Chapter 34

Violet

The rogue wolves snarled, their fangs bared as they barreled towards us.

“Brace yourself!” Theodore yelled. I dug my heels in to the bench and grabbed something. The wolves slammed against the sides of the carriage. I could hear the guards crying out and the sound of the steam engine creaking and sputtering as we toppled over. The wolves howled and circled the carriage. I felt it hit the ground and skid as if we were on the edge of a cliff.

Were we?

“Out of the carriage!” I yelled, feeling it teeter. Theodor kicked the back window out and we scrambled through it and into the frey. Adrenaline coursed through me, the instinct to fight rising even as my heart raced. The scent of blood and grime filled the air. Theodore pulled out a dagger from his belt as the guards fought their way toward us. We were backed up against a steep incline. The carriage was partially wedged between two trees and stuck. One of the guards was injured, lying on the ground but seemingly still breathing.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked.

“Just stay close to me and trust me.”

So not a plan. Great. I went to the injured guard to check him out. I ripped his shirt to make a make shift bandage around his leg. Then, I crawled back into the carriage for my carry-on bag, pulling my own daggers out.

“Luna,” the guard choked. “You—”

“Don’t move, you’ll make your injuries worse.”

I leaped into the fight, aiming my daggers hard and fast at the first rogue I could reach. There were so many of them, but they were mostly disorganized. The rogue wolves snarled at us, still in their wolf forms. It was telling that they hadn’t shifted to face us on two legs. Theodore stood his ground with his guards.

Jaws snapped. Wolves howled. The scent of blood grew thicker and thicker.

“Luna, this way!”

I glanced over at them, watching them trying to create a path for me to escape.

“I’m not running!” I yelled, kicking a rogue away from me. “What do you even take me for?”

Theodore glanced at me, surprise etched on his face.

“What the—”

I lunged forward, blocking the large jaws of one of them and driving my dagger into the side of its neck with a snarl. It howled. Blood gushed warm and thick over my hand. My heart pounded in my ears as I charged forward, losing myself in the familar rhythm of battle.

It was like being back on the border of Darkmoon before I’d met Lucas, before my father had fallen ill, when I had been desperate to prove myself.

“You need to going,” Theodore snarled. “This isn’t your—”

“I was in that carriage, too,” I hissed. “And they don’t look like they planned on sparing anyone.”

Which meant it could be any number of people. It could have been Lucas. It could have been Owen. We’d have to figure that out once we made it out of this alive.

One of the guards fell, and a rogue wolf broke through their defense. I snarled, turning on the spot and throwing one of my daggers. It slid home straight between the rogue’s eyes. The rogue dropped dead and the guard’s jaw dropped open.

“Holy shit,” Theodore said, seeming impressed.

I called the dagger back to my hand and his eyes widened. His jaw dropped in shock.

“Stay focused!” I yelled, turning to the remaining guards. “There’s more coming at least a dozen more, maybe more.”

“How can you know that?” Theodore asked, coming up behind me.

“Because they fight like border rogues do.”

Theodore

There was no way she could get any sexier.

“You fought border rogues?”

“I’m my father’s daughter.” She panted. “They’ll try to outflank us before the reinforcements arrive. They’ve got us backed up to a hill, but there’s no telling where they might come from. Keep your eyes open.”

A guard joined us, panting and looking out at the rogues still prowling closer.

“Are there no fucking end to them? This isn’t usual.”

“These rogues aren’t like Ben and the others…. You’ve got the experience, Violet. What’s your plan?”

“Looking for the leader,” she said.

“They’re too disorganized for a leader.”

She scoffed. “They’re too disorganized to be sane, but even rogues have a hierarchy.”

“A rogue alpha? Are you serious?” One of the warriors asked. “What are we looking for? Big?”

“No,” Violet said. “The alpha’s calling the shots. He’ll show up last. He’s probably lying in wait, trying to figure out who the biggest threat is.” She wiped her face. “Kill him, and the others will scatter..”

“We’ll keep an eye out. Anyone with medical supplies, check on the fallen.”

One of them turned.

“We need to get him back toward the carriage,” I said, nodding towards the guard who was leaning on one of the trees, panting and bleeding from his side.

“Violet, cover me.”

She said nothing, but I felt her following me toward him. One of the wolves lunged, but I didn’t even flinch. It was cut out of the air by Violet’s attack. I shoved back the rogue that had my warrior pinned and hefted him up.

I tossed him to the nearest warrior to get back to the carriage and turned back. Violet was already jumping back into it, and another wave of howls filled the air. They had to be reinforcements for the rogues, and I shook my head.

“Well, I’ll be damned…” One of the warriors said. “What kind of woman are you marrying, alpha?”

I laughed. “A warrior.”

A better warrior than me, for sure. The few groups of rogues I’d faced had always been smaller groups of rogues that hadn’t been so far gone. Some of them had been violent, but they hadn’t been murderous. After a bit of fighting, they were usually calm enough to talk to. All the other times, they reacted well to me, and there was no need to fight.

I figured out sometime in my teens that it had been because my mother had still been without pack bonds when she birthed me, and most rogues if they weren’t too far gone, could smell it on me. They considered me one of them.

Admittedly, I had also slacked off in training while at the Academy as a form of rebellion against my father.

The chaos of the battle engulfed us, the snarls of the rogues filled the air in between grunts of exertion. I tried to keep an eye on Violet, but every time I glanced her way, I was struck by the sight of her. She was a force of nature, her daggers flashing in the dim light as she fought with an intensity that took my breath away.

She moved like a whirlwind, quick and fierce, dodging and slashing with precision. I’d seen strong fighters before, but she fought with experience. She practically danced around them. The fact that she was moving like that despite the broken bond was just another thing to be amazed by.

It also made me suspicious. Seeing her recall the dagger with ease had been a surprise. Even if it was a magical weapon, most wolves couldn’t use them to their full potential. It was possible that they had come from beyond the border and thus followed a different set of rules, but I wasn’t convinced of that. She wouldn’t have pulled them out if it were that kind of secret, so she much have been using them at the Academy.

Did she have magic, too? Did she know that she had magic? Maybe that’s why the bond felt like it was reaching out to me.

Maybe that’s why the sex had been so fucking amazing, too.

“On your left!”

I snarled and deflected a wolf’s attack and slammed my dagger into its chest, killing it instantly. Violet dispatched another rogue, her eyes took on a soft, familiar glow, but I couldn’t tell if that was her wolf or just magic.

“Keep pushing!” I shouted, urging my warriors to maintain the pressure on the rogues.

“Don’t let them outflank us!” I barked at the guard to my left before another wolf lunged at me. I dispatched it quickly, but my gaze flicked back to Violet as she gutted another wolf, swiped a shield from my guard and charged forward, sending a large rogue flying back into a rock.

By then, the numbers had evened out a little more. Another howl sounded and they all turned and started to flee. One of my guards started to run after them.

“No,” Violet said. “You go into their territory, you’re as good as ambushed.”

She flicked her blade free of blood. Her eyes scanned the area. Then I felt something. An instinct. She looked up. Her eyes aglow, her dagger raised as if to throw it and looked just over my head to where the carriage was.

“Get down!”