The war room doors burst open with enough force to crack the ancient wood.
“Get out.” Nyx’s voice cut through the pre-dawn darkness like a blade. “All of you. Now.”
The assembled commanders looked between her and me, confusion clear on their weathered faces. Commander Thane stepped forward, his expression concerned.
“Alpha, the strategic planning session—”
“Is postponed.” Her storm-gray eyes blazed with something dangerous. “I need to speak with the prince. Alone.”
The room emptied quickly, but I caught Thane’s warning look as he passed. Whatever was about to happen, he didn’t think it would end well.
“Three days,” Nyx said the moment we were alone. “Three days until they attack, and you’re asking me to trust a man I barely know.”
“What choice do you have?”
“I could surrender you to them.” She moved around the war table, her steps deliberate and predatory. “Save my territory by giving them what they want.”
“You could try.”
“Don’t test me, Prince.” She stopped directly across from me, hands braced on the stone surface. “You have no idea what I’m capable of when my people are threatened.”
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What you did the last time someone threatened what was yours.”
Her face went white, then flushed with fury. “How dare you—”
“Your mate is dead.” The words hit like physical blows. “Your father is dead. You’ve been ruling alone for eight years, and now I’m asking you to risk everything on a prophecy you didn’t choose.”
“Stop.”
“Why? Because it hurts? Because admitting you’re afraid makes you human?”
“I said stop!” Her voice cracked like thunder, and I felt the air itself shift around us. Power radiated from her in waves—raw, uncontrolled, dangerous.
“There it is.” I stepped closer, ignoring the electricity that made my skin crawl. “The storm everyone’s afraid of.”
“You should be afraid too.”
“Should I?” I moved around the table, closing the distance between us. “Because from where I stand, it looks like you’re more afraid of me than I am of you.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“You’re terrified.” I stopped just out of arm’s reach, close enough to see the gold flecks in her storm-gray eyes. “Terrified that caring about me will get me killed. Terrified that I’ll leave you alone again. Terrified that the prophecy is real and you’ll have to share your heart with women you’ve never met.”
“I don’t have to share anything with anyone.”
“Don’t you?” I smiled, and she stepped back like I’d struck her. “Because the bond is already forming, whether you want it to or not. I can feel it pulling at me, calling me to you. And you feel it too.”
“The bond doesn’t control me.”
“Doesn’t it?” I moved closer, and she retreated until her back hit the stone wall. “Then why are your hands shaking? Why can’t you look me in the eye when you talk about staying alone?”
“Because I’ve been alone for eight years!” The words exploded from her with enough force to shake the windows. “Because I loved someone once, and when I lost him, I nearly destroyed half my territory with grief!”
“And you think it’ll happen again.”
“I know it will.” Her voice cracked with emotion she’d been fighting to control. “Do you know what I did when they brought me his body? Do you know what happens when someone with my power loses control?”
“Tell me.”
“I brought down the northern cliffs.” The admission came out like a confession. “Enough stone to fill the harbor. Enough destruction to make the other Alphas declare me a threat to territorial stability.”
“But you didn’t destroy everything.”
“Because Reed was coming.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Because I had to hold it together for him. A grieving, pregnant woman had to be stronger than her own power.”
“And you have been. For eight years, you’ve been exactly what your people needed.”
“Until now.”
“Until now, when you have to decide whether prophecy is worth the risk.”
She stared at me for a long moment, something desperate warring with something hopeful in her expression.
“What if I choose wrong? What if trusting you gets my son killed?”
“What if not trusting me gets him killed anyway?”
Before she could respond, the door flew open again. Reed stood in the doorway, his silver eyes wide with alarm.
“Mama! The sentries spotted ships on the horizon!”
Nyx was moving before he finished speaking, her commander’s mask sliding back into place. “How many?”
“Six. Flying Alliance colors.”
“They’re early.” Her voice was ice and steel. “Get Commander Thane. Full battle stations.”
“Wait.” I caught her arm as she passed. “This doesn’t change anything between us.”
“Doesn’t it?” She looked down at my hand on her arm, then back at my face. “War has a way of clarifying priorities, Prince.”
“Then let me clarify mine.” I pulled her closer, close enough that Reed couldn’t hear. “I choose you. Alliance or no Alliance, prophecy or no prophecy. I choose you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.” I leaned down until our foreheads almost touched. “And after we survive this, I’ll prove it to you.”
“And if we don’t survive?”
“Then we’ll die fighting for something that matters.”
For a moment, something cracked in her armor. Something vulnerable and real flickered in her eyes.
Then the war horns sounded, and the moment shattered.
“Battle stations!” she roared, her voice carrying through the fortress like a war cry. “All hands to battle stations!”
As we ran through corridors filling with armed soldiers, Reed kept pace beside us with unsettling maturity.
“Are you going to fight with us?” he asked me.
“If your mother will have me.”
“She will.” His smile was small but certain. “She needs you. Even if she won’t say it.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because she stopped having nightmares after you got here.”
The observation hit me like an arrow finding its mark. As we reached the battlements, I caught Nyx’s arm again.
“After this is over—”
“We’ll see if there is an after.” But she didn’t pull away from my touch. “Try not to get yourself killed, Prince. I have plans for you.”
“What kind of plans?”
Her smile was sharp as a blade and twice as dangerous. “The kind that require you to survive the next few hours.”
The Alliance ships were closing fast, their black sails cutting through morning mist like harbingers of war. On the lead vessel, I could see armored figures preparing for battle.
“Positions!” Nyx commanded, and her warriors moved with the precision of wolves who’d hunted together for years.
“Together?” I asked, drawing my sword.
“Together,” she agreed.