POV: Damon
The mate bond screams.
I'm in my bedroom, staring at the ceiling at two in the morning, when terror slams into my chest like a fist. Not my terror—hers. Aria's. It pours through the bond so violently that I can't breathe.
She's dying. The certainty crashes over me. My mate is dying, and every instinct I have roars to life.
I don't think. Don't plan. I shift mid-leap and crash through my second-story window. Glass explodes around me. My father's voice bellows from somewhere in the house, but I'm already gone—four paws hitting the ground, then racing into the darkness.
The bond pulls me like a rope tied to my ribs. North. She's north, past the pack border, into rogue territory. My wolf runs faster than I've ever moved, trees becoming dark blurs on either side.
What was she thinking? Running into rogue territory alone?
But I know what she was thinking. She was running from me. From my father. From a pack that's wanted her gone since the moment her wolf emerged two years late.
The scent of rogues hits me before I reach the clearing, and rage explodes through my veins like poison. They're touching her. Strange males are near my mate.
I burst through the trees and see red.
Five rogues circle Aria's wolf form in the moonlight. She's smaller than them, her midnight fur silver-tipped and gleaming. One rogue has his hand on her shoulder, forcing her down. She's snarling, snapping, fighting—but she's outnumbered and weakening fast.
The mate bond howls: PROTECT. KILL. SAVE HER.
I don't hesitate.
My wolf crashes into the nearest rogue like a freight train. We go down in a tangle of teeth and claws. He doesn't stand a chance. Alpha blood makes me bigger, stronger, faster than ordinary wolves. I tear into his throat before he can even yelp.
The other rogues spin toward me, but I'm already moving. The one who touched Aria tries to run. I catch him in three bounds and drag him down. My jaws close on the back of his neck. Snap. He goes limp.
Two rogues attack me together. Smart. It almost works. Claws rake down my shoulder, drawing blood. Pain registers somewhere distant, but the mate bond drowns it out. Nothing matters except eliminating the threat to my mate.
I twist, catch one rogue's leg in my mouth, and yank. Bone cracks. He screams—an awful, too-human sound. The other rogue lunges for my throat. I meet him head-on, and we crash together in a fury of violence.
Blood fills my mouth. His? Mine? I don't care.
When he goes down, I stand over his body, chest heaving, waiting for him to get up. He doesn't.
The last two rogues bolt. They crash through the underbrush, their terror-scent thick in the air. My wolf wants to chase them, to finish what they started. But Aria's whimper cuts through the bloodlust.
I spin around.
She's pressed against the ground, her golden eyes huge and scared. Her wolf is trembling—from shock or injury, I can't tell. The sight of her fear makes something crack inside my chest.
I shift back to human form, barely feeling the cold night air on my bare skin. "Are you hurt?"
Aria shifts too, and suddenly she's there—naked and vulnerable and covered in dirt and scratches. She curls in on herself, checking for injuries with shaking hands. "I... I'm okay. Just scratches."
Relief makes my knees weak. "What were you thinking?" The words come out harsher than I mean them to. "Running into rogue territory alone? You could have been killed!"
"I was running away!" Aria shouts back, and there's my mate—fierce even when she's terrified. "Your father wants to send me to a work camp! I heard him talking to my parents tonight. They're going to lock me up and break me until I agree to reject the bond publicly!"
The words hit me like ice water. My father. Of course. Rowan would see Aria as a problem that needs solving. And my father's solutions always involve pain.
"He's not sending you anywhere," I say, and I mean it with every fiber of my being.
"You can't stop him. He's the Alpha. You always do what he wants."
The accusation stings because it's true. My whole life, I've been the perfect son. Perfect soldier. Perfect weapon. I became the monster my father wanted—and Aria suffered for it.
"I don't care what he wants." I step closer to her. The mate bond hums with satisfaction at the proximity. "No one is going to hurt you. I won't let them."
"Why?" Aria looks up at me, and her eyes are full of confusion and suspicion and something that might be hope. "Why do you suddenly care? Three days ago you told Vivian I was worthless. You've spent years making sure I knew I was nothing. What changed?"
Everything. Nothing. I don't have words for what I'm feeling. The mate bond explains part of it—of course I'm protective of my mate. But there's something else. Something that started before the bond snapped into place.
I think about the way she helped that omega kid who got bullied last year, even though it meant Vivian made her life hell for a week. The way she never cried when I tormented her, just lifted her chin higher and walked away. The way she survived in a house where her own parents wished she didn't exist.
Aria isn't weak. She never was. I just couldn't see it because my father taught me that strength only looked one way—his way.
"I don't know," I admit, because she deserves honesty. "But I'm not letting you run away and get killed by rogues. Come with me."
"Back to the pack? So your father can—"
"Not the pack. Somewhere safe. Somewhere he won't find us."
Aria stands up slowly, using her torn shirt to cover herself. She looks exhausted and scared and stubborn all at once. Blood from her scratches mixes with dirt on her skin. She should look weak. Instead, she looks like a warrior.
"Why should I trust you?" she asks quietly.
"Because right now, I'm the only option you've got."
It's brutal honesty, but she needs to hear it. She's standing in rogue territory with no supplies, no plan, and a pack that wants her gone. I'm offering survival, even if she hates me.
Aria stares at me for a long moment. The mate bond stretches between us, wanting, pulling, demanding. Finally, she nods. "Fine. But this doesn't mean I forgive you. And it doesn't mean I'm accepting the mate bond."
"I know."
I shift back to wolf form and wait while she does the same. Her wolf is beautiful—all midnight fur and silver highlights, with those eerie golden eyes that mark her as something different. Something special.
We start moving through the forest. I lead her north, away from pack territory, away from the rogues, toward a place I haven't been since my mother died.
My mother's cabin. The one place my father would never think to look because he had it burned after her death—or so everyone believes. But I came back later and rebuilt it in secret, using money I earned from fights my father didn't know about. I needed somewhere that was mine, somewhere the Alpha's control didn't reach.
The run takes an hour. Aria keeps pace, though I can feel her exhaustion through the bond. When we finally reach the clearing, she stops.
The cabin is small and rough, half-hidden by overgrown trees. It looks abandoned, which is the point.
I shift and gesture for Aria to do the same. "It's not much, but it's safe. My father doesn't know it exists."
Aria shifts, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold. "Your mother's cabin? I thought—"
"Everyone thinks it burned. It did. I rebuilt it." I don't explain why. Can't explain the grief that drove me here, the need to preserve something of the woman my father destroyed.
We go inside. I light the old oil lamp, and warm light fills the single room. There's a bed, a small stove, some canned food on rough shelves. Everything I've collected over the years.
Aria moves to the window, looking out at the dark forest. "They'll come looking for us."
"Let them."
She turns to face me, and her expression is impossible to read. "You killed those rogues. You didn't even hesitate."
"They touched you." The words come out flat. "They were going to hurt you."
"You were like an animal. I've never seen anyone fight like that."
"I'm my father's son." The admission tastes like poison. "He trained me to be a killer."
"Is that what you are?" Aria asks softly. "A killer?"
I look at my hands. There's still blood under my fingernails. Rogue blood. I killed two wolves tonight and didn't feel anything except satisfaction that they couldn't hurt my mate.
"Yes," I say, because she deserves the truth. "That's exactly what I am."
Aria opens her mouth to respond, but suddenly her eyes go wide. She gasps and doubles over, clutching her chest.
"Aria!" I'm across the room in an instant, catching her before she falls.
"The bond," she gasps. "Something's wrong. It's burning—"
Then I feel it too. The mate bond, which has been pulling us together for three days, suddenly flares white-hot and agonizing. Aria screams, and the sound tears through my soul.
She collapses in my arms, convulsing. Her skin is burning up, fever-hot and getting hotter.
"No, no, no." I lower her to the bed, terror flooding through me. "Aria, what's happening?"
Her eyes roll back. She's shaking so hard her teeth chatter. Through the bond, I feel her agony—and something else. Something ancient and massive, like a sleeping giant waking up.
The silver tips of her hair start glowing. Actually glowing, with soft light that spreads down the strands like liquid moonlight.
"Damon," she whispers, and her voice sounds different. Layered. Like multiple people speaking at once. "I can see... oh god, I can see everything. Your mother. My mother. They were—"
Her back arches off the bed. The glow from her hair spreads to her skin. The entire cabin fills with silver light so bright I have to squint.
Then, just as suddenly as it started, the light vanishes.
Aria goes completely still.
For one horrible moment, I think she's dead. Then her chest rises with a shallow breath.
Her eyes open—but they're not golden anymore.
They're pure silver, glowing with otherworldly power.
"Hello, Damon," she says in that strange, layered voice. "I need to tell you what your father really did. And why you and I were always meant to be here, in this moment, together."
Her hand reaches up and grabs my wrist with impossible strength.
"Your mother didn't die in a rogue attack," she says. "And neither did mine. They were murdered by the same person. Someone who's been hunting True Lunas for thirty years."
The cabin door explodes inward.
Standing in the doorway, backlit by moonlight, is a woman I've never seen before. She's ancient—maybe seventy—but she moves like a young warrior. Her eyes are the same silver as Aria's.
"Hello, granddaughter," the woman says, looking at Aria. Then her gaze shifts to me, and her smile turns cold. "And hello, Rowan's son. We have so much to discuss."
Behind her, I hear wolves. Dozens of them, surrounding the cabin.
We're trapped.