Chapter 27%
The moment Alpha Maximus woke and realized his mate was gone, something primal snapped inside him.
The room that once held his still, poisoned body now shook with his fury. Glass shattered. Growls reverberated from the walls. The wamors and omegas had to clear out, leaving only Beta Yuan by his side, silent but watchful.
Maximus paced like a caged beast, jaw clenched, claws extended
“She was taken while I was dying,” he snarled, voice edged with thunder. “They dared to rip my mate from me while I couldn’t lift a finger to stop them.“}
Yuan didn’t flinch. “The vampires are moving fast. They knew you were recovering. They took her while your strength was still returning. “They knew,” Maximus muttered, eyes darkening. “Cowards. They took advantage. But I can feel her. She’s alive.”
He closed his eyes, drawing deep into the mate bond. Faint… but still there. Fear. Despair. Pain. His mate was frightened, and her emotions pulsed through his blood like smoke in his lungs. But it meant she was still breathing.!!
“I will find her,” he growled, more to himself than anyone. “Even if I have to burn their cursed dens to the ground.“}
Without wasting a moment, he called for the pack to assemble. Warriors. Scouts. Runners. Every male wolf of age gathered in the courtyard under the rising moon..
Maximus, now dressed in dark armor lined with furs, stood before them like an avenging god. His eyes swept the crowd.
(We’re not waiting for scouts. We’re not waiting for politics. My bond with Rebecca will guide me. I can feel her pain–and I swear to you
ll, we will follow it until I tear her from their hands myself!”
The pack howled in agreement, voices rising like stormwinds over the forest. Wolves began shifting, armor discarded for speed and muscle. They took formation, ready to move.
But just before Maximus could give the command to charge, the air shifted.8
Another wave of paws thundered from the north, and a second pack emerged from the trees–Silvana wolves. And leading them, sharp–eyed and radiating a furious storm, was Alpha Lucas.
Growls rose in waming. Tension crackled like lightning.8
Maximus’s lip curled “Why are you here, Alpha of Silvana?“H
Lucas dismounted from his wolf form, standing tall and bare–chested beneath the starlight. “I came to fight,” he said simply
“This is my war Maximus snapped. “She is my mate. My wife.”
Lucas didn’t back down. “And she was mine first”
Gasps rose from the warriors around them. Even Beta Yuan turned his head slightly, alarm flickering in his expression.
“What did you say? Maximus’s voice was ice and rage.!
“I said,” Lucas stepped forward, “she was fated to me. I knew her when I was a boy. She was the one under the pear blossom tree. I was too blind to see it before, but now I remember everything. I was supposed to be hers.”
Maximus’s eyes shifted gold. “And you come here now? When she’s my bonded mate? When I carry her mark and she carries mine?”
“I didn’t come to steal her from you” Lucas said, voice hard, but sincere. “I came to make sure she doesn’t die.”
Maximus let out a furious growl, body trembling. The mate bond bumed in his chest, and the idea of another male claiming Rebecca–no matter the truth of it–sent fury roaring through his blood.
He lunged forward.
But before fangs could sink into skin, Beta Yuan leapt in between them and pushed his Alpha back.)
“Enough” Yuan barked. “Not now!”
Reid was quick to do the same, grabbing Lucas’s shoulder and pulling him away. “You want to kill each other, do it later,” he growled. “Right now, she might be dying. While we argue like pups over a bone,“W
The two alphas snarled, but stood down. Breathing hard, eyes locked like predators who’d tear each other apart at any other time.
“I don’t trust you,” Maximus growled.
“I don’t care,” Lucas replied: “I’ll follow my nose. Or hers. But one way or another, I’m getting her back.“N
The wolves of both packs were silent, watching their leaders with barely concealed tension.Il
Maximus turned to his warriors. “Split into flanks. My Beta will guide the east I’ll take the north. Silvana wolves will follow Alpha Lucas through the western trail. If anyone scents her, howl. No one engages without signal. We move at dusk.”
The warriors howled in answer.
As the flanks began to organize, Maximus stored at the horizon, his heart thudding like a war drum.
“She’s not dying today, he murmured under his breath.
Lucas stood across from him, and though they didn’t speak again, the air between them pulsed with something deadly and ancient. Two Alphas. One mate.
And both willing to rip the world apart for her.”
