The Tyrant Moonborn Luna

Chapter 2: The Beast Of Nightvale

Lyra Point of View

My body shoved into the snow on the Nightvale side, the impact driving every last drop of air from my lungs. Cold, bitter snow packed into my mouth and eyes, but I couldn't afford to rest.

Behind me, the wild howls of Blackthorn bloodhounds reached a fearful pitch at the edge. Through blurred vision and a load of falling flakes, I saw five heavy torches shining.

"She crossed the boundary!" an Enforcer shouted across, his voice heavy with hesitation. "Sir, it's Nightvale territory!"

"I don't care if it's the underworld itself!" Kael's furious roar echoed across the chasm. "Cross and drag her back! If Alpha Darius's patrols find her first, she'll be dead anyway, but I want her head in my hands!"

The sounds of heavy boots cutted through the icy wind at the bottom signaled their approach. They were coming.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms weakened beneath me. The silver coated chains had left deep, blistered burns on my skin, and the loss of my mate bond felt like a gaping, physical void in my chest. Blood from the arrow graze on my shoulder leaked steadily, staining the snow beneath me a dark, terrible crimson.

Get up, I told myself, digging my fingernails into the frozen dirt. Move!

I dragged myself three inches. Then four. My legs refused to cooperate, numb from the chill.

The crunching of snow grew closer. Three Blackthorn warriors surrounded me with their swords drawn, torches light long, high and mean shadows across the trees.

"There the little thief is," one of them sneered, stepping toward me. "Look at her, crawling like the rat she is."

I rolled onto my back, my chest heaving, staring up at the men who had been my packmates just hours ago. I reached blindly for a rock, my fingers holding onto an icy stone. I wouldn't go down without taking a eye with me.

"Kael said dead or alive," the second warrior said, raising his blade. "Let's make it easy on ourselves."

He raised the steel, stepping forward to drive it into my chest.

Then, the world froze.

It didn't happen slowly. A pressure so vast, so heavy, and so suffocating pressed down onto the clearing that the air itself seemed to solidify. The torches held by the Blackthorn guards flickered wildly and died.

A low, deep growl vibrated through the ground beneath us, a sound so primal and dark that the very trees seemed to shiver.

The guard holding the sword froze mid-swing, his eyes widening in pure terror. "What... what is that?"

Out from the deep shadows of the ancient pine forest walked a shadow.

He didn't run. He didn't rush. He walked with the slow, terrifying confidence of an apex predator that owned every leaf, every flake of snow, and every drop of blood in these mountains.

He was massive.. a six-foot-four, broad-shouldered, and covered in a heavy, fur-lined dark cloak. Silver hair fell across his sharp jawline, but it was his eyes that made my breath catch in my throat.

They weren't human. They weren't even normal wolf eyes. They were glowing rings of liquid silver, burning like twin stars.

Alpha Darius. The Beast of Nightvale!.

"You are five paces over my border," Darius said. His voice was a deep baritone that vibrated right through my ribcage. "And you are standing in front of my kill."

"A-Alpha Darius," the Blackthorn lead warrior stammered, his sword trembling as he tried to maintain his stance. "We... we mean no disrespect to Nightvale! This woman is a branded criminal of the Blackthorn Pack! She stole our sacred relic and fled execution! We are merely retrieving pack property!"

"I do not care about your pack," Darius interrupted coldly, not even looking at the guard.

His silver eyes slowly drifted downward, locking directly onto mine.

The moment our eyes met, the world exploded.

A shockwave of sheer energy slammed into my chest, far more powerful than the artificial bond I had with Kael.It felt like liquid fire pouring into my veins, removing the frozen numbness out of my limbs and reigniting my heart with a deafening beat.

My soul didn't just recognize him..it bowed to him. A golden, unbreakable thread snapped into place between our spirits, humming with ancient, unyielding power.

True Mates!

A gasp escaped my lips. Darius froze in his tracks, his silver eyes flaring bright, his pupils dilating until they nearly swallowed the silver whole. His nostrils flaring...

For a fraction of a second, the lethal tyrant looked utterly undone.

"Alpha!" the Blackthorn guard yelled, misinterpreting Darius's silence. He lunged forward to grab my hair. "We will take her now..."

Darius moved faster than human or wolf eyes could track.

One second he was ten feet away; the next, he was standing directly in front of me. Then I heard metallic sword sound.

A spray of hot, dark blood dyed the snow. The guard's head hit the ground before his body even realized it was dead.

The other two Blackthorn warriors shrieked in horror, dropping their weapons and scrambling backward toward the ravine. "Monster! He's a monster!"

"Touch her again," Darius growled, stepping over the corpse, his blade dripping red, "and I will march on Blackthorn and leave no one alive to bury your Alpha."

The remaining guards scrambled wildly back across the border, fleeing into the darkness as fast as their legs could carry them.

Darius Point of View

I had come to the border to kill trespassers.

Reports of Blackthorn dogs trailing near the northern ravine had reached my fortress an hour ago. I usually dispatched Marcus or the Enforcers to handle boundary trash, but a restless, dark energy had been clawing at my chest all evening, driving me out into the storm myself.

Now, standing in the blood-stained snow, I knew why.

The scents of fear and iron hung heavy in the air, but beneath them was something else. Something rare. Something that made my wolf, Ares, slam against his cage, demanding control.

I turned slowly back to the creature lying at my feet.

She was tiny compared to me, wrapped in a tattered, blood-soaked cloak that bore the crest of the Blackthorn Pack. Her wrists were raw and bleeding from silver chains, her dark hair covered with ice and snow. She looked like a broken stray left out to die.

And yet, as I stepped closer, the pull in my chest grew so violent it nearly brought me to my knees.

MATE, Ares roared in my mind, his voice a deafening howl of absolute dominance and possessiveness. SHE IS OURS. PROTECT HER. KILL ANYONE WHO TOUCHED HER.

I swallowed hard, forcing my commander's calm over the roaring beast inside me. I knelt down in the cold powder, laying my bloody broadsword aside.

"Look at me," I commanded softly.

She lifted her face, shivering violently. Her dark eyes were huge, framed by long, ice-crusted lashes, swimming with a mixture of terror and fierce, defiant pride. Even with blood on her cheek and tears frozen on her skin, she didn't look like a thief or a victim. She looked like a survivor.

When my bare fingers brushed against her jaw to tilt her head up, a shock of divine lightning surged through my skin. She gasped, her lips parting, a faint puff of warm air hitting my chest.

"They called you a thief," I murmured, my thumb gently sweeping a smudge of black soot from her cheekbone. "What did you take from them, little bird?"

"Nothing..." she whispered, her voice a ragged, trembling thread. "I took... nothing."

"Then why did they hunt you?"

"Because..." Her eyelids fluttered, heavy with exhaustion. "Because I was weak. Because... I was wolfless."

My eyes narrowed as I felt the residual, ugly trace of a broken, forced bond lingering on her neck..a crude, unworthy mark left by that fool Kael. The urge to hunt him down right now and rip his throat out almost overwhelmed me.

"You are not wolfless," I said, my voice dropping an octave as the True Mate bond hummed between us, warm and undeniable. "And you are no longer theirs."

Her eyes rolled back, her body finally giving out as unconsciousness claimed her. She collapsed forward, her forehead thumping softly against my chest.

Without hesitation, I scooped her up into my arms, wrapping my heavy fur cloak around her fragile, freezing frame. She weighed almost nothing, but to my wolf, she felt like the entire world.

I turned back toward the dark, looming towers of Nightvale Fortress rising in the distance.

"Marcus!" I called out into the shadows.

A tall warrior materialized from the tree line, her eyes widening as she saw the woman cradled securely against my chest. "Alpha? Is that... a Blackthorn intruder? Should I fetch the cellar keys?"

"No," I growled, pulling the cloak tighter around my mate as a tiny, spark of violet flame flickered harmlessly across her fingertips in her sleep, a divine spark that made my heart leap in shock.

"Prepare the royal quarters," I commanded, stepping past my second-in-command. "And send word to the border guards. If a single Blackthorn wolf breathes near my line tonight, skin them alive."