CHAPTER 8
1042 Words
The storm hadn’t let up. Sheets of rain lashed the mountainside as Seraphina stumbled out of the cave, her cloak snapping like a banner of defiance in the wind. Behind her, fire devoured the darkness—the cave collapsing inward as Darius’s flames reduced it, and Lucien’s corpse, to ash.
The smell of smoke clung to her as she gripped the slick leather of her dagger’s hilt, her magic restless and alive beneath her skin.
“You’re sure this is the right way?” she shouted over the wind, pulling her hood tight.
Darius didn’t look back. He strode through the mud like the storm was nothing, shoulders broad, naked from the waist up because his ruined clothes hadn’t survived the shift. His skin gleamed with rain and blood, every ripple of muscle carved in lightning light.
She hated that she noticed. Hated that her chest tightened when his golden eyes caught hers for the briefest heartbeat before he turned away again.
“Yes,” he growled. “The scent leads east.”
Seraphina’s boots sank into the muck as she followed. “You’re sure it’s his?”
He stopped so suddenly she nearly collided with him. When he turned, his face was carved from stone and fury.
“I will never mistake my son’s scent,” Darius said, each word low and lethal.
Seraphina’s throat tightened. “Our son,” she corrected softly, because even in the chaos, she couldn’t let him erase that truth.
His jaw flexed. “Our son,” he echoed, voice rough like gravel. “And they’re moving fast.”
“Who’s they?” she pressed.
His silence was the answer.
“Darius—”
“Lucien wasn’t working alone.” His fists clenched at his sides, the tendons in his arms taut like bowstrings. “If he mentioned the Eclipse, that means the Coven is involved.”
Seraphina’s breath caught, cold fear sliding like a blade down her spine. “The Eclipse ritual hasn’t been used in centuries. It—”
“Binds wolves to witches,” Darius finished grimly. “Permanent. Unbreakable.”
Her heart pounded. “If they bind Kaelen…”
“They won’t.” The growl that left him shook the trees. “I’ll kill every last one of them before that happens.”
The promise in his voice should have terrified her. Instead, it sent heat curling low in her belly.
Focus, she scolded herself. Your son is out there. That’s what matters.
But then he started walking again, rain sluicing down his back, and every step reminded her of how close she’d once been to him—how it had felt to be claimed by him, before everything shattered.
They didn’t speak for a long time after that. The storm swallowed their words, their scents, leaving only the relentless drum of rain and the occasional c***k of thunder.
Finally, when the trees thickened and the worst of the wind died, Seraphina couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“You broke his neck,” she said quietly.
Darius didn’t slow. “He was a threat.”
“He was your brother.”
“He stopped being my brother the second he touched my son.”
Seraphina quickened her pace until she was beside him, mud streaking her cloak. “And what if killing him was exactly what they wanted? To push you over the edge? To make you—”
He rounded on her so fast she barely had time to breathe. One moment she was talking, the next her back was pressed to a tree, bark biting through her cloak, and Darius’s hands were braced on either side of her head.
“Don’t,” he said, voice low and dangerous, rain dripping from his hair onto her cheek. “Don’t tell me what they want. Don’t tell me how to feel.”
Her pulse hammered so hard she felt it everywhere—in her throat, in her wrists, in the place where her body brushed his. “You think I’m not scared too?” she shot back, refusing to look away. “You think I’m not breaking inside knowing what they could do to him?”
His breath was hot despite the cold rain, his eyes molten gold as they locked on hers. “Then stop wasting time questioning me.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if you trusted me,” she hissed.
His laugh was sharp, humorless. “Trusted you? You hid him from me for five years, Seraphina.”
Her chest constricted like a fist. “Because you rejected me!”
Lightning split the sky, painting his face in silver fire. For one breathless second, neither of them moved.
Then his hands dropped, not to let her go, but to grip her waist so hard she gasped. “I was wrong,” he said again, voice hoarse, raw. “I was a coward. I didn’t deserve you then.”
“And now?” she whispered, because the space between them was too tight, too dangerous, and every nerve screamed to close it.
His thumb brushed her hipbone, slow and deliberate. “Now I’d burn the world to keep you.”
The words hit like fire to dry tinder.
Her lips parted, her magic sparking uncontrolled, the air around them humming with power and want. She could feel his heartbeat through the rain, steady and strong and wild.
One step. That’s all it would take. One step and her mouth would be on his, and the years of anger and longing would explode like a storm inside them.
Her body leaned before her mind caught up.
And then—
A howl ripped through the forest.
Sharp. Close. Wrong.
Darius froze, every muscle locked. Then his head snapped toward the sound, his wolf blazing in his eyes.
“They’re here.”
The moment shattered like glass.
Seraphina shoved him back, breath ragged. “Then what are you waiting for?”
For half a heartbeat, his gaze lingered on her lips like he’d commit them to memory. Then he turned and ran, a blur of muscle and fury, vanishing into the trees.
Seraphina cursed under her breath and followed, magic sparking at her fingertips.
The storm wasn’t over. Not even close.
- Writer
