Chapter 33: The Protector
Kael's pov
Her scent is everywhere.
It clings to the leaves, scatters across the dirt, dances in the cold night air like it wants to betray us both. Every time I breathe it in, my chest tightens—relief that she’s still close, terror that Derek will find her before I can get her far enough away.
I push harder through the trees, branches tearing at my arms, the forest blurring around me. She runs ahead, fast but not fast enough. She’s human-weak still, her wolf trapped beneath layers of fear and memory. She can’t outrun him. Not yet.
And gods help me, neither can I.
But I’ll die trying.
I catch a glimpse of her—dark hair streaming, hood slipping, breath ragged in the cold. She stumbles on a root, catches herself, keeps moving. Stubborn. Unyielding. My Fianna.
“Keep going,” I growl, low but urgent, close enough for her ears alone. “Don’t stop, no matter what.”
Her head jerks back, eyes wild, but she doesn’t argue. Not this time.
The air shifts.
I feel him.
The ground hums with his presence, every wolf in the forest bowing to a command that doesn’t need to be spoken. Derek is near. Too near. His dominance presses against me like a storm front, heavy and suffocating. My wolf snarls inside, ready to tear, to bleed, to stand against him even if it means breaking.
Not yet. I can’t waste strength on him here. Not while she’s still exposed.
“Kael!” she gasps, stumbling again, fear flashing across her face. “He’s—”
“I know,” I snap, sharper than I mean, my chest aching at the panic in her voice. I force myself softer, even as my ears strain for the sound of pursuit. “I know, Fianna. But I’ve got you. Trust me.”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, to demand the truth I’ve kept buried, but a howl cuts through the forest.
Low. Long. Claiming.
The kind of sound that freezes marrow, that makes wolves bow their heads even when they don’t want to.
Fianna’s eyes go wide. Her wolf thrashes inside her—I can feel it in the bond between us, feel the way she trembles with the effort of keeping it locked down.
Derek.
He’s close enough to taunt us now. Close enough to let her hear him.
I shove her forward, harder this time. “Run!”
She does.
And I follow, my body moving on instinct, my heart a drumbeat of fury and fear. Every step carries the weight of a vow I can’t break—she won’t fall into his hands. Not while I still breathe.
Not while I still have teeth to bare and blood to spill.
The forest narrows, forcing us toward a ridge. I know these woods better than Derek does. I know the paths, the traps, the hidden ways. But he has numbers, and his wolves are already circling, driving us into his jaws.
I can hear them moving now. Paws on dirt. Breath in shadows. The faint glimmer of golden eyes through the brush.
He’s herding us.
And that’s when the truth settles cold in my gut—Derek doesn’t want to end this quickly. He’s drawing it out. Playing with us.
Playing with her.
A snarl rips from my chest, my wolf clawing to the surface. I want to shift, to tear into them, to show Derek that Fianna is not his to touch. But if I lose control now, if I stop even for a moment, she’s gone.
I grit my teeth, forcing the rage down. Not yet. Wait for the opening. Wait for the moment.
Ahead, the trees thin, the ridge breaking into a clearing lit silver by the moon. Fianna stumbles into it, chest heaving, hair plastered to her face with sweat. She whirls, panic and fury blazing in her eyes.
And then we both hear it.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Heavy with command.
He steps into the clearing like the forest itself makes way for him. Broad shoulders, eyes gleaming ice-blue, power rolling off him in waves. Wolves fan out behind him, silent, obedient shadows.
Derek.
His gaze lands on her first. Always her. A smile curls on his lips, sharp and certain, like the outcome was written long before tonight.
Mine.
I feel the word without him speaking it. I see it in the way his chest rises, in the way his wolf leans forward behind his eyes.
Fianna shivers, her wolf clawing harder now, desperate, wild.
And me?
I step in front of her, every muscle coiled, my body a wall between her and the Alpha who thinks he can take her. My wolf snarls so v
iolently I taste blood in my mouth.
He will not have her.
Not tonight.
Not ever.