Darian’s POV
I hit him mid air, all two hundred pounds of wolf and rage.
We crashed to the ground in a tangle of claws and bone. Pain exploded across my shoulder as his claws tore through fur and skin. I tasted my own blood, hot and metallic.
But I didn’t let go.
Not while Aria was behind me.
Not while my pack was behind me.
The Nightfang King snarled, the sound wrong in my skull. “Give me the stone,” he hissed. “And I will let your pack live.”
Liar.
Behind me, Aria didn’t answer with words.
I felt it first through the bond a pull, sharp and sudden, like a thread snapping tight between us. The mating bond I’d been holding back since Lot 17 tore wide open. Her fear, her fury, her defiance flooded into me. And mine flooded into her.
She was terrified.
She was fu
