Chapter 187 Chapter 187

Chapter 187 Chapter 187
Merrick
The deep, steady rhythm of Jo's breathing against my chest is the only thing keeping Enoch’s claws tucked behind my ribs.
She’s fast asleep, her face buried in the hollow of my neck, one of her bare knees hooked over my thigh. My hand rests against the warm, heavy swell of her belly.
I don’t know how she can sleep through Hope’s tumbling and turning. I smile as her stomach twists and undulates like an incoming tide. 
Our daughter is one busy little girl, and I can’t wait to meet her.
The quiet in our bedchamber is thick - just the faint crackle of dying pine embers in the hearth and the cool mountain wind whispering against the thick glass of the balcony doors.
Then the bronze horn announcing oncomers shatters through the quiet night.
Three long, vibrating blasts echo off the eastern cliff face, shattering the silence so violently that the glass in the window frames rattles in its lead casing.
Jo flinches, her heart instantly hammering against my collarbone as her eyes snap open in the dark. "Merrick?"
"Stay here," I order, my voice low and dark as I gently shift her off my chest and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress.
“But-”
“You are pregnant, Jo,” I cut her off. “Your job is to protect our child.”
She nods and pulls the blankets up to her chin like a shield.
Enoch is awake, his wild, territorial fury flooding my veins like liquid copper. I yank on my heavy trousers and boot up in three seconds flat, pulling a dark linen tunic over my head and buckling my hunting steel to my waist.
"What is it?" Jo asks, her voice trembling with fear. "Is it Lysander?"
“I doubt it.”
He won’t dare to attempt an open assault.
I step to the side of the bed, cupping Jo’s face in my hand, my thumb smoothing over her high cheekbone until her breathing stabilises against my palm.
"It’s the eastern watchtower," I tell her, my voice dropping into a firm, iron tone that leaves no room for argument. "Someone is coming up the pass. You stay right here in this room, Jo. Do not step onto the balcony, and do not come down to the courtyard. I'm putting two warriors at the door. I’ll come fetch you the second I know it’s safe."
“Kaelen and Rhea,” she says breathlessly. “I trust them.”
“Okay,” I say and smile to myself. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to keep her in the room if I locked her in. “Don’t worry, you'll be fine.”
She swallows hard, but she nods, leaning into my touch for a brief, heavy second. "Be careful."
"Always, sweet girl."
I throw the bedroom door open, and march through the apartment, bark two quick orders to guards in the corridor as I step outside, and run down the grand staircase to the lobby.
Down on the ground floor, the palace is exploding into controlled chaos.
"All vanguard to the gates!" Lexington’s roar echoes off the high stone arches, followed instantly by the heavy scrape of iron shields and the sharp clack-clack of crossbows being loaded along the upper ramparts.
"Hold the line," I growl, shoving my way through the double oak doors into the freezing night air. "Do not draw steel unless I give the word."
Julian glides up beside me, his hands tucked casually behind his back, though the faint pink sheen in his eyes tells me his inner beast is poised to tear throats out. 
Nathaniel stands three paces to my left near the inner archway, his golden aura simmering just beneath his skin, his blue eyes fixed on the treeline where the eastern spatial wards are groaning under an immense, ancient pressure.
The air turns dense, thick with the heavy scent of crushed cedar, ozone, and cold starlight.
“Who can it be?” the Western King asks me. “Friend or foe?”
“The wards would be screaming louder if it was an enemy, but they are not infallible. I hope to the Goddess it’s a friend.”
Then, the treeline parts.
She doesn't walk out of the forest; she seems to step straight out of the ambient moonlight filtering through the thawing pines.
Astraea.
I feel myself relax a little. 
The Ultima of the East moves with that weightless, terrifying grace that only the godlike first-born possess. Her skin glows like spun silver, her hair a cascade of pale golden light drifting around her shoulders as if suspended in water. 
She wears a sweeping tunic of woven light, and where her bare feet touch the muddy track, the slush instantly crystallizes into delicate frost patterns.
She stops fifty paces from our front line, raising one slender, luminescent hand. Her voice carries across the silent courtyard, clear and resonant as a struck crystal bell, vibrating straight into the marrow of every wolf present.
"Stand down, Northern King," Astraea announces, her golden eyes sweeping over our braced Vanguard. "The Eastern Sovereign does not come to conquer. He comes to honour the son of Sten."
“So dramatic,” Apollo sighs next to me. “So serious.”
“Any less dramatic than you?” I ask dryly.
“I take offence, King,” my Ultima snorts. “I’m the fun kind of dramatic.”
Behind Astraea, the shadows between the massive pine trunks shift.
A single figure steps into the pale torchlight. He doesn't have a guard. He doesn't carry a banner. He walks alone, wrapped in a heavy cloak of dark blue wool trimmed with faded silver fox fur.
Valerius.
He is the oldest living Lycan in the world - an original who walked the earth when the grand cities were still mud huts and the Fae gates were wide open. 
He doesn't look like a dying old man; he looks like an ancient mountain carved into the shape of a King. His silver hair falls past his broad shoulders, framing a face lined with wisdom and scars formed before the pyramids were built
His eyes are a pale, piercing ice-blue that holds the heavy, unyielding weight of millennia.
I step out from behind the shield wall, my boots squelching in the slush, my shoulders broad and braced as I meet the Eastern King halfway across the muddy courtyard.
Valerius stops five paces from me. He doesn't reach for a blade. Instead, his sharp, ancient eyes linger on my face, tracing the line of my jaw, the width of my chest, and the height of my frame.
The boy he once knew has become a man.
"You look so much like your father," Valerius observes. His voice is a low, rocky avalanche, a sound that seems to come from deep within the earth itself. "You have Sten’s jaw. And his stubborn, iron-headed posture." He smiles, then. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
"You did not come to my wedding, Valerius," I say flatly, keeping my hands resting on my belt, right above my hunting knives. "You have not set foot in the North for centuries. And now you walk onto my grounds in the middle of the night without an escort."
A faint, dry smirk touches the corner of the old King’s mouth. "I do not need an escort when I travel with an Ultima, Merrick. And I ignored your invitation because I was watching the southern borders crumble under Balthazar’s incompetence. 
“I am here now, to tell  you that the Cabal is no longer just a northern plague. Their shadow walkers are spilling into my forests and seas."
He takes a slow step closer, his scent hitting my nose - ancient pine resin, cold iron, and old blood.
"Sten and I were brothers," Valerius says quietly, his ice-blue eyes locking onto mine with absolute, unwavering sincerity. "I swore an oath to him before he laid down his crown and walked into the death valleys. I swore to him that if his line ever faced extinction, the East would march. I am here to fulfill that oath."
Before I can answer, a sharp, familiar warmth flares against the back of my mind.
I snap my head around.
Jolene is standing at the top of the grand stone stairs, a heavy wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders over her nightshirt, Calla hovering nervously at her side. My mate’s intense eyes are wide, fixed first on the radiant figure of Astraea, then shifting down to the towering, ancient King standing in the mud below.
Valerius follows my gaze. When his pale eyes land on Jo, he freezes. His nostrils flare as he catches her scent - the golden, brilliant thrum of her sun-line energy humming in perfect harmony with the Ultima child resting in her womb.
"By the Goddess," Valerius murmurs, taking a slow, reverent step toward the stairs. "The human girl who woke the sun fire. The miracle. Our salvation."
"She isn't human, Valerius," I growl softly, stepping laterally to block his line of sight, my territorial instincts flaring hot and fast. "She never was."
"No," Valerius agrees softly, his gaze shifting back to me, a look of profound, solemn understanding softening his rugged features. "She carries Apollo's blood in her veins, and Astra in her core. She was a Lycan from the moment of her birth, hidden behind her mother's human skin until the bite tore the veil away."
How the fuck could he possibly know all that?
Unless Astraea told him.
He raises his hands, palms open in a gesture of absolute peace, bowing his head slightly toward my Queen.
"It seems, King of the North," Valerius says, "we have much to discuss before the moon turns full."