Chapter 5

Damien’s Pov

I’ve never experienced true love for what it was. Never told someone I loved them. Never felt the mate bond before. Yeah, the Moon Goddess was that cruel to me.

But I guess she turned over a new leaf because for the first time I felt the mate bond.

And at the wrongest places in the goddamn world.

On the bloody battlefield.

I was standing on the hill, sharpened blade in hand, staring down at my enemies beneath the dying sun.

Suddenly the wind shifted, and there it was — a scent so faint it almost slipped past me but I caught it.

My eyes trailed forward and it met hers. Those unmistakenble green I'd looked into that night. It was HER.

While I stared, I felt something else.

Her hand rose to touch her belly whether knowingly or unconsciously but it was a message to me.

“Alpha…” My beta called for me but his calls fell on deaf ears.

I felt something else.

Two something's actually.

Every inch of me stiffened like I'd been struck by lightning.

I closed my eyes, inhaled again, deeper this time.

The scent of pine and earth clung to her as always, but now, there was a change — the grace of something raw, pure and so fragile.

There were the scent of young pups.

My pups.

The blade slipped from my hand and I stood there for a long time.

My heart pounding against my ribs like a war drum. I hadn't seen her since that night — the night she'd stumbled into my world, drunk, angry, beautiful and broken. I hadn't touched her since the night we collided likes torn clouds and lit the sky with fire. I never knew her name. Never knew I'd marked her. Never knew I'd left a part of me behind.

But now?

Now, I knew everything.

My mate. My children. They were here.

“Alpha! We have to retreat. They're advancing.” Beta Jasper clung to my arm and tugged me back.

I turned around and ran, green eyes still clung to my mind.

My mate was here.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't. I made sure I did everything in my power to gather intel — traded favours, threatened spies and tore through alliance maps like a mad man.

I had to find her.

And I had to kill whoever thought they could take her from me.

That's when Killian’s name showed up like a stain that wouldn't wash off.

The Alpha of the Red Moon Pack stole what was mine. No wonder she'd been with his patrol guards. She was married to the power-hungry bastard.

What I gathered made me want to torch his pack with him inside. The asshole had kept her. I heard rumours of her isolation and abuse. Even my some of my men who'd been to the Red Moon Pack told me they'd met her — Larisa and she was growing colder, crueler. That didn't sound like the girl I remembered. That sounded like a girl in a cage.

And I know cages.

I've broken out of enough of them to smell when someone else is trapped.

I nearly ripped through the tent when I overheard two of my soldiers gossiping about her condition.

“Pregnant,” one slurred.

“Killian's heir, they say.”

My fist has never slammed somethint so hard.

“A - Alpha.” They flinched.

I ignored them and marched forward.

Not Killian's.

But mine.

I went to my quiet place in the woods and whipped out Larisa's picture. It was the one of her wedding. She looked like a ghost draped in velvet. Her eyes said what her lips never could : Help me.

I swore to the moon that night, with blood on my palms and steel in my voice.

Killian will never touch her again. Not while I breathe.

I'd dug deeper into Killian's past, I discovered a report long buried in the archives of the Western borders. One I'd missed in my early hunts for my brother's killer. It detailed a patrol ambush that left only one survivor — Killian.

My brother had gone hunting that night with him.

He never came back.

The report said “rogue attack.” But now, I knew better.

There were never any signs of a rogue pack in that region. There were no bodies. No tracks. Only lies.

Killian had killed him.

He killed my brother.

And now, he had my mate and my pups.

It only meant one thing : WAR.

I'd rallied my warriors and told them the truth — That the Lycan Princess was carrying my children. That she was being used. That Killian had taken from me and they'd followed.

Our first attack had been silent. Clean. We'd rescued three of our soldiers captured and sent a message :

I’M COMING.

And of course, Killian retaliated.

Villages burned. Skirmishes exploded. Lines were drawn. Men died. But I never lost focus.

Larisa was the center of it all. Not just my mate. Not just the mother of my children. My heart. My reason. My anchor.

I will burn the world to get her back.

I rose to my feet and marched back to the tent.

“Sir,” Jasper reported to me. “We found how to get your mate back. There's a secret tunnel in the mountains.”

I smiled. “We attack at dawn.”

“If we get your mate, what will you do then?” He couldn't help ask.

“I will slit Killian’s throat with the same blade I forged the day after my brother died. I will hold her when the ashes settle and I will raise my pups under the stars that don't fear tyrants.”

He watched me not with fear or disdain but with admiration.

I watched the little camp fire Killian's forces had set up in the distance.

I'll get Larisa back.

And I'd anyone stands betwee

n me and that dream?

I'll rip out their throat.

With a smile.

Because I'm not just a rogue.

I'm here.

And no one takes what's mine.