Chapter 61 Back to Dravenmoor

Chapter 61 Back to Dravenmoor
61: Back to Dravenmoor

There are many ways to wake up after saving the world. Some people open their eyes to applause. Some wake up to flowers and dramatic victory speeches. Me?

I woke up choking on air and aggressively slapping the floor like a fish that fell out of its tank.

My lungs burned. My bones felt like they were made of sand. The stone beneath me was cold. For one long terrifying second, I couldn’t remember who I was, where I was, or why everything hurt.

Then the memories hit like a truck.

The altar.
The ritual.
Lucian in my arms.
Light everywhere.
And then everything going dark.

My hand flew to my chest. I was breathing. I was alive. Which was a miracle by itself, but survival was not the first thing my brain panicked about.

Lucian.

My eyes snapped open fully. I sat up so fast the world spun. The cavern around me glowed faintly with dying moonlight symbols. The relic shards that once tried to kill me now lay scattered around me with a soft lifeless shimmer.

But Lucian was not there.

My heart stopped. Completely. I scrambled to my feet even though my legs felt like spaghetti. My voice ripped out of me before I could control it.

“Lucian.”

The echo mocked me with a return call. No answer. No movement. Nothing.

My throat tightened as fear crashed through me. Not again. I would not survive losing him again. I didn’t care if I had to scream my voice raw or burn the entire forest down. I needed him.

I staggered toward the cave entrance, every step shaky. I clung to the walls to stay upright.

Outside the cave, the world was quiet. Night lingered but the horizon was beginning to pale with hints of dawn. The altar behind me looked destroyed. A crescent of light etched the sky like the moon had split it open.

But the landscape around me made my breath catch.

I was back in Dravenmoor.
Its scorched land.
Its dark forests.
Its skeletal ruins that once were a palace but now stood like an ancient warrior refusing to kneel.

Broken. But rebuilding.

The smell of smoke and pine, the faint howling of wolves, the banners of black and crimson fluttering in the wind. This place wasn’t dead. It was recovering.

I took a step and my whole body screamed at me to stop, as if every muscle had been shredded and stitched back together. Which, to be fair, probably wasn’t too far from the truth.

Lucian. 

“Where is he. Please.”

I didn’t know where I was going. I just walked, calling his name again and again until my voice trembled.

And then I saw it. A battlefield camp. Rows of tents. Warriors injured, wrapped, recovering. Healers tending to them. The last army of Dravenmoor refused to fall. And standing guard at the center was someone I knew.

Elijah. My butler. The man who once politely handed me tea while casually planning murders. The most professionally unhinged man alive.

He turned when he heard my footsteps. I must have looked crazy, stumbling toward him like a desperate lunatic.

He froze, eyes widening in disbelief.

“Milady.” The way he noticed me felt like a prayer, like a curse that finally broke, like a soldier who had held the line far too long.

I opened my mouth to ask about Lucian, but I didn’t even get the words out. Elijah stepped forward and caught me before I collapsed.

He didn’t hug me. Elijah does not do hugs. He simply steadied me like an earthquake had hit his entire world and he refused to fall.

His voice was calm on the surface, but emotion slipped through it like a tremor.

“Alpha Lucian is alive.”

My whole body weakened with relief. I might have ugly sobbed on the spot if I wasn’t afraid of passing out.

“Where is he, Elijah? Please.” His eyes softened. 

“His highness wakes up earlier and is hunting for whoever dared to threaten you. He has not slept or healed.”

That sounded exactly like him. Romantic. Insane. Suicidal. My favorite mix.

I grabbed Elijah’s arm. “Take me to him.”

“Milady you can barely stand.”

I glared. “I will crawl if I have to.”

Something like pride flickered in his eyes. Maybe a little annoyance. A little admiration. Elijah was the kind of man who respected stubbornness because he himself ran entirely on it.

He nodded once. “Very well then. Follow me.”

The walk to Lucian’s tent felt endless. Warriors we passed bowed to me, not with celebration but reverence. And maybe relief. And maybe a little fear. Word must have traveled fast. Everyone knew the curse was unsealed. Everyone knew I lived.

And everyone knew Lucian had done more than destroy a wedding. He had declared war, again, for me.

Elijah stopped outside the largest tent and lowered his voice. “Be warned. He is not in a stable state.”

“When has he ever been?”

Elijah almost smiled. “Fair point.”

He pushed aside the tent flaps.

Lucian stood with his back to us. Shirtless. Blood down his side. Knuckles torn. Breathing uneven. Like a storm trapped in a human body. His hair was unbound and wild. His aura rippled through the room so violently the air felt too heavy to breathe.

He looked—feral.

That was my first thought.

My second thought was that I was absolutely doomed because I had never found someone more attractive in my entire life.

I whispered his name before I could stop myself. “Lucian.”

He turned.

I had prepared for many reactions. Shock. Anger. Joy. Maybe running toward me. Maybe collapsing.

I did not expect what actually happened.

He froze. Completely.

He blinked once, slowly, like he didn’t believe I was real. Like his brain couldn’t process the sight of me. Like the entire fabric of the universe had just changed and he didn’t know how to breathe.

“Keira.”

My heart shattered at the sound of it. It wasn’t a greeting. It was a prayer. A scream. A plea. A wish that had finally been granted.

He didn’t move. He didn’t blink again. He just stared in a way that made my knees weak. Elijah quietly left, lowering the flaps behind him.

Then Lucian inhaled shakily. Not a breath. A gasp.

He whispered like I was a miracle he feared would vanish.

“You are alive.”

I nodded. Barely. “Yes.”

He didn’t walk toward me. He didn’t run. He didn’t even reach out. He broke. Lucian dropped to his knees. Not dramatically. Not gracefully. Like his body couldn’t hold him anymore now that the truth hit.

I rushed to him immediately. I knelt in front of him and grabbed his face in both hands, tears spilling faster than I could stop them.

Lucian looked up at me like I was the only real thing left in the world. He touched my cheek like it physically hurt him to do it.

“I felt you die,” he whispered. “And I could not follow you.”

I shook my head, crying. “I didn’t die. We broke the curse.”

He swallowed hard. “Damn it! I could not breathe without you.”

It hit me then. This wasn’t possessiveness. It wasn't an obsession. It was trauma. It was a man who had lost me too many times and lived every loss.

I leaned in and pressed my forehead to his. “We are here. Both of us. We made it.”

Lucian’s hands slid to my waist with a desperation that bordered on shaking. Relief poured out of him like grief.

He pulled me into him, not gently. Not carefully. Desperately. His lips crashed into mine like he had been drowning for centuries and I was the first breath of air.

I kissed him back with everything I had. My fingers dug into his hair, his shoulders, anywhere I could hold. His grip on my waist tightened until I gasped and he kissed me harder.

Heat flooded through me so fast I nearly fell forward. Lucian caught me easily and lifted me to sit on his lap. My nightgown slipped slightly off my shoulder and he let out a broken sound against my throat.

He kissed down my jaw, my neck, my collarbone like he had to remind himself I truly existed. His voice was ragged between kisses.

“I thought I lost you … fuck! I thought I lost you, I thought I lost you forever again.”

I wrapped my arms around him and whispered against his ear. “I came back to you. Always.”

His hands roamed my back and hips slowly, reverently, possessively. The tension between us turned sharp, molten, unstoppable. My breath hitched. His teeth grazed my skin and my entire spine arched without permission.

I wanted him. Badly. And he wanted me so much it hurt.

Then…

Someone cleared their throat outside the tent.

Lucian froze. His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His entire aura radiated pure murder.

Elijah’s voice filtered through the canvas. “Your highness, the healers insist on tending to your wounds before infection sets in.”

Lucian did not answer. Not even a growl. Just pure silence that promised violence.

Elijah added in a tone so painfully neutral it was probably self-defense. “I will return in ten minutes. If the healer finds you. Wearing clothes. That would be preferable.”

I nearly choked from embarrassment. Lucian leaned his face against my neck and I could feel him smiling. A dangerous amused smile that meant he was one second away from throwing Elijah into the sun.

He lifted my face with one hand. He kissed me softly this time. Slow. Too emotional. Not rushed. Not desperate. Not needy. Loving.

He whispered against my lips. “I am not done with you.”

My entire nervous system short circuited.

Before things spiraled again, Lucian helped me stand. His thumb brushed my jaw like he hated letting me go. His voice was low. “After they bandage me I am coming to you.”

I nodded, shaky. “I will be waiting.”

The tent flap opened just enough for me to leave. Lucian watched me go like I was the only thing anchoring him to this world. The intensity in his eyes made me stumble.

Outside, Elijah stood like a statue. He didn’t make eye contact but his ears were definitely red.

I said nothing. He said nothing. That was for the best.

As he escorted me to my personal tent, I finally noticed something important: Dravenmoor was rebuilding. People were hurt. Tired. But alive. They were whispering the same thing with relief: The curse is broken. The Alpha lives. The Luna has returned.

I wasn’t just Aria Quinn anymore. I was the woman who shattered a curse older than kingdoms. The one their Alpha had chosen across lifetimes. 

But for tonight, for this moment, after everything we had fought and bled and died and lived for. I belonged in Dravenmoor and Lucian was coming for me. Not to steal me. Not to lose me. Not to worship me. Not to cage me but to love me. The future would be full of war and politics and pain and consequences. But tonight the moon was still above us; the curse was gone and our hearts finally beat in the same world… together.