Chapter 111 – Not Today, But Soon
Damian didn’t let go.
He held Isla as if his strength alone could anchor her in this storm. His arms were unyielding around her, the steady beat of his heart thundering against her cheek like a war drum. But even within that fortress of muscle and love, Isla couldn’t quiet the hum beneath her skin, the whisper of something ancient stirring in her blood.
It wasn’t just fear. It was power. She desired it as a lover’s kiss but also dreaded it wholeheartedly. It was unfamiliar and like a wild beast because you never knew if it would attack. It was growing stronger by the day.
Then there was the ultimate force that was her child.ñ their child and the force that came with it.
A force Raven had warned them about in hushed tones and veiled prophecy. You won’t survive the birth, Isla. What grows inside you is not wholly wolf.
Isla’s throat tightened when Raven had finally spilled the beans of what Silas and her had truly unveiled.
She pressed her face deeper into Damian’s chest, willing the tremor in her voice to fade before she spoke.
“I need you to promise me something,” she whispered.
His hold on her tightened, arms drawing her impossibly closer. “Anything.”
Her hands fisted into the fabric of his linen shirt. “If it ever comes to it, if this power inside me becomes something I can’t control, I need you to do whatever it takes to protect our pack. Even from me.”
Damian stiffened and slowly and deliberately, he pulled back just enough to meet her gaze. His dark eyes flared, not with fear, but something far more dangerous, defiance. “Don’t you dare ask me that.”
“You have to consider…”
“No,” he growled. The word struck the air like steel. “I won’t consider it. I don’t care what this power is. I don’t care what Raven said. You are mine, Isla. You. Not whatever magic runs through your veins. I will never raise a hand against you. Do you understand me?”
Emotion swelled hot and thick in her chest, threatening to shatter her resolve. She nodded, even though a part of her, the part already changing, whispered that love might not be enough. Not against what was coming.
Not against what she was becoming.
But Damian believed and in that moment, she clung to his belief like a lifeline.
Beyond the safety of the stronghold, shadows moved.
Vincent prowled through the ruins of an old temple, his hand trailing along the cracked stone walls that still pulsed faintly with forgotten magic. Every step was calculated, every breath a promise of reckoning and beside him, bound in silence and steel, was Brienne.
She glared at him with a fire that hadn’t dimmed, despite days and weeks in captivity. She had resisted him at every turn, clawing through illusion and manipulation with a will he hadn’t expected. Although she couldn’t deny the deadly attraction she felt.
But Vincent wasn’t worried. She was the key. Not just to Isla, but to something older and deeper within them both. He could feel the threads between them, between all of them, tightening.
Fate was already in motion and soon, Isla would see the truth.
Back at the keep, Brienne’s absence was a wound that refused to scab over. Isla felt it constantly, like pressure behind her eyes, like a whisper in her dreams. It wasn’t just fear for her best friend. It was something older. A call she couldn’t name.
Vincent had her. That alone made Isla’s blood run cold.But it was more than Brienne. It was about the past, about the strange pull she felt and about the shadows Isla kept catching in her own reflection.
It was all connected and Damian knew it too.
He stood hunched over the map table in the strategy room, his jaw clenched, eyes scanning the territory like a predator looking for a crack in the earth. His whole body vibrated with barely leashed tension.
“We need to move soon,” he muttered, voice hoarse.
“We will,” Isla replied, stepping beside him. “But we can’t go in blind. Vincent wants something. We need to understand what.”
He turned his gaze to her, golden eyes catching the flickering torchlight, burning with the knowledge that their time was running out.
“He wants to destroy everything I’ve built. Everything I love.”
She reached out, lacing her fingers through his. “Then we make sure he fails.”
For a heartbeat, the weight of the war between them lifted. Damian turned to her with something raw in his expression, like he was seeing her not just as Alpha, not just as the bearer of an unborn force, but as the only thing holding him together.
In another corner of the fortress, Lucia sat before the fire, her hands outstretched to the flames. Rohen stood nearby, arms crossed, eyes unreadable.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
Lucia didn’t look at him. “I’m listening.”
“To what?”
“To fate.”
Rohen’s brow furrowed.
She turned her gaze to him, her voice quieter now. “There are debts we haven’t paid. Things we buried. But the past doesn’t stay buried.”
His silence was a confirmation.
Lucia saw it in his eyes, recognition, from old guilt and old memories that hadn’t faded. In her bones, Lucia felt it too.
This wasn’t just Isla’s story. The storm that was coming… it was tied to all of them.
Outside, at the edge of the training grounds, Alaine and Leo sparred.
Their blades danced, the clash of steel ringing through the dusk.
“You’re hesitating,” Alaine teased, eyes sharp as her blade.
Leo smirked, parrying her strike. “I don’t hesitate. I calculate.”
She lunged, quick and precise. But instead of blocking, Leo caught her wrist and twisted, dragging her flush against him. The tension shifted instantly. Their breaths caught and eyes locked.
Alaine could feel every inch of him, his strength, his restraint and his heat. Her pulse thundered in her ears, but she refused to look away.
Leo’s voice dropped, husky. “You keep pushing, Alaine. One day, you’re going to push too far.”
She didn’t flinch. “Maybe I want to see what’s past the edge.”
His grip on her wrist tightened, controlled and deliberate and then, just as quickly, he let go.
“Not today,” he murmured.
But Alaine saw it, the flicker in his eyes. The truth he wouldn’t say… Those words repeated in her head “Not today, but soon.” When that day came, she wouldn’t run anymore but face the truth as they had been talking about.