Chapter 24 TWENTY THREE
(NYRA'S POV)
“My apologies, Alpha, but his body is not responding to treatment,” the healer says, voice steadier than her hands. She keeps her head bowed, like she’s afraid to look any of us in the eye.
“What do you mean by that?” Keiran snaps. The air in the infirmary tightens instantly, pressure rolling off him in waves. “He’s an Alpha wolf. He can survive even wolfsbane.”
The healer swallows. “This isn’t wolfsbane.”
My heart stutters.
I’m standing at the foot of the bed, fingers curled so tightly into my palms that my nails bite skin. Riven lies motionless, skin too pale, chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths. The bandages around his chest are already stained dark again, my magic having done little more than slow the bleeding.
“What was on the blade?” Lucien asks quietly from my side.
The healer hesitates.
Keiran’s patience snaps. “Speak.”
She flinches. “Voidsteel. Laced with soul-binding magic.”
The room goes deathly silent.
Voidsteel.
My stomach drops like I’ve been kicked.
“That’s impossible,” I whisper. “Voidsteel was outlawed after the First Lunar War.”
“And yet,” Keiran says coldly, “someone just stabbed one of my brothers with it inside my castle.”
Lucien’s shadows coil tighter around him, restless, furious. “Voidsteel doesn’t just wound the body,” he says. “It disrupts the bond between flesh and wolf.”
The healer nods. “His wolf is… trapped. Like it’s been pushed underwater. I can’t reach it.”
“No,” I breathe, stepping closer to the bed. “No, no, no, Riven, listen to me. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to save me and then just….”
My voice breaks.
Keiran turns sharply toward me. “Nyra.”
I barely hear him.
I place my hand over Riven’s heart. It’s beating, but wrong. Erratic. Like it’s struggling to remember how.
Something in me snaps into place.
“This was meant for me,” I say hoarsely.
Lucien stiffens. “Nyra…”
“They weren’t just trying to kill me,” I continue, lifting my head, power stirring violently under my skin. “They wanted to see if it would work.”
Keiran’s eyes narrow. “If what would work?”
I swallow. “Voidsteel doesn’t just bind wolves. It reacts to lunar magic. To my magic.” My gaze drifts back to Riven. “He took the hit meant to test what I can survive.”
The healer pales. “If that’s true…”
“Then whoever sent that assassin,” Keiran finishes grimly, “is preparing for war.”
My chest tightens painfully. I can feel it now—something tugging at me, deep and instinctive, like a thread pulled too hard.
Riven groans faintly.
Hope flares in my chest.
I lean down instantly. “Riven?”
His lashes flutter. His lips part.
“…still… hurts,” he rasps.
A sob-laugh rips out of me before I can stop it. “You absolute bastard. You scared the hell out of me.”
Keiran exhales sharply, relief flashing across his face before it hardens again. “Can you save him?” he asks me quietly. Not as an Alpha. As a man who knows what it means to lose his own.
I hesitate.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I know one thing.”
Everyone turns to me.
“If Voidsteel is binding his wolf,” I say, silver light beginning to glow faintly under my skin, “then lunar magic is the only thing that can pull it back.”
Lucien’s hand closes around mine. “Nyra, that kind of magic…”
“I know,” I say softly. “It’ll hurt. Maybe him. Maybe me.”
Keiran meets my gaze. “We won't force you.”
I nod once.
And as I reach deeper into myself—past fear, past doubt—I feel it again.
That same strange, familiar energy I felt earlier.
Stronger now.
Awake.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a chilling thought whispers:
“No,” the healer says quickly, shaking her head when Riven so much as twitches. “That movement was reflex. He’s not waking.”
The fragile hope that had sparked in my chest shatters instantly.
I pull my hand back like I’ve been burned.
Keiran’s jaw tightens. “Then why did his vitals spike?”
“Because his body is fighting,” she answers softly. “Not winning.”
The words feel like knives.
Lucien’s presence shifts beside me, his shadows thickening, darkening, brushing the walls like caged beasts. “How long?” he asks.
The healer hesitates.
Keiran growls low in his throat. “How. Long.”
“Hours,” she admits. “Maybe less, maybe more. Maybe forever. Voidsteel doesn’t kill quickly. It suppresses. It starves the wolf until the bond collapses on its own.”
My stomach churns violently.
“So he’s drowning,” I whisper. “Slowly.”
She nods.
Something inside me goes very, very still. Then it clicks.
“This wasn’t an assassination,” I say quietly. “It was an experiment.”
Lucien turns to me sharply. “Nyra…”
“If the attack was mainly for me, the assassin would have stabbed me from the back. They knew one of you would save me. They wanted to see how an Alpha would react to Voidsteel in a controlled environment,” I continue, my voice eerily calm. “How long he’d last. What kind of magic would be needed to counter it.”
Keiran’s eyes flash. “And why here?”
“Because I’m here,” I answer. “And because they know I wouldn’t let him die without trying.”
Silence slams into the room.
The healer pales. “You think… the blade wasn't actually meant for you?”
I look at Riven’s still form, the steady—but weakening—beat of his heart under the warded monitors.
“He stepped in front of me,” I say. “They didn’t miss. They adjusted.”
Lucien’s hand closes around my wrist, firm and grounding. “If you attempt lunar extraction now…”
“It could kill him,” I finish. “Or me. Or both of us.” My magic isn't that strong yet so a lot of things can go wrong.
Keiran studies me for a long moment. “And if you do nothing?”
I don’t hesitate. “He dies.”
The word echoes.
The healer inhales sharply. “The bond collapse would be irreversible.”
Lyric whimpers inside me.
I close my eyes, forcing air into my lungs.
Voidsteel binds the wolf, lunar magic commands the bond. But brute force would tear him apart.
“There has to be an anchor,” I murmur. “Something tying his wolf to this plane strongly enough to pull it back.”
Keiran frowns. “A mate bond?”
“The Lady is not strong enough," the healer informs. “Most at times using the mate bond puts the mate at risk.
Lucien stiffens slightly.
Then it hits me.
“The pack mark,” I breathe. “His connection to you. To his pack.”
Keiran straightens slowly. “You want to use me as the conduit.”
“I want to use the Alpha bond,” I say. “But I can’t do it alone. I’ll need you to open it fully.”
Keiran’s expression hardens. “That kind of opening leaves an Alpha vulnerable.”
Lucien’s voice drops. “And if something is waiting on the other side…”
I meet Keiran’s gaze, power humming under my skin again, louder now.
A long, tense beat passes.
Finally, Keiran nods once. “Prepare the room.”
The healer swallows hard. “Alpha, if this fails…”
“It won’t,” he says flatly.
As they move, I look back at Riven.
“I won’t let you fade,” I whisper. “You didn’t let me fall.”
And deep in my bones, I feel it again.
That wrongness.
That sense of being watched.
Whoever did this isn’t finished.
And they’re closer than we think.
I'm about to step out when the healer calls me back.
“My Lady, whatever is to be done should be done as soon as possible. He might not make it through the night."