Chapter 12
873 Words
The night before war always felt too quiet.
The entire clearing was lit with torches, wolves running in tense, efficient patterns—checking weapons, sharpening claws, tightening leathers. The smell of steel and wet earth mixed with the thick undercurrent of adrenaline.
Darius stood at the center of it all, the Alpha at his most dangerous. His chest was bare except for the black leather straps crossing his torso, holding twin axes strapped across his back. His hair was damp, his golden eyes gleaming under the torchlight as he inspected every warrior personally.
No one dared slack under his stare.
Seraphina watched him from the edge of the clearing, her heart a storm in her chest. The mate bond hummed under her skin now, not quite sealed but louder with every breath, like it was waiting for the moment she’d let it consume her completely.
She wasn’t afraid of the battle to come.
She was afraid of losing him before she ever told him everything—before she ever got to feel what it was like to love him without restraint.
“Thinking about running?”
His voice was quiet, almost amused, and far too close. She startled as Darius stepped up beside her, silent as shadow despite his size.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her, tipping upward just slightly.
He grinned, slow and wolfish. “You’re staring at me like you’ve got something to say, witch.”
“Maybe I do.”
He waited, golden eyes burning in the torchlight, patient in a way that made her even more nervous.
Instead of answering, she turned away, stalking toward the small ritual fire she’d lit near the trees. Its smoke curled upward, smelling of sage and wolfsbane.
“Sit,” she ordered.
His brow arched, but he obeyed, dropping down onto one of the flat stones circling the fire.
Seraphina knelt opposite him, pulling out a small clay bowl of ash and a vial of moonwater. Her fingers were steady as she mixed them, chanting softly.
When she reached across the fire to touch the mixture to his chest, he caught her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Binding you,” she said simply. “Protecting you. I won’t lose you tonight, Darius.”
Something flickered in his gaze—something softer than the warrior he was trying to be right now.
He released her wrist. “Then do it.”
Her fingers brushed over his skin, leaving streaks of ash that glowed faintly silver under the moonlight. She could feel the heat of him, the steady drum of his heart under her palm.
When she finished the last sigil over his heart, he caught her hand before she could pull away.
“Now you,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
He dipped his fingers into the mixture, and before she could protest, he was leaning across the fire, tracing the same sigil over the skin just above her heart. His touch lingered, slow and reverent, and her breath hitched.
“You fight tonight,” he said softly, his voice a rumble. “You stand with me as Alpha and Luna. That means I protect you too.”
Her throat felt too tight to speak.
He leaned closer, firelight throwing gold over the hard planes of his face. “Seraphina,” he murmured, his lips almost brushing hers. “If we die tonight—”
“We won’t.”
“But if we do,” he pressed, “I need you to know—”
She silenced him with a kiss.
This one wasn’t desperate like the last—it was slow, lingering, the kind of kiss that felt like a promise. The fire popped beside them, heat licking at their skin, but neither of them moved.
When she finally pulled back, she was breathless. “Then we make sure we live. Both of us.”
Something in him cracked at that, and he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing hard.
“We finish this,” he said, his voice rough. “For him. For us.”
She nodded, the bond between them humming with a fierce, aching resonance.
The sound of the warning horn split the night.
Every wolf in the clearing went still.
“They’re coming,” one of the scouts panted, racing in from the ridge. “Lucien’s pack—they’re almost at the northern border.”
Darius rose in a single fluid motion, every inch the Alpha now, his golden eyes like fire.
“Arm up!” he roared, his voice carrying through the clearing. “Form the lines! Tonight we take back what’s ours!”
The pack erupted in answering howls, the sound rolling like thunder through the trees.
Seraphina grabbed her twin blades, the silver catching the firelight as she joined him at the head of the clearing.
Darius glanced down at her, his mouth curving in a grin that was sharp and hungry. “Stay with me.”
“Try to keep up,” she shot back, her own grin feral.
And then the drums began—deep, primal beats echoing through the night as the pack surged forward toward the border.
Toward war.
- Writer
