Chapter Sixty-Six : Blood for Blood

Chapter Sixty-Six : Blood for Blood

The night was heavy with fog, curling low over the healer’s tents like a shroud. The battlefield may have been quiet for the moment, but the tension was a wound beneath the skin of Rainfall, bleeding slow and unseen. Faith had been helping the healers, carrying water from the well and fresh bandages to the wounded. Her hands ached, her body sluggish, the weight of her pregnancy already a whisper she could not ignore, but she pushed through.

She bent to hand Elder Nareen another strip of linen when the first scream tore the air.

Faith froze. It wasn’t the cry of pain from an injured wolf. It was the raw, wet sound of surprise followed by the crack of bone.

The tent flap burst inward.

A shadowed figure, silver-striped fur catching in the lantern light, lunged inside. Orell colors. His jaws dripped fresh blood. Behind him, more howls rose in the night.

Faith’s heart lurched. The healer’s tents were not guarded the same way as the gates. Divine had chosen her strike with precision.

The wolf’s eyes locked on Faith.

Her pulse thundered in her ears, but something primal uncoiled in her chest. She shoved the linen into Nareen’s hands and shoved the elder back. “Get out,” she hissed. “Go.”

The wolf sprang.

Faith’s body moved before her mind could catch up. Her claws tore free, her wolf breaking through her skin in a half-shift that left her nails hooked and her muscles thrumming with inhuman strength. She caught the wolf by the throat mid-lunge, his weight slamming her back into the healer’s table, shattering bowls of herbs across the floor.

He snarled, snapping for her face.

Faith’s fangs bared. She drove her claws deeper, hot blood spilling across her palms. The pup. Her mind screamed it even as her wolf roared louder protect the pup.

The wolf thrashed. She drove her knee up hard into his chest, breaking his balance, and then with a surge of strength she hadn’t known she had, she twisted. Bone snapped. His body went slack, falling against her before sliding to the ground in a heap.

For a heartbeat, the tent was silent but for her ragged breathing.

Then another came.

This one smaller, younger, eyes bright with frenzy. He darted past her, aiming for the rows of wounded laid on their cots. Faith spun, grabbed a dagger from the tray of surgical tools, and threw it. The blade buried itself in his side. He fell with a sharp cry, clutching at the wound.

“Help her!” Nareen shouted, dragging two apprentices forward, but Faith was already moving. Her wolf wasn’t retreating this time. Her hands were still sticky with blood, her lungs heaving, her body alight with something raw and terrible.

The Orell wolf tried to crawl, but Faith straddled him, ripped the blade free, and plunged it again into his chest. His body jerked once, then stilled.

The tent flap burst wide again this time with a familiar scent, heavy with dominance and iron.

“Faith!”

David’s voice cracked through the haze.

She turned toward him, her chest heaving, her eyes burning gold. Blood streaked her arms, her tunic, her face. Two bodies lay sprawled at her feet, one still leaking a slow river across the dirt floor.

David froze in the doorway. For a long, taut second, his wolf stared out of his eyes, taking in the scene. He had seen death all his life, seen battlefields slick with corpses but not this. Not his mate, standing in the healer’s tent, drenched in the kill.

Her hand trembled, still gripping the dagger. Her lips parted like she might explain, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I was…”

David crossed the distance in a blur. His hand clamped her wrist, but not to take the blade away only to steady her shaking. His chest pressed to hers, his scent flooding her senses, grounding her against the spiral that threatened to pull her under.

“You killed for the pup,” he said, voice low, rough, a growl against her ear.

Faith blinked, her knees weak. “They came for the healers and they came for me.”

“I know.” He tore the blade from her hand and flung it aside, then wrapped both arms around her, crushing her against him. His growl vibrated through his chest, into her bones. “No one touches you again. No one.”

Her breath caught, the adrenaline breaking into sobs she hadn’t expected. She clung to him, the blood on her hands smearing across his skin, but he didn’t flinch. He only held her tighter.

Behind them, warriors rushed in, dragging the bodies from the tent, securing the wounded, barking orders. But David didn’t move, didn’t loosen his grip. His wolf was on the edge, but its fury wasn’t for her —it was for anyone who dared threaten what was his.

“You’re not weak,” he said, his lips at her temple, voice a promise and a vow. “Don’t ever think it. You’re mine, you’re our pup’s mother. And I’ll tear apart every Orell wolf with my teeth before I let them near you again.”

Faith buried her face in his chest, inhaling him, the only anchor that could hold her steady in the storm of what she had done. She had killed. With her hands, her claws, her fury. Not for herself—but for the life inside her.

And she would do it again.

When she finally lifted her head, her golden eyes still burned bright. “They’ll come again.”

David’s jaw clenched. His hands cupped her bloodied face, forcing her to meet him eye to eye. “Then we’ll be ready. And this time, we won’t just defend. We’ll take the war to them.”

The night outside erupted with shouts as more warriors surged toward the gates, answering alarms. But inside the healer’s tent, it was only the two of them—Alpha and Luna, bloodied and unbowed, bound tighter by the kill.

Faith drew in a shaky breath and nodded. The taste of blood lingered on her tongue, the scent of death heavy in her nose, but beneath it all, the steady thrum of life inside her gave her strength.

Her wolf whispered it, fierce and certain. We protect. Always.

David’s hand slid to her stomach, protective, claiming. His eyes darkened with something violent, something possessive, something utterly unbreakable.

“Blood for blood,” he growled, the vow sealed between them.

Faith pressed her palm over his, her claws still half-bared, her body still trembling with the echo of the fight.

“Blood for blood,” she echoed.

And the war shifted, not in the clash of armies, but in the blood a Luna had spilled to protect her pack and her unborn heir.