LOGINMorning light filtered through the narrow window slit of the stronghold's upper corridor as Natasha made her way back to the cells. She had slept little, her mind churning with the weight of everything that had happened. Cole's death. The lieutenant's capture. The lingering ache in her wounded shoulder that pulsed with every heartbeat.Damien had wanted to be present for the interrogation.She had refused.This was her fight.Her prisoner.The lieutenant had tried to kill her, had tortured her in Cole's camp, and had stood by while he plotted against everything Shadow Fang held dear.This ends now.The iron door groaned as she pushed it open, revealing the lieutenant exactly where she had left her, bound and battered on the cold stone floor.But something had changed.The broken grief that had consumed the woman the previous evening had hardened into something colder.Sharper.Her one good eye followed Natasha with predatory focus.Natasha didn't hesitate.She crossed the small cell i
The lieutenant's eyes snapped open to darkness and the copper tang of her own blood.Pain came first.A throbbing, pulsing agony radiated from her jaw where Natasha's fist had connected, spreading through her skull like poison. She tried to move her arms and felt the rough bite of rope against her wrists, binding her hands behind her back. Her ankles were similarly bound, and she lay on her side atop cold stone.Captured. By her.The memory burned through the haze of pain. Natasha's thighs had locked around her throat, squeezing until black spots danced across her vision. The cold press of steel against her pulse. The mocking command to stay down, as if she were some disobedient cur rather than a warrior who had fought and killed for her place in Cole's camp.Her fingers flexed against the ropes, testing their strength.Tight.Professional.No give whatsoever.A single torch flickered somewhere beyond her limited field of vision, casting dancing shadows across rough-hewn walls.A cell.
Damien crossed the blood-slicked ground toward Natasha, his legs threatening to give with each step. His side burned where Cole's knife had torn flesh, and his thigh throbbed with a deep, pulsing ache that made every movement a fresh hell.But none of that mattered.She was alive."Can you walk?"His voice came out rougher than intended, hoarse with exhaustion and something deeper. Something that felt dangerously close to breaking.Natasha pushed herself upright, one hand pressed against her wounded shoulder. Blood seeped between her fingers, the bandages she'd managed to fashion now soaked through with fresh crimson. Her face was pale, drawn tight with pain, but her green eyes blazed with fierce determination."I can walk."She took a step forward, then another, each one visibly costing her."I'm not slowing us down."Damien's jaw tightened. Pride and frustration warred within him. Pride at her unbreakable spirit. Frustration at her stubborn refusal to acknowledge her own limits.He
Damien's focus narrowed to a single point.The wolf circling him with murder in his eyes.Cole had changed since their last encounter. The man who had once been a trusted warrior of Shadow Fang now wore his betrayal like a second skin, his scarred face twisted into something barely recognizable. Raw power rolled off him in waves, the kind that came from months of unchecked rage and bitter obsession."You should have killed me when you had the chance." Cole's voice came out rough, hungry. His blade caught the torchlight as he shifted his stance. "That mercy of yours always was your greatest weakness."Damien didn't respond. He'd learned long ago that words were weapons in negotiations, not in combat.Here, action was everything.They circled each other, boots grinding against the blood-slicked ground. The tent's canvas walls shuddered with each impact from the battle raging outside, but neither man flinched. This space had become its own world, a closed arena where only one of them wou
The tent flap tore open once more, and the lieutenant stumbled inside, bloodied and wild-eyed. Her gaze swept the scene, Cole and Damien locked in their deadly standoff, Natasha watching from the periphery, and something dark and hungry twisted across her face."You," she hissed, her attention fixing solely on Natasha. "This is your fault."The lieutenant's blade was already raised as she lunged, abandoning any pretense of strategy. Her eyes burned with jealousy that had festered long before Natasha's arrival. Months, perhaps years, of watching Cole's attention drift toward anything that wasn't her.Natasha barely dodged in time, her wounded shoulder screaming as she rolled across the ground. The knife she'd grabbed felt pitifully small compared to the lieutenant's sword, but she'd fought with less."Thought you could take what's mine?" The lieutenant's voice cracked with fury, her attacks growing wilder, less controlled. "Thought you could spread your legs and he'd just forget about
Natasha's hand closed around Damien's wrist, her grip surprisingly strong despite everything. Her green eyes burned with fierce determination."Wait. I'm not leaving without someone."Damien's jaw tightened."Natasha, we don't have time.""Lyra." The name came out sharp, urgent. "She helped me. She's a prisoner here too. I'm not leaving her behind."The sounds of battle intensified outside. Screams and snarls mixed with the crackle of spreading flames. Damien's body thrummed with the need to move, to get her to safety, but he recognized that look in her eyes.The same stubborn fire that had drawn him to her from the beginning."Where?" he ground out."Eastern tents. Near the supply wagons." Natasha pushed away from his supporting grip, testing her legs. They held. Barely. "She's terrified of the lieutenant. We can't leave her.""Damien!" Marcus's voice cut through the chaos outside. "We've got incoming from the north! More rogues joining the fight!"He made his decision in a heartbeat
The cold came with the darkness, seeping up from the frozen ground and pressing down from the star-scattered sky. Natasha’s breath misted in silver plumes before her face, each exhale a small surrender to the temperature that gnawed at her extremities. The threadbare blanket thrown over her shoulde
The council room emptied slowly. Marcus and Gideon slipped into the hall with quiet nods, their boots echoing on stone until the heavy door thudded shut.Silence settled like dust, thick and waiting.Damien hadn't moved from the head of the table. His fingers still pressed against the map, but his
The heavy door of the Alpha's study closed behind them, muffling the corridor's torchlight and sealing the four of them into the warm, firelit room.Maps still covered the broad oak table, markers and carved figures scattered across terrain Natasha now recognized intimately: the mountain passes, th
The stronghold gates had barely closed behind them when Seraphine's hand found Natasha's elbow, her grip gentle but insistent."Enough."Natasha opened her mouth to protest. There were reports to deliver, a treaty to secure, a debriefing to attend. But Seraphine's eyes had already fixed on the dark







