Taming the Cold-Hearted Alpha

Chapter Twenty-Six: Teeth in the Night

The attack comes at dusk.

A scream. Then two.

Not from warriors—but from the children’s tents.

I’m halfway out of Kael’s war room when a flaming arrow punches through the sky and embeds itself in the earth just feet away from me.

Kael’s roar is thunder behind me as his soldiers mobilize.

The perimeter is on fire.

Not just metaphorically.

Literally burning.

“Wolves!” someone yells. “Not ours!”

Outsiders.

I scent the air—acid, ash, and something wrong.

Something not pack.

Kael is beside me in seconds, already shifted—his massive obsidian-black wolf form looming and furious.

But I don’t wait for him.

I run.

I don’t think, I move—toward the screaming, the smoke, the children.

I shift mid-stride, pain lacing through my joints, fur rippling as claws burst from bone.

My wolf is smaller, sleeker—but deadly.

And she is done being silent.

Two rogue wolves slam into me at the edge of the nursery tent. I don’t hesitate.

I go for the throat.

My teeth sink in and blood floods my tongue. Another jumps on me from behind, but before it can crush me beneath its weight—

Kael hits it like a god of death.

They tumble, and he tears its belly open with a single swipe of his claws.

I stare.

Because this is the Alpha they speak of in fear. Not the man in the war tent.

The one who kills for those he protects.

We fight back to back.

Bleeding. Breathing. Raging.

By the time the last rogue flees into the woods, Kael shifts back into human form—panting, shirtless, and streaked with blood.

He stares at me.

I shift back, breath heaving in my chest.

There’s blood on both of us.

And not all of it is theirs.

“You saved them,” he says.

I nod, swallowing hard.

“So did you.”

The camp is chaos, but around us, the fire begins to die down. The guards corral survivors, and healers rush to the wounded.

Kael reaches out, hand trembling slightly.

I don’t pull away this time.

But I don’t move toward him either.

Because even as I lean on his strength…

A part of me can’t forget the cage he’s building around me.

“I won’t lose you,” he whispers.

You already are, I think.

But I say nothing.

Because for now—

We still bleed for each other.

Even as we both begin to plan what comes next.

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