear that was clawing at my insides.
"Minutes, maybe less. They are moving fast, Alpha. Faster than anything we've seen before."
I looked down at Milo, still cradled in my arms, tears drying on his cheeks. His hand was pressed protectively over his stomach, over our child, and I saw the moment his fear transformed into something else.
Determination.
"I have to go," I told Milo, but he was already getting out of bed.
"I am coming with you."
"Absolutely not." The alpha command slipped into my voice without thinking. "You are pregnant. You stay here where it's safe."
"You can't sideline me because of this," he argued, that purple glow flaring brighter.
"I'm not sidelining you. I'm protecting you and protecting our child." I gripped his shoulders. "Please, Milo. I can't fight if I'm worried about you."
"The safe house," Daphne interrupted us, preventing milo from counteracting my words "I will take him there with the others myself"
Another alarm blast again. This time, it sounded desperate and Closer.
"I can help," Milo insisted. "With my power and maybe I can stop this without bloodshed."
"Or maybe you will make yourself a target." I pulled him against me, breathing in his scent like it was the last time I would ever hold him. "Please. For me. For our pup. Follow Daphne to the safe house."
I felt his resistance crumble through our bond. "Promise me you will be careful."
"I promise."
He pulled me down for a kiss that tasted of tears and desperation. "I love you."
"I love you too."
"Go," he said quietly.
"Milo…"
"Go, Damon. The pack needs their Alpha." His voice was stronger now, steadier, least not shaky. But why was I still rooted on the floor, my legs refusing. To leave his side.
"I'll be safe here with Daphne. But our people need you."
Every instinct I had screamed against leaving him. But he was right. The pack needed me. And if I didn't stop the Queen's forces now, there would be no safe place for any of us, or for our baby.
"Daphne, don't let him out of your sight," I commanded, hardening my jaws that instant.
"Understood, Alpha."
I looked at my mate again, I felt a pang in my chest. He was staring at me with that familiar guilty expression like when he was about to, or has already done something wrong.
“But what…” I wondered.
I moved back, holding his head, to connect our lips for the second time. I kissed Milo hard, and desperately, pouring everything I couldn't say into it, love, fear, promise, desperation. We only separated because of our need for air, his eyes were glowing purple again, but this time with love and determination rather than distress.
"Come back to us," he whispered.
"Always."
I turned to the warrior that was staring with wide eyes, feeling the shift begin even as I moved. "Let's go kill a Queen."
The transformation shook my entire body, dax almost bursting out even before I made it out of the pack clinic.
The sound of the door slamming shut vibrated through my inner being, I paused, my wolf suddenly going into full chaos inside my head, clamouring to go back to its mate.
“Alpha it's this way!” thankfully the warriors voice snapped me out of deciding to rush back to milos side.
Ahead I could hear the sound of battle happening at the distance
As we ran, the warrior fell in step behind me, as we headed towards the northern border, where the queens forces were.
The closer we got, the more my blood boiled to let go. Bodies were already scattered on the floor. I frowned,
something was wrong, I could feel it strongly now that I was already at the pack borders. It was like an inbred feeling of constant years of being involved in so many dangerous and numerous wars to smell the wrongness into the air.
"How many?" I asked James, who had come to welcome me.
"At least a hundred. Maybe more. They're not attacking yet, just... waiting."
That was strange. The Queen's forces were known for swift, brutal strikes. Waiting wasn't their style.
Or were they stalling?
When we reached the border, I understood why. They weren't arranged for battle and they were arranged for a demonstration. A show of power meant to intimidate any weaker force.
But that was the problem, I was not some weaker force that could be intimidated.
"Sir," one of my scouts reported. "They are carrying a white banner. They want to talk."
"It's a trap," James said immediately.
"Obviously." But I was curious. The Queen didn't negotiate. She commanded. So why this?
"I will go," I decided.
"Damon, no," James protested.
"They came to talk, which is strange, but let's hear what they have to say."
Jaws dropped in the emergency round table meeting. I could see their thoughts even though none dared to say it out aloud.
I was becoming soft.
I approached the border slowly, letting my alpha power roll out ahead of me. It formed a thick line of defence against any mental attack by the queen herself. The Queen's soldiers all lined the edges of my pack borders, numbering double.what james had but that was not the main issue.
They were all enhanced. Genetically modified.
I sucked in a ragged breath. I felt the urge to throw up in disgust.
The Queen's soldiers were all ferals.and I could smell the wrongness of them, wolves twisted by experimentation into something more and less than natural.
That was something I had skipped when I was explaining to Milo about the feral in the goddess cave.
A rather familiar figure stepped forward from their ranks. A woman with white hair and pale blue eyes that marked her as northern royalty. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
I stiffened,
Caroline!!
"Alpha Damon. Long time no see.”
I clenched my fist hard, fighting the urge to damn all protocols and attack with immediate effect.
“You…”
“Aww, somebody is still holding grudges, aren't we?” She said, smiling evilly.
She stood in the middle of the Queen's forces. not in the least afraid that I might attack her.
“You dare come back after betraying this pack.” I growled, “After sparing your life the last time, this is how you chose to repay me.”
"Are you done Damon, gush you are so ancient and full of yourself, that you couldn't even realise when somebody is hiding something from you."
I felt her words go through me, hitting home. “What are you talking about, Caroline!” I asked, but in my ears it sounded like a plea.
“Ohh, don't mind my running mouth, that's not why we are here,”
My eyes rose in carefully concealed surprise.
“Then why are you here?”
" to deliver a message." She pulled out a scroll, old-fashioned and dramatic. "From Her Majesty, Queen Millen of the North."
Millen. The Queen had a name. Somehow that made her more real, more dangerous.
"What does she want?"
"Oh, nothing much." Caroline's smile widened. "Just your complete surrender, the dissolution of your alliance, and the return of her property."
"We have nothing of hers."
"Don't you?" She tilted her head. "The Moonblessed omega currently hiding in your safe house? The little pet slave that you have been fucking all this time. He belongs to the queen."
My wolf snarled, and it took everything I had not to shift right there. "Milo belongs to no one but himself."
"Milo." She laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass. "Is that what he told you his name was?"