Gareth’s world had narrowed to the space between him and Myra. The mate bond, raw and demanding, was a physical ache in his chest—a feeling of absolute rightness that eclipsed decades of discipline and service. Her desperate rejection, however, sliced through the euphoria.
“Ignored?” he repeated, his voice incredulous, the gentle touch on her hair tightening into a possessive grasp he immediately softened. “Myra, you are the final piece of the equation of my existence. Fate does not allow for negotiation, and certainly not for willful ignorance. You felt it too—don’t deny it.”
Myra stepped back sharply, forcing the distance he had just closed. The raw vulnerability in her eyes was replaced by a calculated coldness, the kind one adopts to survive.
“Of course I felt it, wolf! It hit me like a physical wave, but that doesn't matter. You are Beta to the Nightshade King. You are power, order, and stability. I am a relic, a fugitive, and the last living link to a magic the Council of Elders swore to eradicate centuries ago!” Her voice rose, laced with fierce frustration. She swept her hand toward the clearing’s glowing runes. “Do you think your King tolerates magic that is not his? Do you think the other Packs would stand idly by while the Beta of the strongest territory bonds with the source of independent, untamed power? They fear what they can’t control, Gareth, and I am everything they fear.”
Gareth crossed his arms, the tactical shirt straining slightly over his powerful musculature. “You speak of ancient history. The world has changed. King Kian is progressive, seeking alliances with all supernaturals. He won’t order an execution over a mate bond.”
“You are naïve,” Myra countered, shaking her head sadly. “They hunt us for two reasons: magic and blood. The White Witches were revered for our purity, our power born directly from the Earth, but that very bloodline is coveted. The Darkness sought to break it, but the wolves, your ancestors, sought to enslave it. If they find out you are mated to me, they won’t just target me. They will see you as compromised, a liability, a threat to the purity of the royal line.”
She clenched her fists, the light from the runes dimming momentarily in response to her agitation. “They will accuse you of treason, of seeking to subvert the Pack hierarchy with ‘foreign’ magic. The Council will demand that King Kian nullify the bond—or kill me. And if he refuses, the other Packs, the ones that harbor ancient grudges, will see an opening. They will attack the Nightshade territory, demanding my surrender, painting you and Kian as weak. Your Pack will be plunged into a brutal, unnecessary war, Gareth. All because of me. All because of a bond that should never have happened.”
Her logic was frighteningly sound, tracing a clear line from their bond to political catastrophe and bloodshed. Yet, the wolf deep inside him refused to heed the warnings.
“Then we fight them,” Gareth declared, his voice ringing with the authority that earned him the Beta rank. “I will not reject you. I will not condemn you to solitude or death because of the political machinations of insecure leaders. My loyalty is to my King, but my soul belongs to you, Myra. If they challenge us, the Nightshade Pack stands strong. We will make them accept the change.”
Myra stepped closer, her expression softening into desperate longing. She lifted her hand, hesitating just inches from his armored chest. “It’s not just the wolves, Gareth. The Darkness is still out there. I came here to mend the wards because the ancient, evil thing that slaughtered my family is stirring again. It seeks to consume the last of the White Blood, and that means me. Mating with you makes you a shield, yes, but it also makes you a target, drawing the eyes of all my enemies to your Pack.”
As she spoke the last word, the scent of ozone and crushed stone—the smell of violent, raw earth magic—spiked sharply in the clearing.
Gareth's head snapped up. His supernatural senses, honed by years of patrol, registered the threat instantly. The energy was not the slow, calming rhythm of Myra's warding; it was cold, lethal, and accelerating toward them from the dark, eastern crest of the mountain.
“Incoming!” he roared, shoving Myra backward toward the relative cover of the ancient oak.
A horrifying, silent flash tore across the sky, followed instantly by a sound that wasn’t thunder, but the rending shriek of pure magical energy. It was a Skyfire Bolt, white-hot and vibrating with concentrated, destructive force, aimed directly at the shimmering nexus of Myra’s ritual stones.
There was no time for thought, no time for tactical assessment. Only pure, selfless instinct. As Myra stumbled, Gareth launched himself over her, twisting his body to use the solid bulk of his form—the newly hardened bone and muscle of a powerful werewolf Beta—as the only possible shield.
He threw his arms over his head, closing his eyes, and the sound of the impact was the last thing he heard before the world dissolved into blinding white heat and pain. The Skyfire Bolt detonated against his back with the force of a battering ram, throwing him forward, his inert body collapsing heavily onto Myra’s terrified form.
The aftermath was silence, thick and suffocating, broken only by the hiss of steam rising from the ground where the Skyfire Bolt’s residual energy had seared the moss. The air was acrid, smelling of burnt synthetic fabric and deeply singed flesh.
Myra lay pinned beneath Gareth’s unconscious weight, her ears ringing from the concussive blast. She managed to shove his shoulder, rolling them both off the spot, even as a shocking wave of agony—not her own, but his—slammed into her mind. The pain was absolute, a searing, electric torment along his spine, instantly establishing the mate connection with brutal finality.
"Gareth! No!" Her whisper was hoarse.
She scrambled out from under him, her own fear momentarily forgotten in the face of his devastating injury. Gareth’s tactical shirt was fused to his skin, burned away in the shape of a massive, starburst wound across his entire back. His skin, even the parts not directly hit, was blistered and smoking, and the low, guttural whimpers coming from him were purely primal, tearing at her heart.
She looked frantically toward the edge of the clearing. The gray runner wolf that had delivered the clothing—Fenris’s subordinate—had vanished the instant the attack hit, its instincts overriding loyalty to flee the danger and carry the alarm to the King. They were alone.
With trembling hands, Myra pressed her palms to the raw, scorched skin of his shoulder. She inhaled deeply, drawing on the last, fragile vestiges of the earth magic she had just poured into the wards. The energy felt depleted, insufficient, but she didn’t have a choice. Her eyes glowed fiercely, emerald fire against the darkness, and she began to chant in the ancient, fluid tongue, pouring the life-sustaining White Magic into the ruins of her mate’s body. The wound was massive, but she refused to let him die.