The sky looks like someone took a blade to it—all bruised purples and angry reds bleeding across the horizon, wounds torn open in the heavens themselves. Storm clouds gather like vultures, dark and patient, waiting to feast on whatever carnage I’m about to unleash.
Perfect weather for what I’m about to do, which is either rescue the woman I love or die trying. Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure there’s much difference between the two outcomes.
My army spreads behind me like a black stain across the frost-covered field, a living shadow that stretches back until it disappears into the morning mist. Thirty of the most loyal, slightly unhinged soldiers in the kingdom, plus a few dozen more who decided treason sounded more appealing than another day of Toren’s political theater. Men who’ve bled beside me, fought beside me, men who understand that sometimes honor means breaking every rule you’ve ever sworn to uphold.
We’re not flying banners today. We’re not wearing crests or colors or any of the ceremonial bullshit that usually accompanies warfare. We’re just wolves who’ve had enough of pretending civilization matters more than the people we love.
The bond in my chest isn’t flickering anymore like a dying candle. It’s screaming, a constant electric current that threatens to tear me apart from the inside out. Like Lucy’s calling to me through whatever hell Valen’s put her through, and every heartbeat feels like an electric shock straight to my nervous system.
The connection between us pulses with her pain, her fear, her desperate hope that I’ll come for her. She doesn’t need to call out—I can feel her like a compass needle pointing north, like gravity itself has shifted to pull me toward her.
“You sure about this?” Marcus asks, riding up beside me on his warhorse, steam rising from the animal’s nostrils in the cold morning air. His scarred face bears the same grim determination I feel burning in my own chest.
“Nope.” I don’t take my eyes off Valen’s fortress, that monument to paranoia and cruelty rising from the rocky outcropping like a cancer made of stone. Stone walls thick enough to withstand siege engines, iron gates that look like they were forged in hell itself, the kind of place designed by paranoid assholes who think fear is a decorating theme. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
“Good enough for me.” Marcus’s hand rests on his sword hilt, fingers already twitching with the need for violence.
That’s the thing about real loyalty—it doesn’t require certainty or guarantees or tactical advantages. Just commitment to the idea that some things are worth bleeding for, worth dying for. Some things matter more than survival.
I can see her now, even from this distance. A pale figure on the highest tower, dress stained with what looks suspiciously like blood—whether hers or someone else’s, I can’t tell from here. My blood goes arctic, then volcanic, rage and terror warring in my veins until I feel like I might explode from the pressure.
If that psychopath has hurt her, if he’s laid so much as a finger on her skin, when I get my hands on him, they’ll need to invent new words for violence. New concepts for suffering.
Valen’s standing beside her like he owns her, like she’s a prize he’s won rather than a woman he’s stolen. Hand on her arm in a possessive grip, the body language of a man who thinks people are property to be collected and displayed.
His voice carries across the field, amplified by some twisted magic, smug and poisonous as snake venom: “You think he came for you, my dear? You think you matter enough for all this?”
Even from here, even across hundreds of yards of frost-killed grass and morning shadow, I can see Lucy’s spine straighten like a blade being drawn. Whatever he’s done to her, however he’s tried to break her spirit, strip away her defiance, she’s still fighting. Still standing tall despite the chains I can now see glinting at her wrists. Still refusing to give him the satisfaction of her surrender or her tears.
That’s my girl. That’s the woman I fell in love with.
I dismount because horses are for traveling, and what I’m about to do requires being on my own two feet, requires feeling the earth solid beneath my boots. The ground feels firm, dependable—good. I’ll need that stability for what’s coming. For the violence I’m about to unleash.
“Bring her to me,” I call out, voice cutting through morning air like a blade through silk, carrying all the authority of someone who’s never learned to accept defeat.
Valen steps in front of her like he’s brave instead of cowardly, like he’s protecting something precious instead of hiding behind a hostage. “You’ll have to climb over my corpse first, boy.”
“Gladly.” The word tastes like a promise I’m about to keep, like an oath sworn in blood.
Behind me, steel sings as thirty blades leave their sheaths in perfect unison, the sound making my bones vibrate with anticipation. This is what we came for. This is what love looks like when you strip away all the pretty words and ceremonial bullshit.
War.