235

235
Dravina POV
I forced myself back into my human form trembling, barefoot, slick with blood and ash. Exhaustion clung to me like a second skin, but beneath it ran something heavier: the weight of everything we had endured, everything still hanging in the air between us. Yet somehow, impossibly, we’d survived.
Around us, our men were securing the last of the enemy, the chaos finally quieting. For a heartbeat, I thought the worst had passed until I caught sight of them dragging Drethos across the torn ground, silver cuffs glinting in the dim light.
“No.” My voice cut through the haze, firm even though my body swayed with fatigue.
The guards froze mid-motion. Heads turned toward me. Malrik’s eyes narrowed as though I’d just lost my mind.
“Don’t put those on him,” I said again, softer now but no less unyielding. “He’s not guilty of this.”
Malrik frowned. “Dravina… he came here to attack you.”
I shook my head.
“No. He came to defend his family’s honor. He thought you’d stolen the South, that you’d broken the agreement laid down by his father. He had no idea who I was. And the moment he found out, he tried to protect me.”
Something shifted in Malrik’s face his suspicion didn’t vanish, but it cracked. He was listening now.
“He loved his brother my father,” I said quietly. “Even when Marzena cut him down, he reached for me. He wanted no part of this.”
I stepped closer, the air between us charged, still, and trembling. “Please,” I whispered. “Let me have this one. He’s my blood, too.”
Silence stretched between us like a held breath. Finally Malrik exhaled and gave a single, subtle nod to the guards.
“Remove the cuffs,” he said quietly. “Treat his wounds.”
The fire dimmed a little in his eyes as his shoulders sagged under the weight he’d been carrying. For a flicker of a moment, I saw it the terror he would never admit aloud. The fear that he had arrived too late, that I’d already be gone.
I stepped into him, sliding my arms around his waist, pressing my head against his chest.
“To prove I’m real,” I whispered. “That I’m still here. Not a ghost.”
At first, he said nothing. Then slowly, Malrik’s arms closed around me, crushing me to him like letting go would undo everything we’d survived. He bent and pressed a kiss to the crown of my head, inhaling like my scent was the only thing keeping him anchored.
“I was an idiot,” he murmured, voice frayed. “A fool.”
“No,” I said softly, looking up at him. “It wasn’t your fault. You trusted a family friend. This” I glanced toward the ruin Roarke had left behind “this is on him. He betrayed you. Used you.”
Malrik’s arms loosened just enough for him to dip down and capture my lips.
It wasn’t gentle. It was fierce, unfiltered, a collision of desperation and relief. The kind of kiss that swallows the world, that says I almost lost you without a single word.
When at last we pulled apart, breathless, a familiar voice rang out.
“Well, damn, Dravina how’d you pull that off?”
We turned to find Ansel grinning, battered and barefoot, looking as impressed as he was exhausted. Still in Malrik’s arms, I blinked at him, reality creeping back.
And then it hit me I was naked.
As if on cue, two staff members rushed forward: one handed Malrik a pair of shorts, the other tossed me a large T-shirt.
“Oh, Goddess,” I muttered, dragging it over my head, cheeks heating.
Ansel chuckled, tugging on his own shorts with a dramatic sigh. “Didn’t even notice, huh?”
“I had more pressing concerns,” I replied dryly.
He tilted his head, still smiling, but his eyes were softer now.
“But seriously,” he said, his voice lowering, “he had us, Dravina. We were flat on the ground. You were barely standing, frozen. And then suddenly you shift, bolt into the forest with Ashflow wolves chasing you like prey and next thing we know, you’re back, leading them, shielding us from Roarke’s compulsion.”
The battlefield lay quiet now. The adrenaline had drained from my veins, but at his words, my pulse jumped not from fear, but from memory.
The duskthorn.
The wolf.
The power.
The choice.
I turned within Malrik’s arms to face Ansel fully, my voice steady.
“I ate duskthorn berries,” I said bluntly.
Ansel’s eyes went wide. “You what?” He stepped closer, staring at me like I’d sprouted a second head. “And you didn’t go mad? You could tell friend from foe? That’s that’s impossible!”
Ysolde had drifted closer, silent until now, her expression unreadable.
“It gave me energy,” I explained. “It helped me tap into my abilities. My wolf… she wielded it. Controlled it.”
Ansel frowned, still trying to process. I turned to Malrik, who looked just as stunned.
Then Ysolde spoke, her voice slicing the quiet.
“You must’ve built up some kind of immunity. Maybe as an infant your mother drank it, passed it through her milk. You survived it once before. Your body remembered.” She crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Alpha Everston starts research into this. It could be the key to more than just your power.”
Malrik met my gaze and gave a small nod. It was worth exploring.
Before I could answer, Cassian approached and the moment he did, a new tension rippled through the air.