Chapter 123 Hundred and twenty eight
“Ryder, get up,” Sienna whispered fiercely, gripping his shoulders as the last echo of the goddess’s presence bled into the night like poisoned mist.
He staggered but didn’t fall, breath shuddering as he fought the curse tearing through him. “She’s still here,” he rasped, voice strained and jagged. “I feel her. I feel her inside my skull. Sienna, we need to move.”
“Then move with me,” she said, pulling him despite the tremor in her own limbs. “The Citadel is burning. Zane’s soldiers will sweep through these ruins any second. If they find you like this, ”
“They’ll kill me,” he finished. “Or worse, drag you down trying.”
She didn’t deny it. She couldn’t. War cries cracked through the night like splintering bone, carried by the wind along with the distant roar of collapsing towers. Smoke blurred the horizon. Embers rained like dying stars. The lower city was swallowed in chaos, the screams rolling like thunder up the hillside toward the old temple grounds where they stood.
Ryder wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “We don’t have much time.”
“Then stop arguing and run,” she said, tugging his arm again.
His hand tightened around hers instinctively, as if the contact both steadied him and threatened to tear him open at once. “Sienna, I can’t promise what the curse will do if, ”
“Ryder,” she snapped, eyes burning. “I’m not leaving without you.”
He stared at her as if trying to memorize that sentence, trying to anchor himself to something other than the agony ripping through his veins. “Then we run,” he said finally, and his voice broke in the middle.
They ran.
Not toward the city, away from it, into the thick, ancient forest beyond the temple ruins, where the pathways twisted like old memories and the shadows moved like living things. The moon above them flickered again, wounded and pale, shifting the light across the landscape in strange, shivering waves as if the sky itself were struggling to stay whole.
Branches tore at their clothes as they pushed through. The smoke trailing from the Citadel carried heat even here, warming the forest floor beneath their feet.
“Faster,” Sienna urged, hearing the distant pounding of boots as Zane’s men advanced. “They’re tracking us.”
Ryder’s breath grew harsher. “They won’t find you. Not tonight.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He glanced back at her. “You’re the queen they want to break. I’m the curse they want to cage. We’re worth more alive than dead.”
“And that doesn’t make me feel better,” she muttered.
Ryder almost smiled despite himself. “Didn’t expect it to.”
A tree cracked somewhere behind them, split clean through, like something massive had collided with it. They both froze.
Sienna whispered, “What was that?”
Ryder’s eyes darkened. “Not Zane’s men.”
“Then who?”
He shook his head. “Not who. What. There are things that move when the goddess descends. Things that answer her steps.”
Sienna felt her heartbeat trip. “Are they following us?”
“No,” Ryder said. “They’re hunting me.”
“And you still want me to leave you behind?” she shot back.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
She tightened her grip. “Not happening.”
Another crack echoed through the forest, closer this time, followed by the low, guttural snarl of something not wholly mortal. Ryder shifted instinctively, putting his body in front of hers.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured.
“No.”
“Sienna, ”
“No.”
He exhaled harshly. “You really have forgotten who the alpha is, haven’t you?”
She lifted her chin. “You’re not giving orders right now. You’re bleeding.”
“And you’re impossible,” he muttered.
“And you love that about me.”
He froze just long enough that she regretted saying it.
Then he whispered, quieter than the wind, “I do.”
Before either of them could breathe again, a spear flew through the trees, nearly grazing Ryder’s shoulder before burying itself in an oak behind him. Sienna gasped, yanking him aside.
“Zane’s men,” Ryder hissed. “They’ve spread farther than I thought.”
A torch flared ahead of them. Another behind. The forest lit up as figures emerged from the shadows, surrounding them in a tightening circle. Wolves and warriors, blades drawn, armor dented with the dirt and blood of the burning city.
Sienna cursed under her breath. “We can’t fight all of them.”
Ryder straightened, the curse burning silver in his eyes. “Then stay behind me.”
“No,” she said again.
This time he didn’t argue.
The nearest soldier stepped forward. “Your Majesty,” he sneered, bowing mockingly. “You’re far from your throne.”
Sienna stepped slightly to Ryder’s side. “Stand down. I won’t warn you twice.”
The man laughed. “You hear that, boys? Our precious queen thinks she’s still in charge.”
Ryder’s voice dropped low. “She is.”
“Oh?” the soldier smirked. “Then what’s that beside her? The monster the council wanted dead? The traitor the kingdom spat out? The curse the goddess herself marked as doom?”
Ryder’s jaw clenched hard enough to crack.
Sienna’s fingers brushed his. “Don’t listen. Don’t react. That’s what they want.”
But his breathing was already changing, deepening, darkening. The curse surged, tasting threat and violence. The edges of his form flickered, just faintly, like the beginning of a shift, but not the shift of a wolf. Something else. Something older.
The soldiers noticed.
One whispered, terrified, “That’s him, the Ghost Alpha.”
Another snarled, “He’s not getting out of this forest alive.”
Ryder growled softly, and the air vibrated. The soldiers flinched.
Sienna squeezed his hand. “Ryder. Look at me.”
He did.
She held his gaze firmly. “Stay with me. Not with the curse.”
The forest pulsed with tension.
The soldiers stepped forward,
And Ryder moved.
Not shifting.
Not losing control.
Not falling into darkness.
He moved like shadow and force, cutting through the circle with feral, terrifying precision. Not a wolf. Not a man. Something in between, something made by the moonlight and broken fate. He disarmed the first attacker with a twist, sent another crashing into a tree, dodged a third’s blade so swiftly the man stumbled and dropped his weapon in shock.
Sienna fought beside him, her movements sharp and trained, the blade she carried flashing once, twice, striking with deadly accuracy. Together they moved as if the years apart hadn’t existed, as if their bodies remembered the rhythm of fighting side by side long before their minds did.
But there were too many.
More soldiers arrived from deeper in the forest, their shadows flickering between the trees as they closed the noose around them.
Ryder grabbed Sienna’s wrist. “We need to move.”
“How?” she asked, breathless.
He jerked his head toward the river gorge in the distance, a drop steep enough to kill a normal wolf. “Down there.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll die.”
“Not if you jump with me.”
Another blade flew toward them. Ryder caught it with his bare hand, blood streaming instantly. The soldiers shouted, charging again.
“Sienna,” he said urgently, “jump with me.”
She hesitated only a heartbeat, staring into his eyes, seeing the fear, the determination, the devotion threaded beneath all the pain.
“Fine,” she whispered.
They ran.
The soldiers chased, furious shouts echoing through the trees.
The ground trembled beneath their feet as they reached the edge of the ravine, the river roaring violently below.
Sienna grabbed Ryder’s hand.
He squeezed tight.
“Hold your breath,” he murmured.
She whispered, “I trust you.”
They leapt.
The forest vanished above them.
The sky twisted.
Wind roared in their ears.
Ryder pulled her close mid-fall, shielding her body with his as they plummeted toward the churning waters below,
But before they struck the river’s surface, a familiar voice curled through the air, soft and ancient and merciless.
“You cannot run from destiny.”
Lunaris’s shadow fell across them,
And everything shattered into blinding silver light.