Elaria's POV
Stone scraped beneath me.
I was being dragged, my body limp, my skin streaked with blood and dirt. Pain pulsed through every inch of me, but something else throbbed deeper, power. My wolf. She was stirring now, slow but fierce, healing what little she could.
I blinked.
The world swam above me, twisting shadows and fragments of moonlight. My lids were too heavy, but I forced them open long enough to catch it...vines shifting, stone breathing, the mouth of the cave yawning open to the outside.
Voices, low and familiar.
"…don't see her yet."
"She's still bleeding, follow the scent."
"The Alpha wants her...alive or dead, if we don't find her, we can't go back."
Crescent warriors.
I froze. My heart pounded weakly against my chest. I couldn't fight. Not like this. My limbs barely responded. I was nothing more than a carcass waiting for their blades.
But then, something changed.
Their voices quieted, the air thickened and I felt it before I saw it. Power.
Heavy, ancient, and suffocating.
The warriors didn't step forward. They stepped back.
Confused, my brow furrowed as my body tensed on instinct.
The hand that had been dragging me tightened for a moment, claws grazing my skin then it let go.
My body slumped to the stone with a thud, pain splintering through my hip, and then a sound.
Low, vicious and guttural.
A growl that rumbled through the walls of the cave.
I turned my head up...slowly, painfully and I saw him.
A towering silhouette stood beside me.
Massive, still and wild.
His frame blotted out the moonlight. Horned shadows curled around him. His body pulsed with magic, fierce, old, terrifying. I couldn't make out his face, only the fire of glowing red eyes, locked not on me... but on them.
The Crescent warriors faltered and their weapons dipped.
Feet shuffled backward and I smelled fear.
The towering figure didn't speak.
He didn't need to, he launched forward like a blur of darkness.
One moment he was beside me... the next, he was in the air and then...
RIP.
Blood, flesh and bone.
A scream tore through the night, cut short by the sound of a body being torn in half.
The warriors scattered, yelling in panic, but they didn't get far. Another shriek and another wet crunch.
He was faster than them. Stronger, deadlier and I… I smiled.
It was small, and weak. My lips barely moved but my wolf howled in my mind, echoing through my skull.
Mate.
She sang it, reverent and wild.
He wasn't just a shadow.
He wasn't just a beast but was he mine to keep?
With that thought ringing in my head, I passed out cold, hoping to die and leave this cruel world.
-----
Warmth, not fire, fever or death.
Just simple calm warmth.
That was the first thing I felt.
When I blinked open my eyes again, I was no longer lying on stone, no longer soaked in blood or curled in a pool of pain.
I was on a bed.
A real bed. Moss-covered and soft beneath my body, its surface humming faintly with magic. I was wrapped in furs and cloaked in warmth that didn't belong to any fire, but something else.
The ceiling above me shimmered with golden veins running through stone. It pressed gently against my skin, recognizing something I didn't yet understand.
Where… where was I?
A soft rustling sound drew my eyes to the side. A girl...small, and quiet...moved through the space. Her steps barely made a sound. She was tending to my wounds, her fingers nimble, careful, brushing herbs and thick salves along reopened cuts.
"You're safe now," she murmured, her voice gentle. "The leaders will be here soon."
But I wasn't listening because pain surged through my chest, boiling over.
Kaelen.
My mother.
The rejection.
The betrayal.
My breath hitched and my vision blurred.
And just like that, it all came rushing back.
I gasped as the burden of it collapsed onto my chest. My ribs ached with it, and my heart felt like it had been flayed open all over again. A sob cracked out of me before I could stop it.
The girl looked at me, her expression soft, but she didn't speak. She simply stepped back with a faint bow as the door creaked open.
I wiped my face with trembling fingers and looked up.
A man stepped in or should I say a giant.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Built like a weapon forged in the wild.
His shirt clung to a chest too sculpted, unlike anything I've ever seen before. His hair was dark and wild, falling just past his shoulders, and his eyes… goddess, his eyes were gold, sharp as a blade yet unreadable.
The girl bowed her head and whispered, "Beta."
Then she slipped out silently, leaving me alone with him.
He didn't speak, he just looked at me and something inside me shifted.
My wolf stirred excitedly as a strange scent hit me, I was still trying to figure out the scent when she growled.
"Mate."
My breath caught in my throat.
You've got to be kidding me.
His eyes narrowed slightly. He felt it too.
I stared at him, stunned. He wasn't the one from the cave... that aura, this presence...it was different. Rougher, warmer and less terrifying.
My wolf, traitorous and thrilled, whispered in my head again.
"Two. We have two mates, Elaria."
I scoffed.
Of course.
Of course, the Moon Goddess would take everything from me and leave me with two strange, powerful beasts that look like men.
He stepped toward me and I tensed and moved back.
He kept coming, his expression unreadable. Then, without warning, he reached for me.
"Hey!" I snapped. "What the hell are you..."
He gripped my arm roughly, spun me like I weighed nothing, and sniffed me.
Sniffed me!
"Excuse you!" I snapped, struggling as he tilted his head and breathed me in like I was some sort of exotic flower...or prey.
"You do not get to touch me like I'm some... wild fruit in your damn forest!" I hissed.
He didn't answer.
His nose twitched.
Then he made a sound deep in his throat like a low, disgusted growl.
And just like that, he dropped me hard.
I landed on the cold stone floor with a sharp gasp, wincing as pain exploded through my hip and elbow.
"What the actual..." I gritted out.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he turned toward the door. "This is bad."
"Excuse me?! What's bad?!" I snapped, rage burning through my chest."You are one mannerless creature!"
He didn't even glance back.
The door slammed shut behind him, leaving me sprawled on the ground, seething, breathless, and humiliated.
I laid there for a long moment, trying to decide whether to cry or scream or claw the walls down.
What. Just. Happened?
Another mate?
Another silent, wild-eyed stranger sniffing me like I was a cursed offering?
I stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling too fast, heart thundering with disbelief.
Mate bond or not, I didn't trust him.
I didn't trust anyone anymore and now, I wasn't sure if I'd just been saved or if I'd landed straight into the hands of something far worse.