LILLIAN
“Kyler?”
The name leaves me before I even decide to say it.
I haven’t spoken it in over a year, but it still fits my mouth the same way it always did.
He’s the only person who ever called me by a nickname.
The only one who ever made “Lily” sound like something soft instead of something small.
Kyler Stone, son of the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack.
My best friend before I understood what that word could cost.
Standing in front of me now like no time has passed at all.
He exhales, and it sounds like something breaking loose in his chest.
“Thank the heavens.” His voice cracks on it.
“You’re safe.”
He’s inside the carriage before I can process it, hands already working at the ropes binding my wrists.
He doesn’t wait for them to fall away completely before he’s pulling me against him, arms wrapping tight around my back.
“I’ve been so worried,” he murmurs into my hair.
“So worried, Lily.”
I stiffen.
I want to sink into him.
I want to let myself feel safe the way I used to, curled against his side under the oak tree behind the pack house, laughing about nothing.
But my arms won’t lift.
My body won’t soften.
Shame crawls up my throat instead, hot and suffocating.
I used to imagine this.
Not this—not the blood, not the ropes—but him.
Us.
I used to think if I ever got to choose, it would be Kyler I gave myself to.
And now that choice has been made for me, and it wasn’t him, and I don’t know how to stand in his arms and pretend that part of me is still intact.
“Hey, don’t forget about me over here,” Melva calls out, light and teasing despite the rope still around her wrists.
Kyler blinks, some of the urgency clearing from his face.
He steps back and looks past me.
“Right.
Sorry.” He barks something short at the men behind him.
“Free her too.”
They move to Melva.
I watch her rub her wrists once they’re loose, and something in me settles a fraction just seeing her free.
“We need to go,” Kyler says, taking my hand to pull me out of the carriage.
The night air hits me, cold and sharp.
“Now, before he catches up to us.”
“Kyler—”
“I’ll shift.” He’s already unbuttoning his shirt, eyes scanning the tree line behind us.
“You’ll ride me like you used to.
It’s faster.”
Before I can answer, his thoughts pour into my mind, unfiltered and burning.
I’ll kill him.
I don’t care who he is, I don’t care what he calls himself—he touched my woman, he marked her, and I will end him for it.
I’ll get her out of this even if it means war with the whole kingdom.
The fury in it is staggering.
It rattles through me like a struck bell, and underneath the anger I feel something colder settle into my stomach.
War.
He said war so easily, like it’s a price he’s already decided to pay.
What is this rescue going to cost?
How many people are going to bleed because of me?
“Move!” Kyler snaps at his men, then turns to Melva.
“Shift.
We need the speed.”
“Right,” Melva says, but her eyes don’t match her voice.
I catch the flicker of unease there, gone almost as fast as it appears.
She doesn’t know what he’s about to unleash, she thinks, and I hear the fear underneath it even though she hasn’t said a word aloud to me.
He’s already coming.
I can feel it.
Melva opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—
A snarl rips through the trees.
Then another, and the night fills with howling.
“Lillian, now!” Kyler grabs my arm, already mid-shift, bones cracking and fur rushing over his skin—
A silver-gray blur crashes into the clearing and slams into him before he can finish.
I stumble back with a cry, hitting the side of the carriage.
The two wolves collide in a snarling, thrashing heap, teeth and claws tearing through fur, blood spraying dark against the pale grass.
“Lillian!” Melva’s hands close around my arm, hauling me back further.
“Don’t—stay here, stay by the carriage—”
“That’s him.” Her voice shakes.
“That’s the Alpha King.
No ordinary wolf can match his strength, Lillian, no one can—”
Kyler is losing.
He’s thrown back hard enough that he skids across the dirt, and when he tries to rise, his body shudders and shifts back to human, bloodied and slashed across the chest, one arm hanging wrong.
The silver wolf shifts too, rising into the shape of a man with fury written into every line of his face.
“My sword,” Azriel says, voice like ice cracking underfoot.
One of his men rushes to hand it to him.
Panic floods me so fast I don’t remember deciding to move.
“Lillian, don’t—” Melva’s grip slips off my arm as I wrench free.
I throw myself in front of Kyler just as Azriel raises the blade, close enough that I feel the air move where it would have fallen.
“Get out of the way.” Azriel’s voice is a roar now, nothing controlled left in it.
“No.” Tears are already streaming down my face, hot and fast.
“This is a misunderstanding, Azriel, please—” I glance back at Kyler, who’s trying to push himself up, trying to speak.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, quiet, before I turn back and cut off whatever he’s about to say.
“Don’t.
Please don’t.”
I face Azriel again.
“He only came to rescue me.
He didn’t know—he doesn’t deserve this.”
“I already killed the sorcerer responsible.” Azriel’s eyes don’t leave Kyler.
“This one came for more than a rescue.
He came to steal what’s mine.”
“I’m not his breeder,” Kyler growls from the ground, blood at the corner of his mouth, but there’s no strength behind it, just defiance.
I step forward and wrap my arms around Azriel, feeling the tension coiled through every muscle in his body.
“Please.
Spare him.
Spare both of them.
Kyler is a dear friend, we grew up together, he was only scared for me.” My voice breaks.
“I’ll do anything you want.
Anything.
Just let them live.”
His jaw tightens under my palm.
“You have nothing left to bargain with.” The words come out cold, deliberate.
“You already belong to me.
Entirely.” His eyes finally cut down to mine, and there’s something in them that makes my chest ache.
“You will do everything I demand of you, Lillian.
Whether you wish to or not.”
I can’t let Kyler die for this.
I won’t.
I steady my breathing, rise onto my toes, and lean close to Azriel’s ear.
My heart is slamming so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“I have a secret,” I whisper.
“An ability.
One that could be useful to you.”
The words feel like a blade turned against my own throat—something I swore I’d never speak aloud to anyone, least of all him.
But if it buys Kyler his life, if it ends this bloodshed before it swallows anyone else, I’ll gamble it.
Even if it means giving him one more piece of myself he was never meant to have.