Claimed By The Crescent Rivals

The Chaos of Three Kings

The explosions outside shook the ground hard enough that I felt them in the soles of my bare feet. Cold dread shot straight up my spine. The marble under me didn’t feel like a palace floor anymore. It felt like the bottom of a tomb that was already starting to crack.

Smoke pushed through the broken window frame—thick, gray, and sharp with the stink of burning stone and ozone. I coughed once and ran for the heavy oak door. Both hands on the iron handle. I yanked with everything I had. Nothing. The lock was solid, reinforced with Ronan’s Alpha magic, and it didn’t even rattle.

“Open the door!” I slammed my fists against the wood. The only answer was a distant, wet scream from somewhere below—someone being torn apart in the hallway.

My heart was trying to punch its way out of my chest. Inside my head my wolf paced in tight, frantic circles, claws scraping against the inside of my skull.

We have to move, she said, voice tight. The walls are coming down. Stay here and we’re finished.

I spun around, scanning the room. Heavy iron fire poker by the hearth. I grabbed it. The metal was cold and the thing was heavier than it looked, but the adrenaline made it feel almost light. I jammed the tip into the gap between the door and the frame and threw my whole weight against it like a lever. Wood groaned. Sweat mixed with soot on my forehead.

Crack.

The wood started to give. Then another explosion hit the fortress and the whole door blew inward off its hinges. The heavy panel smashed to the floor inches from where I stood.

I didn’t wait. Dropped the poker, hiked up the stupid velvet gown Ronan had forced me into, and ran.

The hallway was a slaughterhouse. Fresh blood streaked the stone. Three ShadowStone guards were already down, armor ripped open by claws that belonged to something a lot bigger than a normal wolf. The air was thick with scents that didn’t belong together—Ronan’s winter frost, Killian’s burning ash, and Jax’s wild rain-soaked scent cutting through it all.

I headed for the eastern wing, away from the steel and screaming at the main gates. Rounded the corner too fast. The floor under me just… gave.

I threw myself backward as a chunk of ceiling came down in a roar of dust and stone. When the haze cleared a little, he was there.

Killian.

Still in human form, but only just. Eyes pure blood-red. Bare chest slick with other people’s blood and new scars. Hands fully shifted into those massive, black-clawed weapons. The weight of his presence hit me like a physical thing.

“Aria.” The growl vibrated in my bones.

He stepped closer, nostrils flaring as he took my scent. That possessive smirk cut across his scarred face. “The Shadow thought he could hide you in his mountain. Nothing stays hidden from the BloodClaw.”

I backed up, feet slipping on dust and rubble. “Stay away from me.” The words came out thin. The collapsed ceiling had already sealed the way I’d come.

“You’re coming with me, little Omega.” He lunged faster than something that size should move. “You’ll bear my heirs. Your blood belongs to my pack.”

A golden blur slammed into him before his hand closed on my wrist.

Jax hit Killian like a battering ram and drove them both straight through the stone wall. Furniture exploded into splinters in the dining hall beyond. They were pure violence—fists, claws, snarls.

“Run, Aria!” Jax’s voice was rough, strained. He took a punch to the jaw and barely seemed to notice. Golden hair wild, amber eyes burning. “Lower courtyards! Don’t let him touch you!”

Killian’s claws raked a deep line across Jax’s chest. Jax didn’t even flinch. Just bared his teeth and locked an arm around Killian’s throat, trying to pin him.

I scrambled through the hole they’d made, vaulted the debris, and took the spiral stairs two at a time. Their fight echoed behind me the whole way down.

The lower courtyard was worse.

Rain hammered the open space. Hundreds of wolves locked in a mess of claws and teeth and steel. ShadowStone in black armor fighting for their lives against the scarred, massive BloodClaw wolves while Northern Rogues tore into anyone who got close enough. Chaos. Mud. Blood.

I kept to the wall, trying to stay in the shadows and work my way toward the outer gates. Tree line. Forest. Disappear. That was the only plan I had left.

“Did you really think I would let you leave my sight again, Aria?”

The voice was cold and smooth and cut straight through the noise.

Ronan stood at the top of the courtyard stairs, a dozen elite guards around him, silver blade in his hand. Those eyes found me and locked on. Obsessive. Absolute.

“You belong to the ShadowStone.” His voice carried easily over the rain. “I offered you the choice to be my Luna. Now I take what is mine.”

He started down the stairs. His guards fanned out.

The dining hall doors blew open. Killian and Jax spilled out still tangled together, but the second they saw me standing in the open they broke apart like the fight no longer mattered.

“She is mine!” Killian roared and charged down the muddy slope.

“Like hell she is!” Jax vaulted off a stone pillar straight at him.

Three Alphas. Three armies. And I was standing right in the middle of it.

The mate bond flared so hard it felt like it was trying to tear me into three separate pieces. My wolf howled inside my head, overwhelmed by the sheer force of all three claims at once.

Ronan coming down the stairs. Killian charging from the left. Jax cutting through the center. No river to jump. No shadows left to hide in.

Lightning cracked the sky open as all three of them lunged at the same time.