Chapter 70 Chapter Seventy

Chapter 70 Chapter Seventy
WALTER’S POV

I stood in the middle of the great hall, leaning just barely against the stone pillar beside me, forcing every muscle in my body to stay upright. 
To bear the weight and to ignore the fire raging through my leg, up my hip, and into my spine. 
Sweat streamed down my forehead, stinging my eyes and soaking through my shirt collar, but I wouldn’t wipe it away. Wouldn’t show an ounce of weakness.

Every step from my study to here had been a fight against my own body.
Each movement a reminder of what I’d lost, what had been stolen from me, and how long I’d let lies keep me broken and bitter.

Silver in the bones. Silver in the blood.

Nora. The woman I’d trusted like family. She’d fed me poison with a smile, wiped my brow when the pain was worst, and worst of all, she had listened to me rage about Lila… and laughed at me the whole time.

And Adrian, my Beta. My right hand. The brother I’d chosen with my whole heart. He’d stood at my side, sworn to protect me, sworn to lead our warriors… and all along he’d been feeding every secret, every weakness and every plan straight to Draven Harlan.

I gripped the hilt of my sword, the heavy iron blade I hadn’t drawn in battle for two years, until my fingers cramped and my knuckles blazed white. 
Rage burned inside me, hotter than the pain, hotter than the silver still coursing through my veins. 
But this wasn’t the blind and bitter anger I’d carried with me for so long. This was cold and focuse, all aimed at the man who’d destroyed my life, my pack, and the woman I was meant to love.

Draven Harlan wanted war. He wanted fear. He wanted me on my knees.

He wants to see the Alpha fall, my wolf growled inside me, his voice was no longer quiet and broken, but roaring with a strength I’d almost forgotten existed. 
He wants her to see you helpless and unable to protect her. He wants her to think you’re not worth choosing.

“He’ll see nothing of the sort,” I muttered out loud, my voice rough and low, echoing off the stone walls.

I looked around at the men gathered here, my guards, warriors, servants, stable hands, even our cook and blacksmith. 
Every able body left in the estate, armed with whatever we could scrounge up, swords, axes, spears, heavy iron bars, and even kitchen knives. 
Their faces were grim, they look scared, but determined. They looked to me. They always had. For two years, they’d looked to a broken man who hid away and blamed an innocent woman for his pain. But now… now they looked to their Alpha again.

“Draven Harlan is inside our walls,” I announced, my voice ringing out clear and strong and reaching every corner of the hall. 
“He’s breached our defenses. Killed our guards and taken one of our own, a girl that's barely more than a child and uses her suffering to mock us."
"He thinks that we’re weak, blind and divided.”

I paused, letting my words sink in, and watching the fear in their eyes harden into anger.

“He’s wrong,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. 
“He plays these games because he’s a coward who strikes from shadows because he can’t face us in the light."
He targets the innocent because he knows he can’t defeat the strong. He wants Lila Varyn, the Star Born, our Star Born... because her power is greater than anything he could ever achieve on his own. He wants to steal her light so he can feed it to his darkness.”

I shifted my weight, and a spike of pain shot up my leg so sharp I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out.
But I stood taller and proud, showing them the Alpha they’d thought was lost forever.

“But he doesn’t understand one thing,” I declared, my eyes sweeping over every face in the room. 
“Lila Varyn isn’t just power. She isn’t just a weapon to be taken or used. She’s ours."
"She’s the heart of this pack. She’s the mate I spent two years hating, two years hurting, two years failing… and I swear by the Moon Goddess herself, I will not spend another second letting anyone harm her. Draven Harlan wants to take her? Destroy us? Burn Fairmoon to ash?”

I drew my sword, the steel loud and clear as it slid from its sheath, catching the torchlight so bright it made some men blink.

“Let him come,” I snarled, feeling the wolf rise up inside me, the raw instinct to protect, to fight and to defend what was mine surging through every vein.
“But tell him this from me, Every step he takes in these walls, every drop of blood he spills and every scream he causes… I’ll pay him back tenfold."
"He thinks I’m broken? Thinks silver has killed the wolf in me? He’s wrong. The wolf was just sleeping and now he’s awake, and he’s angry, and he’ll tear apart everything and anything that stands between us and our future.”

A roar went up from the crowd, it's fierce and loud enough to shake the rafters. Swords were raised, fists pumped and voices shouting oaths of loyalty and revenge. 
For the first time since the accident, since the lies began, there was real hope in this house. Real fight.

A shadow moved at the edge of the group, and I saw Caelum pushing his way through, his face pale as death, his eyes wide with terror. He ran to me, stumbling over his own feet, and pulled me aside where the others couldn’t hear.

“Walter,” he whispered frantically, his voice shaking. 
“We’ve got another problem. I went to Lila’s rooms like you said. We were talking, trying to be careful… but Draven was there. Not in person, but his magic… it was everywhere. He spoke to us, threatened us… and he used Elara.”

My grip on my sword tightened until my hand throbbed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Used her how? Tell me everything.”

“He mimicked her voice, Walter. Made it sound like she was outside the door, begging for help, screaming in pain… and he wrote on the wood in blood. Told her he’ll take one life every day until she surrenders and he changed the timeline, said two days left now.”

Caelum swallowed hard, fear shining in his brown eyes.

“And then… something happened to Lila. She wasn’t shifting, it's nothing like that. But her eyes… they turned that glowing gold again, like they’re made of starlight, and the veins in her arms were shining bright, it was like liquid gold running under her skin."
"She didn’t even know she was doing it. She was scared, crying, shaking… and the power just came out of her.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“It’s waking up,” I murmured, awe and fear warring inside me. “Just like the old stories said. Rises when she’s threatened. Rises to protect her and to protect us.”

“But Walter… it’s out of control,” Caelum hissed, glancing back toward the private wing.
“Mirabel says she can’t rein it in, Lila doesn’t even understand what it is. And every time it flares up… it sends out a signal. Like lighting a bonfire in the middle of the night and yelling ‘Here I am!’ Draven doesn’t need to search for her anymore. He can feel her power waking up from miles away and knows exactly where she is.”

I looked down at my leg at the injury that had defined me for two years, at the weakness I’d hated so much. 
I thought of Lila, alone in that room, scared and powerful and innocent, carrying the weight of every single one of us on her shoulders, carrying a power that ancient texts said could build worlds or burn them to the ground.

I thought of the memory we’d shared, the rain, the truck going off the road, the fall… and that golden light pouring from her hands into my body, keeping me alive, saving me, and giving me a piece of herself because even then, even when we didn’t know it, she was mine and I was hers.

“I need to go to her,” I said, sliding my sword back into its sheath and starting for the corridor.
I ignored the sharp pain that shot through me with every step, I ignored everything but getting to her side.
“I need to be there when this happens. Mirabel can teach her about her magic, about her mind… but I’m the only one who can teach her about being strong and about being ours.”

“Walter, wait!” Caelum grabbed my arm, holding me back.
“There’s more. When we were in the room… when her power flared up… something else happened. Something Mirabel didn’t want to tell you—said it might break you completely.”

He paused, looking at me with an expression of pure dread.

“When Lila’s light was brightest… when her veins were glowing gold… the silver in your leg, it reacted."
"The poison in your blood… it started burning. You felt it, didn’t you? That searing pain you never get unless something’s wrong? It was worse than usual, wasn’t it?”

I froze. He was right. Just a few minutes ago, standing here in the hall, I’d felt a spike of agony so intense it nearly dropped me to my knees.
Different from the usual dull ache this was a burning, stabbing fire right in the bone itself. I’d thought it was just from standing too long,or even from walking without the cane.

But it wasn’t.

“The legends…” Caelum whispered, his voice trembling. 
“Mirabel remembered the old stories. The Star Born’s light burns away darkness. Purifies corruption and heals wounds that can’t be healed.”

He looked at me, his face as white as snow.

“But silver is corruption to us, Walter. Poison. The opposite of everything we are. And if her light touches it… if her power gets close… it doesn’t heal it. It burns it out and to get the poison out of you… it has to burn through every inch of you first.”

Understanding hit me like a punch to the gut, it hits heavy and terrifying.

If Lila used her power… if she used it to save me, to heal me, to protect us all… she wouldn’t just fix me. She’d torture me. Burn me alive from the inside out.

And Draven knew it.

He wasn’t just waiting for her power to wake up so he could steal it.

He was waiting for her to love me enough to use it and watch her destroy the man she was trying to save.

From far above us, from the direction of Lila’s chambers, a blinding golden light exploded through the windows, brighter than the moon, brighter than the sun itself. It lit up the entire estate, casting long sharp shadows everywhere, and the house shook with a hum of energy so powerful it made the floor vibrate under our feet.

And then her voice rang out, it sounds clear and strong and terrified, echoing in every single mind in the house at once, not spoken with her mouth but projected by raw, untamed power.

“Walter! The shadows… they aren’t just shadows, they’re wolves made of smoke and silver and they’re coming through the walls, there are hundreds of them and the leader… he looks exactly like YOU!”