Chapter 3: The Warning
1091 Words
Blood poured across the wooden floor, shimmering in the firelight like spilled ink.
Lucien sank to one knee, eyes searching the wounded scout’s body. Aria sat up, her pulse speeding. The scout’s breath came in broken gasps, each one more labored than the last.
Lucien pressed a palm to the man’s chest. “Who sent you?”
The scout’s eyes flicked open, just barely. “Alpha... Darius,” he rasped.
Aria’s stomach sank.
Lucien’s jaw clenched. “Why?”
The scout’s hand twitched toward Aria. “He... knows she lives. He’s hunting her. He thinks she ran with... a traitor.”
Lucien’s expression shifted. “Traitor?”
“Lucien...,” Aria muttered. “Why would he call you that?”
The scout coughed, blood on his lips now. “He’s sending... the enforcers. To find her. Kill the pup.”
Aria’s world twisted.
“No,” she muttered, her hands reflexively tightening over her belly. “He wouldn’t. Not the baby.”
The scout gave a sour smile. “He said... a child born of a rejected Luna will bring ruin to the pack... unless it’s ended.”
Lucien ascended slowly. He moved like a storm, calm, controlled, dangerous.
“He won’t touch you,” he murmured to Aria, his voice hard as steel. “Or your child.”
The scout convulsed once. Then stilled.
Lucien stood over him in silence, then raised the scout’s body and took it outside.
Aria sat paralyzed by the fire, her hands shivering. Darius was hunting her? Even now?
She remembered the expression in his eyes the night he pushed her aside. There was no trace of the man she had loved. Only ambition. Cruelty. A desire for power that had consumed everything else.
Lucien reappeared a little later, the wind clinging to his coat.
“We’ll leave at dawn,” he added. “This cabin is no longer safe.”
Aria stared at the fire. “Why would he call you a traitor?”
Lucien’s eyes flickered to the flames.
“Because I refused to kneel,” he added. “I was once part of the Northern Fang Alliance. I noticed the corruption growing in the senior echelons. I attempted to speak against it. They branded me a rogue.”
Aria observed him more intently now.
“You were an alpha?”
He nodded once. “By blood and by right. But I walked away. Power means nothing if it demands your soul.”
For a minute, they were quiet, two damaged wolves hiding from a world that no longer welcomed them.
Then Aria added, “I was willing to give Darius everything. My heart. My loyalty. Even my future.”
Lucien’s gaze softened.
“But he wasn’t willing to protect you,” he continued. “That’s not love, Aria.”
Her throat clenched. “I know that now.”
Lucien sat across from her, a reasonable distance away. “You don’t have to trust me. But you and your pup need safety. I can take you to a place where no one can find you.”
“Where?”
“Deep in the Ashen Mountains. There’s an old sanctuary, hidden, safeguarded by ancient magic. It’s where I go when I need to disappear.”
Aria peered into his golden eyes and felt the flash of something she hadn’t felt in days.
Hope.
“I’ll go,” she said. “But if anything happens to my child... I’ll never forgive myself.”
Lucien nodded. “Then we’ll make sure nothing does.”
They slept in shifts that night. Lucien stood vigil, immovable as a statue. Aria drifted in and out of uncomfortable slumber, her nightmares haunted by crimson eyes and the echo of Darius’ voice.
**By sunrise**, the forest was enveloped in a heavy mist.
Lucien packed supplies swiftly, dried meat, herbs, water flasks and handed Aria a heavy fur cloak to wear. She accepted it with a gentle thank you, then followed him into the trees.
The trail was rocky, but Lucien walked with precision, avoiding open clearings, keeping to the shadows. Aria followed as best she could, resting on a branch he’d fashioned into a walking stick.
Hours passed.
Birds spread overhead. The sky darkened, clouds heavy with unfallen snow.
Suddenly, Lucien stopped.
Aria nearly bumped into him. “What is it?”
His eyes were exploring the ground.
Tracks.
Wolf tracks. Deep. Heavy. Recent.
“Enforcers,” he murmured under his breath. “At least three. They came past here less than an hour ago.”
Aria’s heart pounded. “Are they ahead of us?”
“No. They’re circling back. Tracking our scent.”
Lucien turned, grabbed her hand.
“We have to move. Now.”
They veered off the path, crashing through the underbrush. Lucien kept them low, zigzagging to throw off their trail. Aria tried to keep up, but adrenaline propelled her forward.
They reached a ridge just as the wind switched.
Lucien froze.
So did Aria.
From the trees behind them came the low, methodical snarl of a wolf.
Then another.
And another.
Lucien stepped in front of her, his entire body clenched.
Three beings came from the fog, enormous wolves with glittering armor on their shoulders, black tattoos curling down their legs. Darius’ enforcers.
One of them transformed to human shape.
It was a woman, towering, scarred, eyes like ice.
“Lucien. You’re harboring a fugitive,” she said.
“I’m protecting a mother,” he said. “Leave.”
The woman’s attention went to Aria. “The ex-Luna. The discarded one.”
She sniffed the air.
“Pregnant.”
Aria stood tall, elevating her chin. “This child is innocent.”
The woman smiled without warmth. “No child of betrayal is innocent.”
Lucien snarled low.
The enforcer’s smile grew. “Stand down, Lucien. This doesn’t have to end in blood.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
In the space of a heartbeat, he shifted.
A silver blur crashed into the enforcer, and chaos erupted.
Wolves clashed, snarling, tearing into each other. Aria stumbled backward, heart hammering. She didn’t know what to do, fight? Run? Scream?
Suddenly, a fourth person materialized from the mist.
Not another enforcer.
Darius.
His black eyes fastened upon hers, brimming with hatred.
“You should have died when I cast you out,” he snarled, voice like poison.
Aria couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
He took a step toward her.
Lucien was still fighting the others. He didn’t see him.
And Darius... was reaching for her.
- Writer
