Emiliano could think of nothing but Fia. His fingers drummed impatiently against his thigh as the blacked-out Jeep barreled down the highway. The night air roared outside the window, moonlight slicing through the trees like silver daggers. His wolf stirred beneath his skin, agitated and eager, each passing mile only stoking the fury building inside him.
He hadn’t even hesitated when the call came in. The moment he learned Fia had been taken, his beast had risen in violent protest. It didn’t matter to him how many territories he had to cross or how many laws he might break—he was going to get his mate back.
His mind kept circling the same truth over and over again: Viktor had made a fatal mistake.
Stealing or harming a blood mate was one of the few universal laws that crossed all lycan clans. It was a taboo punishable by death. No trial. No negotiation. Just swift, brutal execution. It was seen as an insult to the goddess herself, who rarely gifted such connections. To touch what was sacred meant forfeiting your life.
And Viktor knew that.
Emiliano's jaw clenched so tightly it cracked.
"You all right back there, buddy?" asked Luca from the driver's seat, his eyes flicking toward the rearview mirror.
"No," Emiliano growled. "Not until she’s back."
He stared at the road ahead, the dashboard lights casting his features in a sharp, angry glow. The monkshood and peppermint tea he’d forced down earlier was already starting to wear off. He could feel the weight of the moon pressing against him, tugging at the edges of his self-control. He had hours, if that, before he lost his grip entirely.
He pulled out his phone, checking for updates. Cristiano had called not long ago, whispering through gritted teeth that he’d managed to delay departures at a small, private airstrip on the edge of city limits. He gave Emiliano the name of the tarmac and warned him.
"I can stall for another twenty minutes, tops," Cristiano had said. "If this turns into a standoff, I can’t help you. I’ve got a life here, Emiliano."
Emiliano respected him too much to push. "You’ve already done enough. Thank you."
Cristiano had sighed. "Just bring her back. Safe."
Now, Emiliano sat in silence, the anticipation gnawing at him. His thoughts flicked to Fia, to her doe-eyed gaze and the way her lips parted when she was about to argue with him. He could almost hear her voice in his head.
"This is insane, Emiliano. I didn’t ask for this."
No, she hadn’t. She didn’t ask to be caught in the middle of an ancient blood feud, to be hunted, claimed, or sacrificed for power. But she was his, and Viktor had dared to touch what was his.
Emiliano ground his palms into his eyes, trying to shake the tension building in his bones.
The Bianchis weren’t like other lycan clans. They didn’t play politics. Their territory was vast, protected by ancient blood pacts and brute strength. Unlike the more civilized packs that made peace with humans, the Bianchis had always kept their distance, operating in shadows, powerful but unseen. Other clans bowed to councils. The Bianchis? They answered only to their Alpha.
It was one of the many reasons the Bianchis and the Malkovs had never seen eye to eye. Centuries ago, their ancestors had fought a bloody war that ended in fire, betrayal, and death. Viktor’s great-great-grandfather had slaughtered a Bianchi matriarch, believing she was hoarding power meant to be shared. The Bianchis had retaliated, razing one of the Malkov strongholds to the ground. The feud had never been resolved, only frozen in cold silence for decades.
Until now.
Emiliano’s beast snarled within him.
"Five minutes out," Luca called.
Emiliano nodded. He rolled down the window and let the cold wind slam into his face, trying to calm himself. In the distance, he could already see the shimmer of runway lights, the soft roar of turbines, and the silhouettes of small aircraft.
He yanked his phone again and sent Cristiano the images of Fia and Mia. "Two women. One maybe unconscious, both likely scared. He might have them drugged. Don’t let any plane take off with them on it."
A few seconds later, the reply came through: Understood. My men are watching.
The Jeep skidded to a halt at the edge of the airport gate. Emiliano was out before it fully stopped, the metallic clang of the door ringing like a gunshot behind him. The scent hit him first. Fia. Faint, but recent. His heart twisted.
She was here.
He motioned for Luca and the others to fan out. He moved like a storm, sharp and deadly, heading for the cluster of hangars at the far end of the tarmac. The scent was stronger now, tinged with fear.
The second Emiliano’s boots hit the tarmac, his eyes locked on Viktor.
The bastard stood near the wing of a sleek, matte-black jet, snarling at a landing guard and barking at the pilot who looked ready to piss himself. Two armed Malkov soldiers flanked him, both visibly agitated—hands twitching near their holsters. But the jet hadn’t taken off. That meant one thing: Viktor hadn’t won yet.
They were still on Bianchi territory.
Emiliano exhaled a breath that steamed in the cold air and turned to Luca, his second. “We have a shot. Move.”
The moment Emiliano’s scent hit the air—sharp, charged with fury and the undertones of silver lupine—the Malkovs stiffened. Viktor’s head snapped toward them.
He looked like a demon in a tailored coat—dark blond hair wind-tousled, sunglasses pushed up into his hairline, and a smirk that begged to be broken. But Emiliano wasn’t amused.
Not anymore.
The moment their eyes met, Emiliano’s beast lunged against its cage, claws dragging along his insides. He clenched his jaw so hard he heard a molar crack. His pupils dilated, silver eating away at the whites of his eyes. Rage licked his spine like fire.
Viktor raised his arms and grinned. “Ah, there’s the big bad Bianchi. Took you long enough.”
“You’re lucky the jet’s still on my land,” Emiliano growled, stalking forward like a storm made flesh. “Or I’d be dragging your corpse back through foreign soil.”
“You think your land still matters?” Viktor sneered, stepping down from the boarding stairs. “This world’s been bleeding boundaries for years. You’ve just been too busy playing the hero to notice.”
Emiliano’s shoulders rolled with suppressed fury, his beast snarling just beneath the surface. “You trespassed. You kidnapped my mate. You broke the oldest of our laws, Malkov.”
“She wasn’t yours when I took her,” Viktor shot back, smile fading. "She still isn't..."
“She was mine long before she ever wandered into your bed.”
“She was never yours!” Emiliano thundered, voice reverberating across the open airfield. “You tried to force a bond. You kidnapped her and tried to mark her without consent. You drugged her to keep her weak. That’s not claiming a mate—that’s defiling the goddess’s will.”
Viktor’s smugness dropped like a mask.
“You don’t understand,” Viktor hissed. “You Bianchis think you’re so noble—so chosen. But your ancestors started this war. My great-grandfather was butchered on your land. And now you want to cry foul because I’m playing the same damn game?”
Emiliano stepped closer. The night was drawing near and Emiliano could feel the moon as it rose higher in the sky. Its pull burned beneath his skin. “You want to talk about old wounds?” he snarled. “Then let’s talk. About the blood that was spilled centuries ago when the Bianchis refused to let your bloodline sell off unmated females like cattle. About how your clan tried to curse us through dark rituals and failed. About how the goddess punished you by withholding mates from your bloodline for generations.”
Viktor flinched.
“You weren’t cursed by us,” Emiliano said coldly. “You were cursed by your own cruelty. And now you’re trying to steal the one thing we were gifted in return—true mates.”
Viktor’s eyes flashed gold. “I will not let you win.”
Somewhere behind him, inside the jet’s belly, Fia and Mia lay unconscious—silent, unmoving. Emiliano could smell their fear and the faint medicinal tinge of drugs clinging to their skin even from here. His rage, once a wildfire, became something sharper. Colder.
A blade made for blood.
He forced his beast down, breathing through his teeth, and straightened.
“Where is she?” Emiliano demanded, voice guttural.
Viktor’s grin stretched grotesquely across his face, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “Safe. Sleeping like a babe. Just waiting to be corrected.”
That word—corrected—was enough to make the ground tremble beneath Emiliano's feet with the force of his fury. His hands fisted so tightly his claws bit deep into his palms, blood dripping onto the cracked tarmac.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Viktor barked out a rough laugh, wiping blood from his chin with the back of his hand. “Your ancestors were wrong to stop my great-grandfather. It was his right to discipline his pack. His females. His blood. They were his to breed, to sell, to break if necessary.”
Emiliano stared at him, disgust radiating off him like heat from a furnace.
“That's why the goddess cursed your bloodline, you sick bastard.”
Viktor’s grin faltered. Rage twisted his handsome features into something feral and ugly.
“You think because you were born into a different name, you’re better?” Viktor snarled, taking a step forward. “You're just as savage as the rest of us.”
“No,” Emiliano said, voice like thunder rolling in a storm-split sky. “I know what it means to protect what’s mine. You think power is domination. We know it’s sacrifice. That’s the difference between a king and a tyrant.”
The clouds shifted above them, the moon throwing them both into stark, monstrous relief.
“You’ve proven why you can’t be trusted," Emiliano continued, stepping forward until there was only breath between them. "I’m going to inform the Council. I’ll send word to every territory from here to the Old World. They’ll know exactly what you’ve done.”
Viktor’s lips curled back into a snarl, but Emiliano wasn’t finished.
“They’ll see the truth of the Malkovs for the last time. Your clan will be exiled. Stripped of lands, stripped of titles. Stripped of bloodlines if necessary. You’ll be nothing more than feral dogs scratching at the gates of civilization.”
The tarmac fell silent.
Even the guards froze at those words. To be banned was worse than death. It meant the loss of all rights, protection, alliances. It meant being hunted like prey by the very ones who once called you kin.
A slow, deadly smile peeled across Viktor’s face, desperate and cracked. “You think the Council will listen to you? They’re old. Corrupt. Afraid.”
“They're old, yes,” Emiliano said, voice soft with lethal promise, “but they know a rot when they smell one.”
He bared his teeth in a cold smile.
"And your stink, Viktor, has traveled far."
Suddenly Viktor lunged, a blur of dark muscle and snarling teeth.
Emiliano didn’t wait for another word. The moment Viktor twitched, he was on him.
Beast and man collided with a deafening roar. Fangs burst through Emiliano’s gums, claws shredding through the skin of his fingers as he slammed Viktor into the wing of the plane. Metal groaned. The guards drew weapons, but Luca and the rest of Emiliano’s wolves pounced, chaos breaking out like a wildfire.
Viktor lashed back, nails raking down Emiliano’s cheek, but Emiliano didn’t even flinch. He drove his elbow into Viktor’s gut, lifted him by the collar, and hurled him ten feet across the tarmac like he weighed nothing.
He caught Viktor mid-leap, slamming him into the tarmac with a shuddering boom that rattled the ground. Claws ripped through Viktor’s coat. Emiliano pinned him there, one hand around his throat, squeezing until Viktor’s eyes bulged.
“You have no idea,” Emiliano growled, stalking toward him, “what I’m capable of when my mate’s been touched.”
Viktor spat blood, grinned. “Neither do you.”
“You think you’re owed loyalty because of blood?” Emiliano growled into Viktor’s gasping face. “You forgot the one truth every Lycan lives by: Respect is earned, not stolen.”
Viktor clawed weakly at his wrist, wheezing.
“And you," Emiliano said, tightening his grip until Viktor’s body shuddered, "have earned nothing but extinction."
Behind them, Luca and the others secured the jet, cutting power and pulling the girls from the aircraft. Emiliano’s heart nearly broke when he saw Fia’s limp form being cradled carefully in Luca’s arms, her head lolling, strands of dark hair fluttering in the night breeze.
But she was alive.
And she was coming home.
Emiliano leaned closer to Viktor, who sputtered, broken and furious beneath him.
“Pray, Malkov,” Emiliano whispered into his ear, voice soaked in death.
“Because when the Council hears of this... even the goddess won’t save you.”
Without another word, Emiliano struck Viktor across the temple, knocking him out cold.
The jet engines whined down to silence.
The night air hung heavy with the scent of blood, smoke, and something purer:
justice.
Emiliano stood, breathing heavily, chest heaving, as his men gathered around him.
“Take him,” he ordered, nodding to Viktor’s limp body. “Lock him up. We deliver him to the Council ourselves.”
He strode to Fia then, his mate, his heart, his salvation—and for the first time that night, the furious storm inside him quieted.
He reached out, brushing a trembling hand down her cheek.
“I'm here, piccola,” he murmured, voice breaking.
No one would ever take her from him again.