Chapter 61 I Won't Leave You
[Lysander]
Less than two minutes. That's all it took for my pack—our pack—to reach the triangular boulder. My paws pounded through the snow, each stride carrying Nyx closer to her sister. I could feel her tension through our growing bond, the desperate hope mixed with terror that made my own chest tight.
The boulder loomed before us—exactly as that girl Mara had described. Five meters high, seven at the base, jutting from the snow like some ancient monument. A pyramid of stone that might be Lilith's grave. Or her salvation.
"Just here!" Nyx's voice rang out as she leapt from my back. "Everyone spread out! Use your noses! Find Lilith's scent!"
I shifted position, pressing my snout to the snow. Around me, the other wolves did the same—Seth, Marcus, Symone, all of us searching desperately for any trace of life buried beneath the white death.
My Gamma instincts screamed at me. Something felt wrong. The air pressure, the sound of the wind—
Then I caught it. Faint, almost completely buried, but there. Human scent. Female. And underneath it, the barest flutter of a heartbeat.
"Here!" I sent through the link, freezing at the boulder's eastern side. "Human scent! Right below us!"
"I smell it too!" Symone confirmed.
Nyx dropped to her knees beside me, her eyes squeezing shut as she breathed in deeply. When they opened again, tears streaked down her face.
"She's here," she whispered through the link. "She's right here."
I pressed closer, using every sense I had. "Extremely faint life signs. Heart rate very, very weak. But still beating."
"She's alive, Nyx. She's alive."
The relief that flooded through our bond nearly staggered me. But it lasted only a second before—
A low rumble rolled down from the mountain above.
Every wolf's head snapped up in unison. My blood turned to ice.
The snow was moving. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but moving. And that sound... that ominous, grinding roar...
"No..." Nyx's voice cracked.
I saw it forming—the white wall of death gathering speed on the slope above. My Gamma training kicked in instantly, battlefield instincts calculating trajectory, speed, time to impact.
I leaped onto the highest snow pile, scanning the mountainside with wolf eyes trained to assess enemy movements. This was what I did—what I'd been trained for since I was twelve years old. Read the battlefield. Calculate the threat. Give my team the time they needed.
"Second avalanche!" I roared through the radio strapped to my collar. "All personnel evacuate immediately!"
My mind raced through the calculations. Distance, speed, snow density, wind resistance—
"Approximately forty seconds!" I barked into the radio. "Secondary avalanche will reach this position in forty seconds! All personnel head southeast—there's tree cover for protection!"
I bounded to Nyx's side, using my head to push her urgently. "Nyx! We have to go! Now!"
The support team members in human form heard the warning and immediately began retreating. The wolves prepared to turn, muscles coiled—
But Nyx didn't move.
She knelt in the snow, hand pressed where Lilith lay buried. "She's right here," she said, voice quiet but steel-hard. "Right here. I can feel her."
"Nyx!" I pushed harder, desperation creeping into my mental voice. "The avalanche will kill us all! We have to retreat first! We'll come back after—"
"No." She lifted her head, those gray-blue eyes blazing with something fierce and unbreakable. "Forty seconds. You said forty seconds."
"Maybe it only takes thirty to dig her out."
"Nyx, it's too risky—"
"She's my sister!" Her voice exploded with sudden ferocity. "She's been under the snow for nearly two hours! If we retreat now and wait for the avalanche to pass—she'll die! She'll definitely die!"
Tears streamed down her face. "I can't... I can't wait anymore..."
Then her voice cut through the link—not a request, but a command backed by Alpha authority that I'd never felt from her before.
"Everyone—retreat to the tree line immediately. That's an order."
The pressure of her command hit every wolf like a physical force. I watched it happen—Seth's wolf turned first, then Marcus, then Symone. Every single Moonblade warrior began moving toward the tree line without hesitation. The Alpha command was absolute. They had no choice.
Damon's Shadowcrest wolves hesitated, glancing at their own Alpha, but even they felt the weight of her authority.
But I didn't move.
The Alpha command crashed into my mind like a hammer. Pain exploded behind my eyes—white-hot, blinding, like my skull was splitting apart. My wolf whimpered, every instinct screaming at me to obey, to follow the Alpha's order. That's what the bond demanded. What our very nature demanded.
But I planted my paws and stayed exactly where I was.
"Lysander!" Nyx's mental voice was sharp with panic. "I gave you an order! You need to—"
"No."
The word cost me. The pain intensified, like claws raking the inside of my skull, shredding my thoughts. My legs trembled. Blood began trickling from my nose, hot against my muzzle in the freezing air. My vision blurred at the edges.
But I locked eyes with her—those wild, desperate gray-blue eyes—and pushed every ounce of will I had into staying conscious.
"I won't leave you."
I could feel it—the Alpha command trying to force compliance, my wolf's instincts tearing at me to obey. More blood. The pain was excruciating. Every fiber of my being screamed to follow her order, to run to safety. But I would not move.
Nyx's silver wolf—no, she was still human, standing there with her hand on the snow where her sister lay buried. She took a step toward me, and I saw it in her face—the realization of what her command was doing to me. The horror of causing me pain.
"Lysander, please—" Her mental voice cracked. "You're bleeding—I can see it—"
"I've hurt worse," I managed, though each word felt like swallowing glass. My legs were shaking now, barely holding my weight. "I won't abandon you. Not now. Not ever."
"Even if it kills you?"
"Especially then."
For a moment, we just stared at each other. Her—standing in the snow, terror and love warring in her eyes. Me—bleeding and shaking but utterly immovable.
Then I felt it—the command releasing. The pressure lifting.
Nyx had pulled back her Alpha authority.