234

234


Dravina POV

The sky burned a furious crimson, the air thick with ash spiraling downward like black snow, clinging to the blood-matted fur that draped my body. My heart hammered not from terror, but from purpose.

I stood upright in the wreckage of Silverlight, surrounded by my own, their blood and breath mixing with the churned earth beneath our paws.

Across the battlefield, Roarke shifted.

The sound alone made my stomach lurch bones cracking in ways no living thing should endure, each snap reverberating like gunfire. His frame distorted before my eyes: shoulders broadening, spine stretching, limbs convulsing under a dark current.

I watched, transfixed and horrified, as his skin split and reknit itself, blood pooling beneath him until coarse, mud-brown fur forced its way through slick, wet, as though born of violence.

Then his eyes found me.

Bloodshot. Fever-bright. Wrong.

They glimmered like coals left too long in a dying fire. His jaw unhinged wider than nature allowed, fangs curving into monstrous crescents. The wolf he became towered over the field, muscle stacked on muscle, scarred and trembling with borrowed power.

This wasn’t a man in a shift.

This was a beast devouring the man inside.

And it was coming for me.

He launched.

I surged forward to meet him.

The impact split the ground beneath our paws. His teeth snapped for my throat; I twisted, dragging my claws down his ribs, tearing fur free and drawing dark, corrupted blood.

He howled not with pain, but with pleasure.

He wanted this fight.

We clawed, slammed, and shredded at one another in a blur of teeth and rage. I no longer held back. He lunged and missed; I raked his flank, nearly opening his belly. He spun, ramming his massive skull into my chest. Air blasted from my lungs as I crashed into the wreckage of a broken cart, bones groaning under the strain, fur slick with sweat and blood.

Still, I rose.

Still, I fought.

Because I had to.

Tavian came thundering in, his grey wolf like a storm, jaws locking on Roarke’s shoulder. He twisted, ripped muscle from bone. Roarke slammed him into the dirt, but Dashira was already there swift and lethal. She carved a line across Roarke’s flank so clean blood sprayed into the soil.

Ansel’s white wolf darted low, snapping at Roarke’s legs, buying me the breath I needed to leap again and claw for his throat.

We moved as one.

Four against one.

And for a moment, we held him.

But the field shifted.

More wolves poured in Roarke and Marzena’s loyalists. Their eyes were blank, their movements sharp and mechanical. Controlled.

They crashed into us like a tide.

Tavian tore two apart before another slammed him from behind. Dashira spun, claws flashing, a dagger clenched in her wolf’s jaws; she used its hilt to shatter a skull. Ansel fought like a creature possessed, cutting down anyone who neared me even as his fur darkened with blood.

But we were tiring.

Each breath seared my chest. Each strike drained more than it gave. We’d been holding too long. There were too many. They swarmed like insects biting, slashing, dragging us down.

Until

A howl split the sky.

I jerked my head up. From the ridge above the battlefield came more wolves massive, blood-smeared, furious.

Malrik.

And behind him: Cassian. Quillan. Officers I knew by scent and aura, each one streaked with gore, jaws slick from the fight it had taken to reach us.

Their arrival struck us like a second wind.

But Roarke turned, his compulsion exploding outward like a shockwave his howl warping into a scream of command meant to bring them to their knees before they reached the field.

Not this time.

I hurled my power forward. It burst from me like a dome of light raw, blinding, immovable. A shield.

My compulsion struck Roarke’s mid-air, and the collision rippled across the battlefield, dust lifting, leaves whipping back. Wolves staggered. But Malrik’s pack broke through untouched shielded by me.

Blue, my wolf, howled inside me. These weren’t just allies.

They were ours.

Our pack.

Roarke roared and lunged again, wilder now. We clashed, blood spraying, claws tearing but he was weakening, blow by blow. Malrik’s wolves carved through the enemy like a storm of vengeance.

Fur flew. Bones splintered. Everywhere I looked, wolves I loved were rising freed from Roarke’s grip, fighting like hell. Cassian ripped through two with a snarl, his dark coat gleaming. Quillan tackled one of Roarke’s lieutenants and crushed his neck in a single snap.

We had them.

But Roarke wasn’t finished.

He reared back, head thrown high, and howled. A summons.

From across the field, Marzena emerged.

Fully shifted tall, sleek, elegance sharpened to a predator’s edge. Her eyes burned cold. Power rolled from her like smoke.

With a single look she began weaving her compulsion into the fray tugging minds, breaking sync, seeding confusion.

I felt her power probe mine, tendrils slithering, trying to break my hold.

I met her gaze across the chaos and pushed back not with rage, but with command.

My aura expanded. My power surged.

She faltered. For a heartbeat, only that. But it was enough.

Malrik slammed into her, his dark wolf knocking her off her feet. They rolled, snarling, tearing.

Tavian, Dashira, Ansel and I turned everything on Roarke.

He was slowing. Breathing ragged. Movements sloppy.

Ansel darted in first, claws slashing his foreleg. Dashira followed, fangs tearing his ear free. Tavian bit deep into the back of his neck.

And I leapt last driving both claws into his chest, pinning him to the dirt with every ounce of strength left in me.

He roared. He writhed. He thrashed.

But he did not rise.

Not this time.

Behind us, Marzena screamed.

Malrik had her pinned. She tried to compel him, but my shield held. Her power fizzled like sparks on stone. Whatever she’d been experimenting with, she hadn’t mastered it.

She snarled. But it was over.

The battlefield fell into a strange hush broken only by the rasp of labored breaths, the shuffle of paws across blood-soaked soil.

Then one by one wolves lowered their stances. Heads bowed.

Surrender.

Marzena went limp.

Beneath me, Roarke growled weakly, eyes glazed with disbelief. He looked around and saw the truth.

He’d lost.

“I should’ve killed you,” he rasped, blood pooling beneath him.

I leaned close, my snout almost brushing his.

“You should’ve tried harder,” I growled back.

Then I stepped off him. I didn’t kill him. Not yet. Let him watch it all crumble first. Let him feel it.

Marzena bound. Roarke shackled his compulsion stripped, his dominance shattered.

One after another, their wolves stood down.

And as the fires dimmed and dawn bled across the horizon, I stood at the heart of the battlefield, caked in blood and ash.

Still breathing. Still standing.

Surrounded by my pack.

No words were needed.

I was no longer just a survivor.

No longer just a name.

I was the Luna of Silverlight.

And no one no one would ever take that from me again.