Chapter 125 We Will Bring Her Back
Fernando staggered to his feet, rage burning through the poison fog. Blood streamed from the fresh cut across his cheek, but he ignored it. The Southern Ember army’s leader still stood, smirking, poisoned dagger raised for another strike.
Fernando lunged with a roar. “You’re dead!”
His blade slashed across the leader’s stomach in a vicious arc. The wolf howled as entrails spilled, but he didn’t fall. Instead he twisted, bringing his poisoned dagger down toward Fernando’s throat.
Before the strike could land, a powerful force slammed into the leader from the side, throwing him several feet away.
Mira stepped into view, eyes blazing gold. “Not today.”
She flicked her wrist. Twenty silver needles flew from her palm like darts, embedding in the leader’s neck and chest. He collapsed, clutching his throat, gurgling as the silver burned through his flesh.
Another Southern Ember wolf charged Mira from behind, claws extended. “Die, witch!”
“You've to try harder to be able to kill me idiot”
Mira didn’t even turn. She raised one hand. The wolf lifted off the ground, limbs flailing, suspended by invisible force. With a sharp gesture, she tore him apart blood and bone spraying outward in a gruesome rain.
She turned to Fernando, voice calm despite the carnage. “Check Kael. Now.”
She tossed a small glass vial toward him. It spun through the air.
Fernando caught it one-handed, staring at the pale blue liquid inside.
Mira met his eyes. “If his wolf isn’t dead yet, he can still be saved. The antidote works fast. Hurry.”
Fernando nodded once, already crawling across the blood-soaked ground toward Kael’s body. Kael lay motionless, neck torn open, skin pale and cold.
Fernando reached him, hands shaking as he cradled Kael’s head. “Come on, brother. Don’t do this.”
He uncorked the vial with his teeth and poured the liquid into Kael’s mouth, tilting his head back to make sure it went down.
Nothing happened at first.
Fernando pressed two fingers to Kael’s neck, searching for a pulse. “Fight, damn you. Fight.”
Footsteps pounded closer. Lucia burst through the fray, her own body streaked with blood, a deep gash across her arm still weeping red.
She dropped to her knees beside them. “What happened to him?”
Fernando’s voice cracked. “He saved me. Took the blade meant for my neck.”
Lucia stared at Kael’s still face. Her breathing hitched. Then she let out a raw, broken scream that tore through the battlefield.
“No—no—no!”
She threw herself over him, hugging his cold body to her chest, rocking back and forth.
“Kael! Wake up! Please, please wake up!”
Fernando stayed beside them, one hand on Lucia’s shoulder, the other still pressed to Kael’s throat, willing the antidote to work.
Lucia’s sobs grew louder, words tumbling out between gasps. “He can’t—he can’t be gone. He promised he promised he’d always come back to me.”
Mira knelt on Kael’s other side, checking his pulse with clinical precision. “The antidote is in his system. His wolf is weak, but it’s still there. Give it time.”
Lucia looked up at her, tears cutting tracks through the blood on her face. “Time? He’s not breathing!”
“He will,” Mira said quietly. “If anyone can pull through, it’s Kael. He’s too stubborn to die like this.”
Fernando’s voice was hoarse. “Come on, Kael. You hear that? Lucia’s waiting. The pack’s waiting. You don’t get to leave us.”
Lucia buried her face in Kael’s neck. “Please… I love you, I'm sorry it took me time to realize my feelings for you. Don’t leave me. Not like this.”
For several long seconds, only the distant sounds of the dying battle filled the silence.
Then a faint, ragged inhale.
Kael’s chest rose once, weakly, the wound in his neck was slowly closing layer by layer.
Lucia froze. “Kael?”
Another breath. Shallower, but real.
Fernando’s eyes widened. “He’s breathing.”
Mira nodded. “The antidote’s working. Keep talking to him. His wolf needs to hear the pack.”
Lucia clutched him tighter, voice trembling but fierce. “You hear that? You’re coming back. You’re not allowed to die on me, you idiot. I’ll kill you myself if you try.”
Kael’s fingers twitched.
Fernando let out a shaky breath. “That’s it. Come back to us.”
The battle around them was winding down Southern Ember wolves retreating or lying dead but none of them noticed.
All that mattered was the slow, stubborn rise and fall of Kael’s chest.
And Lucia’s whispered, desperate pleas.
“You promised… you promised forever.”
Mira knelt beside Kael for a final check, then looked up at Fernando and Lucia. “Get him to the infirmary now. I’ll clear out the rest of these Southern Ember bastards.”
Lucia’s voice trembled, arms still wrapped around Kael’s limp form. “Be careful, Mira. They use poison, claws, fangs, and daggers. Everything’s laced.”
Mira smiled, slow and dangerous. “Poison can’t kill me in this lifetime. Neither can a dagger, nor any wolf standing here. The one who can end me hasn’t even awakened his full strength yet. So I’ll be around for a very long time frustrating them, ending them, whatever it takes.”
Fernando shook his head, already sliding an arm under Kael’s shoulders. “You’re insane.”
“Useful, kind of insane,” Mira replied. “Go.”
Fernando lifted Kael with a grunt, careful of the gaping wound in his neck. Lucia rose too, hands shaking as she supported Kael’s legs. They started toward the infirmary path.
Mira turned back to the battlefield. The remaining Southern Ember wolves snarled and charged. She moved like liquid violence silver needles flashing, invisible force ripping limbs, throats torn open without her ever touching them.
A loud, raw scream cut through the chaos from behind her.
Mira spun.
Lucia was on her knees, cradling Kael again, fresh blood pouring from a new wound across his chest. A Southern Ember assassin stood not far from them, silver dagger pressed to Kael’s neck, the blade already slick.
Fernando stood frozen a few paces away, another assassin behind him, a poisoned silver dagger buried halfway into his chest, held there by a third wolf gripping his arms.
Mira cleared the wolves in front of her in two brutal seconds, neck snapped, heart crushed then sprinted forward.
Mira raised her two hands, throwing the wolves away tearing them into pieces as her eyes glow red in anger.
Lucia looked up, tears streaming. “Mira, please save him. They stabbed him again please—”
Mira dropped beside them, fingers pressing to Kael’s neck. No pulse. No breath. The wound in his neck had reopened wider.
She met Lucia’s eyes. “He’s gone, Lucia. He’s already dead.”
Lucia’s sob shattered into an agony-filled scream that echoed across the field. “No—no—no—he can’t—”
Her body convulsed. She dropped Kael gently, then fell forward onto all fours. Her spine arched, bones cracking audibly as she forced the shift. Fur erupted across her skin, not the usual controlled change, but something violent, cursed. Her eyes bled from brown to molten crimson, pupils slitting into something feral and ancient.
The aura that rolled off her hit like a physical blow pure, unfiltered killing intent. The air thickened with the scent of death, of predator, of something that should not exist in a living wolf.
The assassins holding Fernando froze, instinct screaming at them to run.
Lucia’s voice came out distorted, layered with a growl that wasn’t entirely hers. “You… took him from me.”
She lifted her head. Crimson eyes locked on the wolf with the dagger at Fernando's chest.
“You’re all going to die screaming.”
The cursed wolf lunged.
Mira stepped forward, hand raised. “Lucia—wait—”
But Lucia was already gone, lost to the rage. The first assassin barely had time to scream before claws tore through his chest. Blood sprayed. The second tried to flee; she was on him in a heartbeat, jaws closing around his throat.
Fernando, still stabbed, blood running down his chest, looked at Mira. “Stop her, she’ll kill herself like this!”
Mira’s expression was grim. “She’s not in control anymore. The curse is awake. If I try to pull her back now, she might turn on us.”
Lucia ripped through another wolf, then turned those crimson eyes toward the remaining Southern Embers. They scattered.
She didn’t chase.
Instead she padded back to Kael’s body, nosing him gently, a low, broken whine escaping her throat.
Then she lifted her head and howled a sound of pure grief and murder that made every surviving wolf flinch.
Mira looked at Fernando. “We need to get you patched up, your wolf is dying slowly. And we need to contain her before the curse consumes what’s left of her.”
Fernando pulled the dagger from his chest with a hiss of pain. “She just lost her mate. There’s no containing that.”
Lucia’s crimson gaze swung toward them, ears flat, lips peeled back, she snarled angrily at Fernando.
Mira stepped between them and Lucia. “Lucia. Look at me.”
The cursed wolf snarled.
Mira’s voice softened. “He wouldn’t want this. He’d want you to come back. Come back to us.”
Lucia’s growl faltered. One crimson eye flickered, brown bleeding through for a heartbeat.
Then the rage surged again.
She turned and bolted into the darkness, leaving Kael’s body behind and a trail of blood in her wake.
Fernando dropped to his knees beside Kael, pressing a hand to his cold cheek. “Damn it, Kael…”
Mira placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her. We’ll bring her back if there’s anything left to bring back.”
Fernando’s voice was raw. “And if there isn’t?”
Mira looked after the vanished wolf. “Then we do what we have to. For the pack.”
She paused.
“For him.”