Chapter 234

We reached the island at dusk.

The shore rose before us, dark and familiar, and the whole army surfaced in a rush of foam and spray. Mirena was waiting on the sand, Rhonda beside her, both of them pale with worry. And behind them, Darius, and the other mates, and warriors of their own.

They greeted us fast. Mirena threw her arms around me, Rhonda grabbed my hand, and Darius clasped Ravin’s arm, and for a few breaths it was all relief and welcome and the quick, desperate happiness of friends reunited.

And then we got to work.

We gathered in the great hall, and we planned. Maps, positions, tactics. Who would fight where, who would guard what, who would hold the line and who would strike. It was do or die, and everyone knew it. There would be no half measures. No mercy. This was the end of it, one way or the other.

And I told them, plainly, what I had decided.

"I will not be kind," I said, my voice hard. "Not this time. It is my family or him. And I will choose my family. No matter what it costs. No matter who has to die."

They nodded. They understood.

We were ready.

But Khemari came a day early.

It was the middle of the night when the alarm went up, horns blaring, voices shouting. The sea was full of of beasts swimming toward the shore. He had come sooner than we expected, in the dark, hoping to catch us off guard.

But we were ready.

And then the betrayal hit.

There was a female among us. Quiet. Unassuming. A friend.

Her name was Sera. She had come to the island months ago, after the first attack, a refugee from the south. She had lost her family, she said. Her home. Everything. She had fled across the sea, and Mirena and Rhonda had taken her in without a second thought. That was who they were. That was the kind of women they were.

She had eaten at their table. Slept under their roof. Held their children. Helped in the kitchens and the infirmary, gentle and soft-spoken, always willing, always kind. She had learned the island, learned its paths and its secrets, learned who mattered and where they slept and how they fought.

And all the while, she had been his.

She was Khemari’s. His eyes, his ears, his hand inside our walls. She had fed him everything, every detail, every weakness. And when he came, she was ready.

She had been waiting for this moment for months.

And in the chaos of the attack, in the noise and the fire and the screaming, she walked up to me with a cup of water and a soft, kind smile, and she pressed it into my hands.

"Drink," she said. "You look pale. You need your strength."

And I drank. Without thinking. Without suspicion. Because she was a friend.

And the world went soft at the edges.

My legs buckled. My mates were fighting, scattered, distracted, and they did not see it, and by the time they did, it was too late.

Khemari grabbed me.

He came from nowhere, golden eyes burning, and hauled me up against his chest, and laughed. "Finally," he breathed. "Finally. You are mine, lovely Krys. And I will make you mine tonight, whether you want it or not."

The world went crazy.

Ravin saw. Ravin saw, and something in him broke.

He tore through the battlefield like a storm.

Ravin had always been beautiful when he fought, but that night, he was something else. Something terrible. Something magnificent. He came through the chaos like a golden wind, his mane flying, his claws extended, his roar splitting the night. Soldiers tried to stop him and failed. He cut them down one after another, left and right, ripped through them like paper, their bodies crumpling into the sand. Blood sprayed across his face, his chest, his hair, and he did not slow. He did not stop. He only moved forward, toward me, toward the sound of my voice.

I later learned when he found the traitor, he killed her with a single blow.

Sera saw him coming. She tried to run. She made it three steps before Ravin’s claws opened her from shoulder to hip, and she fell, her body folding into the sand, her eyes wide with surprise. He did not even slow for her. He simply stepped over her body and kept going.

And then he found Khemari.

Khemari had me pinned.

He had dragged me to the ground, away from the fighting, into the shadow of a tree. And he was on top of me, one hand pressing my shoulders down, the other working at my clothes, tearing at the laces, trying to get them off. His golden eyes burned with triumph. His smile was feral. He was going to have me, here, in the dirt, whether I wanted it or not.

And I fought.

My world was spinning. The drug had made everything soft and slow, my limbs heavy, my thoughts sluggish. But I fought. I clawed at his face, at his eyes, at his throat. I kicked, twisted, thrashed. And every time he thought he had me, I slipped, or bit, or scratched, and he had to fight for every inch.

"You will be mine," he hissed, pressing me down. "Tonight, Krys. You will be mine."

And then Ravin hit him like a boulder.

The impact sent Khemari flying, tearing him off me, and Ravin was there in an instant, standing over me, roaring his fury. And then they fought.

It was fast. Faster than anything I had ever seen. Two great beasts, one golden, one copper, tearing at each other in a blur of claws and fangs and blood. Khemari was bigger, heavier, his blade still in his hand. Ravin was faster, wilder, wounded from the battle but relentless. They circled, struck, broke apart, and collided again. Blood flew. Fur flew. Ravin’s claws raked across Khemari’s chest, opening four long gashes. Khemari’s blade sliced Ravin’s shoulder, then his arm, then his side.

And still Ravin did not stop.

He fought for me. For our children. For the life we had built, the family, the home, the whole impossible beautiful thing. He fought like a male who had everything to lose, and nothing to fear.

And then Khemari stabbed him.

The blade went deep, into Ravin’s side, under the ribs, up into the soft places. Blood poured out, dark and hot and fast. Ravin staggered.

But he did not fall.

He did not fall.

He surged forward one last time, and he closed his jaws on Khemari’s throat, and he ripped.

Khemari’s throat came out in a spray of red.

And then Leon was there, roaring like the end of the world, and he tore into Khemari’s body with a fury that shook the ground. He ripped. He shredded. He tore limb from limb, one arm off, then the other, then a leg, then the other. Khemari, already dying, still alive enough to scream, screamed as the lion pulled him apart piece by piece, until there was nothing left but a ruin of copper and blood.

He died screaming.

But Ravin was bleeding.

He was bleeding, and it was bad.

He staggered, took one step, then another. And then he fell. And I was there, somehow, catching him, cradling him against my chest, his blood soaking through my tunic, warm and wet and endless.

Ravin looked up at me. His golden eyes were glassy, unfocused. His breath was coming short.

"Krys," he whispered.

"I am here," I said, my voice shaking. "I am here. Stay with me. Stay with me, Ravin."

I pulled the blue bind.

I pulled it hard, harder than I had ever pulled it, desperate, frantic, pouring everything I had into him. The light came, blue and bright, wrapping around us both, shimmering, pulsing, filling the air with its glow. It seeped into his wounds, into his skin, into his bones, and I willed it. I willed it with everything in me. Close. Close the wound. Stop the blood. Hold him. Hold him here with me. Do not take him. Do not take him from me.

But Ravin was already gone.

Somewhere in the seconds between the wound and the light, he had slipped away. Quietly. Softly. Without a sound. His heart had stopped, and his breath had stopped, and his eyes had gone still, and the man who had become my world since coming to this place simply was not there anymore.

I felt it happen. Felt the moment the bond went quiet. Felt the warm golden presence in my chest flicker, and dim, and fade.

And I broke.

Because this was not a wound. This was not a fever. This was not something the light could fix. This was death, real death, the kind that came and took and did not give back. And the blue bind could heal a body, but it could not bring back a soul.

He was gone.

He was gone.

My hands cupped his face. My thumbs traced his cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw, the shape of his mouth. The face I had looked at a thousand times. The face I had woken up to, argued with, laughed with, kissed goodnight. The face of the man who had found me when I was alone and terrified in a world that was unknown to me, and had decided, for no reason at all, that he would love me.

He had been the first. The very first. He had looked at me, a strange human woman with nothing to offer, and he had chosen me. And in doing so, he had given me everything. A home. A family. A reason to live. He had taught me that I could be loved, when I had believed I could not. He had taught me to love again, when the world had convinced me my heart was dead.

And now he was gone.

His blood was on my hands. His blood was on my face. His blood was soaking through my clothes, cooling against my skin. And his eyes were open, golden and beautiful and empty, staring at nothing.

"No," I whispered. "No. Ravin. Ravin, no."

I shook him, gently, as if he might wake, as if he might blink and smile and tell me he was only teasing. He did not. He did not move.

"Ravin," I said, louder now, my voice cracking. "Ravin, wake up. Wake up. You cannot do this. You cannot leave me. Not you. Not you."

And then the sobs came. Great, heaving sobs that tore up from somewhere deep and raw inside me, shaking my whole body. I gathered him against my chest, pressed his face to my neck the way he used to press himself to me, and I wept. I wept into his hair. I wept onto his still chest. And the light kept glowing, blue and useless and beautiful, wrapped around us both.

"Come back," I begged. "Come back to me. Please. Please. I cannot do this without you. I cannot. You promised. You promised me you would never leave. You promised."

He had promised. On the night we bonded, he had promised. And Ravin had never broken a promise in his life.

I screamed.

I screamed, and the whole battlefield went quiet, every warrior stopping, every blade stilling, every head turning toward the sound. And the blue light around us flickered, once, twice, and then steadied, and I held him against my chest, and I screamed my anguish into the night.

My first mate.

My golden prince.

The man who had started it all.