Side By Side

Side By Side
Leo’s POV

We were ready.

Not the kind of ready you said to soothe yourself…a hollow promise before panic, but the kind that lived in bone and muscle. 

Since the coronation, since Malrik had pulled me aside and told me about Dina’s offer to him…to start a war and burn my kingdom down, we have been ready. 

We have sharpened claws on trees that never forgave the gouges. We ran until our lungs forgot comfort. We buried traps in the marsh and laid out shifts of warriors with faces like stone. Warriors slept in false places, moved in silence, rotated at dawn and dusk. Nothing was left to chance.

And in the middle of all that, I kept coming back to my light. Ivy.

Two days earlier we had found out she missed her flow. Two days and my world split open and folded itself around that truth. She was carrying our pup. Tiny and stubborn and mine.

I could feel how the news made me tremble. I banished the thought of her standing beneath spears and leather. No battle plans included her on the front line. No speaker would blast the call for the pack to rush while she dug trenches. I would not…I could not…lose her.

Still, stubbornness was a kind of truth in Ivy. She would not be a thing to hide. She took charge of the women and children, mapping the tunnels under the palace like she had been born with a compass in her gut. 

When the enemy came, she would lead the women and children down below. She believed she would finish the job and climb out to stand beside me. I let her believe that. I let her think she could choose.

But when the day came, I would seal those tunnels. I would lock her away like a precious goddamn treasure. I would throw away any plan that asked for her to die beside me.

That was my promise, unspoken and loud and burned into every breath.

As I went over the plan in my head, she began thrashing in her sleep, murmuring. “No…no…” Her hand clawed the air like she was trying to hold a falling star. 

I rushed to her side and scooped her into my lap. Her body was warm, sweat cooled on her brow. I did not bother with what the counsel thought and their gossip. 

Let them whisper about their king carrying his queen like a child every time. Let them talk. I would carry her across a burning bridge if I had to.

“Baby…hey, hey, I’m here. I’ve got you,” I whispered, and the sound of my voice steadied her, like it always did.

“Leo…they are coming…” she said, words soft as silk but sharp as a fang. “Nyxara told me…he’s coming.”

She said his name like a curse and a warning. I knew who she meant. I knew where she looked in her sleep…at the impending battle.

We had almost held the moon festival. 

In other years we would have been loud with drums, loud with wine, people spilling into the square like a tide. 

Ivy felt it in her bones and told me not to. She said in movies, enemies always struck when people were carried away. 

The council grumbled when I canceled the festival. They hated the idea especially because they’ve been anticipating it, and the festival meant a lot to the kingdom which I understand perfectly. 

But saying no to Ivy was the same as saying no to my heart. And I refuse to be that king.

“What are we going to do, Leo?” she asked. Sweat tracked down her neck. I wiped it away and pressed my lips to her forehead until she stilled.

“What else?” I answered. “We fight.”

She nodded like a wolf did before a run. “You won’t lock me away.”

“Ivy…” I began, but she pressed her fingers to my lips, a gentle blade. Her smile was small and fierce. “I know you would want to, especially because of the baby. But I was born for this. I am not weak. If you lock me away, I will tear the bars down and crawl free.”

My throat tightened. I was utterly scared. I said it, softly, honestly. “I’m scared, Ivy. I don’t want to lose you again…please.”

“You won’t,” she said. “Not if I stand by your side.”

Her voice cracked a little on the last three words and I felt it in my chest. I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream that I would not risk either losing her or the pup. But she had always been fierce and stubborn. When she wanted to be in the fire, she was in the fire.

I felt Ezra pushing through the mindlink. “Your majesty,” his voice snapped through like a knife. “They’ve been sighted. At the north perimeter. They’re moving in.”

My heart was a drum that forgot caution. I breathed out, steady. “Good,” I told him. “Remember the plan. Everyone should take their position. Daniel and the five others should stand guard next to the priestesses. Put the music in the speakers. Flood the outward courtyard with light. Let them think we’re celebrating. Keep them off balance.”

“They’ve passed the outer line,” Ezra said seconds later. “They’re inside the marked spots.”

A calm anger settled on me then, cold and controlled. “Let them in,” I growled. “Let them taste the false joy we give them.”

I moved to stand. Ivy was already steady on her feet, hands on the small of my back. She carried herself like a queen without a crown or fuss. 

I pulled her close and kissed her hard, like a prayer and a warning after we were done dressing. The salt of her skin, the quickness of her breath…everything about her said she was ready.

“Stay close to me at all times,” I told her. “Do not wander. Promise me.”

She laughed once, soft and raw. “Always.”

Out in the courtyard the soldiers held the lines like a living wall. Children, mothers, the sick and elderly were tucked into the mouths of caves below, female warriors guarding them like priests over relics. 

The music we had set up in the speakers was bright and careless…a mockery of celebration. It blared into the night, into the faces of the enemy. We wanted them to relax, to feel the pull of a crowd, to misstep.

I smelled them before I saw them. It was a stink of damp earth and hot fur, a sourness like old wounds. I tasted iron and smoke, and my teeth ached.

Ezra’s voice slid into my head again, softer now. “They’re getting closer to the courtyard, Alpha. Formations moving left flank. Shina’s unit is already at the palace gates.”

The courtyard looked like a party thrown for ghosts. Lanterns hung on ropes…banners flapped. The music kept playing…drums and horns and that foolish sweetness we put there as bait.

I touched Ivy’s face. She flinched and then tilted her chin up. “Leo,” she said, whisper-raw. “If…”

“If what?” I asked.

“If I fall…make sure you continue to live on,” she said. Her voice was steady, impossible. 

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “If you’re going to hit me with this dramatic speech, then head back inside, Ivy. I can’t risk it.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Do you still think you’re going to fall?” I asked, softly.

“No. I won’t,” she whispered with a deep sigh.

There was a long breath between us, a silent weighing of our future. I wanted to say more…to tell her I would never let her fall, that I would pull her back up no matter how many times she falls. But words were fragile. They were not anchors. But my body was an anchor.

“Shall we, my king?” she asked with a small smile edged in iron.

“Yes, my queen,” I replied.

Hand in hand, we moved toward the front of the courtyard. The soldiers parted like a tide. My wolf was up…a low, hungry animal at the back of my throat, itching to tear and rip. 

The air hummed with the sound of breath and leather and the scrape of claws against wood. Lantern light threw our shadows long and monstrous across the stones.

I held Ivy close, felt her smallness and the life in her belly that would be a future if we survived. 

Around us, the palace grew quiet but for the soft preparation of wolves…a deep inhalation, the click of fangs. I let the other sounds blur out until there was nothing but her and me and the breath between us.

We stood like that for a heartbeat and then another, until the night itself leaned in to watch.

Ready. Steady. Together.

We stepped out into the courtyard, palms tight within palms, eyes on the shadowed line where the enemy would emerge.