Ashrian Vale POV
If longing were blood, I’d be fucking drowning.
She was everywhere, in the air, in the shadows, and under my skin like wildfire and frost.
Elowen Skye. My light. My obsession. My mate.
And she was gone. Not dead. Not broken. Just out of reach.
Which somehow made it worse. I hadn’t fed today. Not out of restraint, but because nothing tasted right unless it came from her. I’d stopped pretending I could go back to normal the second her scent was ripped from my lungs.
The others felt it too.
“She’s still fightin’,” Lachlan murmured beside me, his damn Highland accent curling around the words like a comfort spell. “I can feel her spark.”
I didn’t answer. If I opened my mouth, the grief would crawl out in fangs.
Daxon shoved the war room doors open like they were a personal insult. Classic wolf prince, angry, controlled, but seething just below the surface. His father’s heir, through and through. Prince of the wolves, only son of Alpha King Draven and Luna Queen Aelira. Their power filled the room before we even stepped inside.
The table was already surrounded. At the head sat Alpha King Draven, radiating pure dominance. His mate, Luna Queen Aelira, was as
regal and lethal as they came, spine straight, her eyes sharp and resting bitch face set to queen mode.
Next to them, Alpha King Halrik of the beast shifters looked like a mountain wearing a crown. His mate, Luna Queen Nira, greeted us with a nod, calm, precise, and powerful. Their son, our grumpy, golden cinnamon bear prince Bram, stalked in behind us like a storm cloud
ready to maul someone.
Across the table, Alpha King Garron and Luna Queen Seraya of the Nightfang Lycans stood tall and stone faced. Their daughter, Princess
Rivena, stood with her head held high, wrapped in the massive arms of her Lycan mate, Druen. That male looked like he could tear a
mountain in half with one hand, Good. We’d need that kind of violence soon.
I spotted Taya Quinn pacing at the far end of the room, her fire red braid swinging like a damn metronome of anxiety. Sun kissed and sun
blessed, she glowed like a god’s warning. Her mate, Rylen Varric, Daxon’s beta and one of the most stone faced bastards I’d ever met,
stood close behind her, as if she might explode and need catching.
And then there were the MacCraes, Isolde, the coven mother, all ice and elegance, and her mate Alaric, his eyes gleaming with quiet power. You didn’t survive centuries without learning when to listen. They were listening now.
Chapter 228
Bram let out a low grunt beside me. “This everyone?”
“No Vaelrix,” Daxon muttered. “Still at the dragon castle rallying dragons.”
“Fuck it, close enough,” I said, moving to the edge of the table.
Taya’s voice cut through the tension. “Okay, so I didn’t sleep last night because, y’know, the sun god decided I needed to be his damn
messenger again.”
She raised both hands and blew out a breath. “I saw Raelith’s realm. And I watched it shatter. The gods hit her with something big. Whatever it was, it cracked her power. She can’t fully step into the mortal realm anymore….just send shadows. And her whispers? They’re
fading. Fast.”
A few sharp inhales. Isolde’s fingers twitched. Aelira’s jaw flexed.
“In two days…forty eight hours, max….she’ll lose her tether to Lucien and Vaela. They’ll unravel without her influence. We’ve got a
window. This is the shot we’ve been begging for.”
Lachlan muttered a curse in Gaelic under his breath. I didn’t catch the words but I felt the weight of them in my bones.
“She’s alive,” Taya continued. “Elowen’s still fighting. I felt her pain, yeah, but also her fury. She hasn’t given up.”
Draven stepped forward, both hands on the table. “Then we rally. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. King Halrik, King Garron,
start preparing your elite.”
Luna Aelira’s eyes gleamed. “We’ll need every mage, healer, and scout ready to portal.”
That was my cue. My comm buzzed against my chest, one of only two lines still active that didn’t route through Aegis surveillance. I
yanked it from my coat and turned toward the far corner of the room, my thumb already swiping.
The vampire sigil on the screen pulsed red. “Vymir,” I said. “Tell me you have something.”
“More than something,” came the gravel voice of Prince Vymir, my oldest friend and one of the last true rogue commanders left. “We’re
- All of us.”
“How many?” I asked, my voice low and tight.
“Three hundred,” he said. “Every rogue clan that survived the purges. Purebloods. Blood witches. They’re done running.”
