Chapter 12 Assassination Attempt
Kian's POV
I couldn't sleep.
For three hours, I lay in my chamber listening to the castle settle around me, feeling the pulse of my territory through the bond I shared with the land itself. The stones thrummed with ancient magic, the walls whispered old secrets, and underneath it all, something felt wrong. The air felt wrong; thick with something ancient and hungry and out of place.
My wolf paced restlessly beneath my skin, refusing to be calmed. He could sense it too, whatever threat was creeping through our home. I'd tried meditation. I'd tried reviewing strategy documents. I'd tried everything to force myself into rest, but my instincts were screaming that something was coming.
Finally, I gave up the pretense of sleep and rose, pulling on leather pants and nothing else. My wolf was already close to the surface, ready for a fight. I'd just decided to do a full perimeter check when I felt it; a spike of fear through my bond with Lana, so intense it nearly drove me to my knees.
Terror. Desperation. Pain, sharp and immediate and absolutely genuine.
I moved faster than thought, shifting mid-stride so that by the time I reached her chamber door, I was already halfway transformed. The door splintered under my shoulder, collapsing inward like it was made of paper, and I took in the scene in a fraction of a second.
Three assassins. Professional ones, I could tell immediately from their bearing, their positioning, their equipment. They bore the ice-blue insignia of the Council's death squad on their armor.
One had a blade at Lana's throat; a silver blade, coated in a poison I could smell from across the room, poison that could kill most wolves in minutes. The other two had her pinned, her power lashing out wildly in pure panic, cracking the walls around us in spreading patterns of destruction.
The one holding the blade smiled when he saw me, a confidence in his expression that suggested he had contingencies for exactly this scenario.
"Stand down, Blood Alpha, or…"
I tore his arm off.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter.
These were trained killers, veterans of a thousand battles, but I was something else entirely; something that had been refined in blood and rage for twenty-three years.
I moved between them with the efficiency of a machine, each movement calculated and precise, designed to cause maximum damage while minimizing risk.
One tried to run; I caught him and broke his spine across my knee, letting him drop. Another attempted to portal away; I caught the spell mid-cast and watched as the magic tore him apart from the inside out, screaming.
The last one, the one who'd held the blade to Lana's throat, I took my time with. I wanted him to feel everything. I wanted him to understand, truly understand, what it meant to threaten what was mine.
"You came to kill her," I said, my voice barely human, barely controlled. Each word was edged with violence. "You came into my territory, into her sanctuary, with the intention of ending her life."
"For the Council.." he gasped, blood spraying from his mouth.
"I don't care about the Council."
I ended him in a way I knew would hurt, making sure every death squad member who received his reports would understand exactly what happened to those who threatened what was mine. When it was done, I stood in the center of the carnage, breathing hard, and only then turned to Lana.
She was bleeding.
The silver blade had caught her shoulder before I destroyed the assassin, and the wound was still seeping dark blood. Silver poison reacted poorly with Eclipse magic; instead of healing cleanly, her wound was smoking slightly, the edges blackened and necrotic.
Hold still," I commanded, and she obeyed, too shocked to argue.
I bit into the wound, drawing the poisoned blood into my own mouth. My body's natural resistance to toxins was one of my few advantages over regular wolves, earned through years of careful exposure and magical training. But even for me, the silver burned like liquid fire in my throat. I tasted copper and moonlight, tasted something wild and ancient that made my wolf sing in recognition.
I was tasting Lana's blood directly, and it was perfect.
When I'd drawn out enough of the poison, I sealed the wound with my saliva, letting my body's natural healing properties accelerate hers. The bleeding stopped. The blackening receded. The smoke faded.
When I looked up, she was staring at me with wide eyes, and I realized that I was still covered in blood-some of it hers, most of it theirs.
"Are you hurt?" she whispered.
That question, asked while she was bleeding from a silver wound, undid something in me. She was asking about ”me”, when she should have been terrified, should have been demanding answers about security or demanding to leave this place. She was worried about my wellbeing.
I pulled her against my chest without thinking, my hands desperate on her skin, needing to verify that she was still whole, still alive, still “here”.
"Don't," she breathed, but she was clutching at me anyway, her fingers digging into my back. "Don't let them take me. Promise me."
"Never," I promised, and I meant it with every cell of my being. "I will burn this world to ash before I let anyone take you."
She looked up at me, her silver eyes reflecting the blood-soaked room, and I saw the moment her fear transformed into something else. Something hungry and desperate and wild.
She kissed me.
It wasn't tentative or gentle. It was desperate and fierce, her hands pulling me closer, her mouth claiming mine with a possessiveness that matched my own. I responded immediately, lifting her, her legs wrapping around my waist as I pressed her against the wall. The movement sent my adrenaline soaring.
Every touch was a promise. Every kiss was a brand.
My hands slid down to her hips, and I was one moment away from claiming her completely, from finishing the mate bond and binding her to me in a way that would make her mine beyond all question, when she suddenly pulled back, gasping.
"Wait," she said, her hand on my chest, holding me at distance. Her breathing was as ragged as mine. "Wait, I need to think. I need to…I can't make this decision right now."
The rejection hit like a physical blow, my wolf screaming in protest. But I forced myself to step back, forced myself to release her, forced myself to respect the boundary she was setting even as every part of me rebelled against it.
"Okay," I said, my voice rough. "Okay, we wait."
But as I looked at the blood covering both of us, as I felt her heartbeat through our bond, I knew the truth: waiting had just become impossible. The Council's attempt on her life had accelerated everything. Two days until they arrived. Two days until war.
And somewhere in those two days, everything would change. I could feel it like a stone falling toward water, inevitable and unstoppable.
I left her to clean up, moving quickly through the castle corridors toward the war room. The bodies would need to be disposed of, and the castle's wards would need to be reinforced immediately. But as I walked, my mind fixated on one detail that made my blood run cold.
Apart from the Council's signature armour, the assassins bore different markings I'd never seen before. Not in any configuration I recognized from my intelligence reports or my years of warfare.
When I reached the war room, I held up my hand and began channeling my power through one of their blades, letting the magic reveal its secrets. The inscriptions glowed faintly, and slowly, a name crystallized in my consciousness.
Damon.
The insignia belonged to Damon of Silver Ridge.
My hands clenched into fists as I realized the depth of his betrayal. Norman had sent his son as a spy and an assassin, all while maintaining the pretense of alliance.
Which meant the entire Silver Ridge delegation could be compromised, which meant every strategy session, every troop movement, every weakness I'd revealed was already back in enemy hands.
I activated the communication crystal to summon my generals for an emergency war council. But even as I did, a darker thought settled over me: if Damon had tried to kill Lana, what was his real endgame? The assassination attempt had seemed almost reckless, more likely to fail than succeed.
Unless it wasn't meant to succeed.
Unless the entire point was to separate me from Lana, to distract me, to create exactly the kind of chaos that was now unfolding.
I needed to find her immediately and lock her in the most heavily warded chamber in the castle. The time for half measures and allowing her auto
nomy had passed.
The war had started earlier than anyone expected, and I was already losing ground.