The Alpha Mate

Chapter 101

[POV: Draven]

They came at dawn. Faster than we predicted.

"Hold the line!" I roared, my voice cutting through the chaos as Crimson Fang wolves surged forward to meet the first wave. "Aaron, take your squad through the southern ravine. Flank them when they commit to the center. Kobe, north ridge. Pin them between us."

Aaron shifted mid-stride, his massive brown wolf tearing toward the ravine with twelve warriors at his heels.

Kobe barked an acknowledgment from the ridge, already moving, his squad fanning out through the rocks above.

I shifted. Sirius exploded through my skin with savage eagerness, and the world sharpened into scent and sound and the metallic taste of violence on the wind.

The first Nightmaw wolf that reached me was big, scarred across the muzzle, yellow eyes blazing with borrowed courage. I caught him by the throat and threw him sideways into his packmates.

Three more came from the left.

I dropped the first with a shoulder charge that shattered his ribs, tore through the second's hamstring, and the third hesitated long enough for me to close the distance and put him down.

"More coming from the east," Sirius snarled in my mind. "Thirty at least. They're testing the perimeter, not committing their full strength."

"Aaron!" I projected through the pack link. "What's your count on the southern approach?"

"Forty wolves, maybe fifty," Aaron's voice came back, tight with exertion. "They pulled back the moment we flanked. Didn't even try to hold ground. This isn't a siege, Alpha. It's reconnaissance."

"Confirmed from the north," Kobe added. "They're retreating in formation. Organized withdrawal. Someone gave the order to pull back."

I tore through another attacker and scanned the tree line. No Alpha presence. No Damian. Whoever was leading this vanguard was keeping well behind the front, watching from the shadows the way a general watched from a hilltop.

A scream—human, raw, young—cut through the din from my left.

I spun. A Nightmaw wolf twice the size of the others had broken through our defensive line and was bearing down on Ren, one of our youngest fighters.

The boy had shifted back involuntarily, his body rejecting the wolf form under the pressure of his fear, leaving him exposed and bleeding on the frozen ground.

Levi got there before I did.

He threw himself between Ren and the massive wolf without hesitation, catching the attack on his left shoulder. The Nightmaw wolf's jaws clamped down and twisted, and I heard the wet crack of muscle tearing free from bone.

Levi screamed but he didn't go down. He drove his elbow into the wolf's eye socket, staggering it long enough for two of our warriors to drag it off.

Levi collapsed to one knee, his left arm hanging useless, blood sheeting down his side.

"Get him to the healers!" I commanded, shifting back long enough to grab Ren by the shoulder. "Both of them. Now."

"I can still fight," Levi gritted through clenched teeth, his face chalk-white. "Alpha, give me five minutes and I can—"

"That's an order, Levi. You've done enough. Move."

He stared at me—stubborn and furious—and then a younger wolf ducked under his good arm and half-carried him toward the rear.

The skirmish lasted another twenty minutes.

The Nightmaw wolves withdrew in disciplined waves, each unit covering the next, leaving their dead behind without ceremony. When the last of them vanished into the eastern forest, an eerie silence settled over the clearing.

I shifted back and stood among the wreckage, chest heaving, blood cooling on my skin, most of it not mine.

Kobe jogged toward me from the northern ridge, a deep scratch running along his jaw.

"The north sector is clear. They left eight dead on the slope and didn't bother collecting them."

"Any sign of a secondary force waiting in the trees?"

"Nothing. Whatever this was, they got what they came for."

Aaron reached us next. He was bleeding from a gash across his temple, but his eyes were steady.

"Casualties?" I asked.

"Seven wounded, two critical. Levi's shoulder is bad. Mia says the tendon is severed clean. He'll heal, but it's going to take weeks." He wiped the blood from his brow. "We lost Marcus, took a bite to the throat during the initial charge."

The name landed heavy. Marcus—quiet, dependable, always first to volunteer for dawn patrol.

"This was a scouting run," I said. "Damian wanted to map our response—where we deploy, how fast, which sectors are thin."

"Which means Talia's intelligence reached him before we caught her," Aaron finished, his jaw tightening. "He already had our patrol routes. This was just confirmation."

"Adjust everything. New rotations, new positioning. I want the eastern and southern approaches reinforced with double lines. Pull the reserve unit from the western flank."

"And the packhouse?" Aaron asked.

"Fortify it. Triple the interior guard. Atlas is inside and he's not moving."

Aaron studied my face with the careful attention of someone who'd known me long enough to read the cracks beneath the surface. "How bad is the curse, Draven? Tell me straight."

"Three weeks. That's how long we have before the eclipse takes him."

"And breaking it?"

"Mia doesn't know how. She mentioned the old rites: silver wolf rituals, something called the Hollow Stones. I need to find someone with knowledge of the ancient bloodlines."

"Then find them," Aaron said. "Whatever comes through those trees next, I'll hold this line. You focus on keeping him alive."

"I won't leave this pack undefended while Damian—"

"You're no good to any of us if he dies, Draven." Aaron's voice was quiet, steady, and brutally honest. "We all know that. So let me do my job, and go do yours."

I nodded once, sharp, and walked away before the tightness in my throat could become anything visible.

The packhouse was quiet when I entered. Mia met me in the corridor, her birch-bark hands stained with poultice and her expression drawn tight.

"I checked on him twenty minutes ago," she said before I could ask. "The sigils beneath his skin have spread another inch. His wolf is retreating deeper. I can barely sense it now."

"Is he in pain?"

"He's beyond pain, Alpha. He's fading." She held my gaze without flinching. "Find the Hollow Stones. Find them fast."

I moved past her without another word. My boots left bloody prints on the hardwood floor, each step heavier than the last.

I pushed open the bedroom door.

Atlas lay exactly where I'd left him: curled on his side, silver-white hair fanned across the pillow, one hand resting near his ribs where the curse pulsed beneath his skin. His breathing was shallow, the rhythm of a body conserving what little energy it had left.

I knelt beside the bed, still armored in drying blood, and brushed my knuckles along the line of his jaw. His skin was cold. Colder than this morning.

"I'm here," I murmured. "We held them. Your pack is still standing."

His eyelids fluttered but didn't open. A quiet sound escaped his lips, and his fingers twitched toward mine. I caught them, held them against my chest where the bond hummed low and desperate beneath my ribs.

Then I looked at his forehead, at the crescent mark that had once burned steady silver like a second moon pressed into his skin.

It was barely visible. A ghost of light, flickering unevenly, dimming with each shallow breath he took.

Whatever Damian sent next, I would meet it and break it. But the enemy killing my mate wasn't marching through my borders. It was curled inside his blood, counting down to the eclipse, and no amount of Alpha fury could reach it.

I pressed my forehead to his knuckles and held on, listening to the silence where his wolf should have been.