Chapter 660: Trap A King, Hear Wolves Sing

"I’ve mindlinked my men. They are on their way."

River’s eyes moved to him briefly. He saw the question forming and dying in the same second, the how does that work competing with the my father is about to die.

Then she saw movement.

Through the matebond, her anxiety went nuclear. A hand glowing with dark magic in the tree line, forty yards east. Angled at Atlas’s blindspot. The ambush was seconds from launching and the wolves were minutes away and the math between seconds and minutes was the math that killed kings.

Lucian felt the decision form inside her through the matebond before her body executed it. Her resolve hardened into something that went past determination and arrived at a place where consequences stopped mattering. The same frequency she’d carried when she stood between guards and Vesper. The same frequency she’d carried when she burned a star off her neck. The frequency of a woman who had already counted the cost and was paying it in advance.

"River, what are you—"

"Stay here."

She stood up.

"River," Lucian hissed, reaching for her arm.

His hand closed on air. She was already moving. Already past the tree line. Already in the clearing, and the hundred concealed soldiers were still hidden and her father was still talking.

Lucian’s wolf went berserk.

Every synapse. Every nerve. Every instinct that biology had ever installed in a wolf’s brain to protect its mate fired simultaneously. The biological imperative to follow her, to shield her, to put his body between her and every threat in that clearing was so violent his vision went solid gold and his hands shook and his legs nearly launched him into the field before his tactical mind caught the reins with a grip that was slipping.

Shit. SHIT. RIVER.

Every cell in Lucian’s body was vibrating at a frequency that screamed move. But he held in place. Charging now would give General Willow an excuse to deploy his men. Lucian’s wolves were sixty seconds out.

General Willow spotted her first. "It would appear we have a visitor."

Atlas turned. Found his daughter. The surprise on his face lasted a millisecond before it vanished, replaced by an expression Lucian recognized. River was in big trouble after this.

"River?"

General Willow’s mouth curved.

"Even better. Father and daughter on the same field. This will save me some time."

He raised his hand lazily.

Soldiers emerged from the tree line. Fae warriors, blades drawn, hands glowing with dark magic.

"An ambush under a parley flag, Willow," Atlas said, voice low. "I have endured your posturing. I have tolerated your daughter’s theatrics. But this is beneath even the meager standards your house has maintained in my service. You will be remembered for this. Long after the victory you imagine, this is what the histories will record: the General who butchered a sacred law because his pride was wounded."

General Willow’s expression didn’t change.

"A daughter for a daughter, Atlas. You locked mine in a dungeon. Yours can die beside you on this grass. The symmetry appeals to me."

"That’s where you are wrong." Atlas drew his blade. "You will never touch my daughter."

General Willow’s hands came up in a blur.

River dashed in front of Atlas on pure instinct as pink erupted from her palms. Pink intercepted black three feet in front of her face in a shockwave that hurled every person on the field and in the treeline backward. Everyone except River and General Willow, who were locked in place.

Lucian didn’t have time to appreciate how powerful she was or feel pride in the fact that she was holding a column of combat magic against a dark-magic-augmented general.

Atlas was off the ground first. His hands came up. Green magic, bright and ancient, poured from his palms and joined his daughter’s pink. The combined stream hit General Willow’s dark magic with a force that drove the black column back three inches.

More of General Willow’s men emerged from the trees. One extended his palms, aimed at River.

Lucian was moving at a speed that was new for him. A speed that shouldn’t have been possible. A bonus boost he apparently didn’t know about until right now. He shifted into a black wolf mid-stride and the speed doubled.

Lucian hit the soldier at full sprint, his wolf colliding with a Fae warrior’s midsection at a velocity that rearranged the man’s relationship with his internal organs. His jaws closed around the soldier’s throat and tore, and the sound of it was the sound of a wolf whose mate was three feet from a dark magic blast and whose patience with the concept of concealment had been permanently, violently retired.

The field erupted.

Lucian’s wolves hit the clearing, tearing through the first wave of Willow’s men, and the sound of it was the sound of a pack whose Alpha had given them a single directive through the mindlink.

The sounds of screams, clashing blades, and growls came from every direction.

More of Willow’s men arrived from the southern tree line just as Atlas’s soldiers entered the clearing from the west. But now the fight was actually even.

River’s pink magic snapped around Lucian’s wolf, her father, and every other wolf and Fae on their side.

The sensation hit him mid-stride and nearly dropped him. A warmth that settled over his fur, his muscles, his bones, pressing into every wound and every bruise with a heat that was targeted and fierce and carrying intent so clear it registered as language: you are mine to protect.

Two channels of her were hitting him simultaneously. The matebond delivered her heart. The magic delivered her power. Together, the combination was a frequency that made his wolf stop mid-kill and turn towards her.

The wedding was a drop. A fraction. A preview of a woman whose capabilities had been catastrophically underestimated by everyone who had ever measured them, and the everyone included Lucian, and the including Lucian was a miscalculation he was never going to make again.