Chapter 166

Darren

The last of the gunfire had finally died away. Blood and sweat dripped down my face, stinging my eyes as I stood over the human commander, who now knelt on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. Around me, other warriors had subdued the remaining soldiers, forcing them to their knees in surrender.

It was over. We’d won. The battle, anyway.

“Take them to the holding cells,” I ordered the warriors, who immediately began hauling away the prisoners. I stretched my left shoulder, feeling a strange pang deep beneath the flesh. Frowning, I reached behind to touch it and winced at the pain. My fingers came away bloody.

Had I been hit there? I didn’t recall being pierced by a bullet or any other weapon.

As they left, I turned away, looking out over the village. Smoke rose from several buildings, and debris littered the streets. Bodies lay where they had fallen—some human, some werewolf. The scent of blood, gunpowder, and the chemical agent they’d deployed hung in the air. The fog had mostly dispersed now, but its effects lingered in my burning throat and eyes.

I closed my eyes briefly. Families would mourn tonight. Too many families. But it was over, partially thanks to the other packs’ warriors showing up at the last moment and turning the tide of battle.

In that moment, I reached out to Aria through our Mindlink. But there was no response.

My eyes snapped open.

“Aria? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Aria?” I tried again, panic beginning to claw at me. “Answer me, please.”

Still no answer.

As I moved through the village, I scanned every face, every group of people, looking for Aria’s familiar form. The makeshift medical station was buzzing with activity, wounded warriors being tended to, but she wasn’t there. Thankfully, her body was nowhere to be found either, and my wolf would have sensed if our mate had died, which led me to believe she had made her way to the bunker after all.

Shifting, I quickly made my way to my father’s estate. The guards were still stationed outside, and the house looked mostly untouched, aside from some shattered windows from bullets and a few dead human soldiers.

“Darren!”

I looked up at the sound of my name. Liam ran toward me from the front door of the estate, his face pale beneath smears of dirt and blood. My stomach dropped at his expression.

“It’s Aria,” he said, confirming my worst fears. “You need to come now.”

“What happened?” I demanded, following as he turned and led me inside. “Is she—”

“She’s alive,” Liam said quickly, glancing back at me. “But she’s hurt badly. She took a bullet.”

My blood turned to ice. “How? Where was she?”

“Saving a kid,” Liam explained as we descended the stairs to the bunker level beneath the estate. “A human child got left behind in the evacuation. One of their soldiers had the kid at gunpoint. Aria shifted and put herself between them.”

Pride and terror warred inside of me as we reached the lower level. The bunker had been in our pack for generations, a last resort if necessary. A half-dozen medical beds were occupied, each surrounded by equipment and medical personnel.

Liam led me straight to the far corner, where a bed was partially concealed by a privacy screen. A doctor I recognized as part of Dr. Edward’s team stepped back as we approached, giving me a solemn nod.

And there she was.

Aria lay on the bed, her skin alarmingly pale. Bandages were wrapped around her left shoulder and chest, spots of red seeping through. No wonder my shoulder had been bleeding. Twin wounds.

An IV drip ran into her right arm, and monitors beeped beside her. Her eyes were closed, but as I approached, they fluttered open.

“Darren,” she whispered, reaching for me with both hands.

I was at her side in an instant, carefully taking her hand in mine. “I’m here,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Better than ever.” She tried to smile, wincing slightly at the effort. “We won?”

“We won,” I confirmed, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat. “It’s over. We’ve captured their leaders and they’re being questioned as we speak.”

She nodded slightly, closing her eyes briefly. “Good.”

I turned to the doctor hovering nearby. “How bad is it?”

“The bullet embedded in her shoulder,” he explained quietly. “There’s significant tissue damage, but no major arteries were hit. Thankfully she was in her wolf form when she was hit, so it could have been far worse. But even so, she lost a lot of blood, and the chemical agent complicated things. We’ve counteracted it with Dr. Edward’s antidote, but she’ll need time to recover.”

“But she will recover?” I pressed.

“Yes,” he said with confidence. “She’s stabilized now. Werewolf healing is already working; just a tad more slowly because of the chemical exposure.”

I exhaled shakily, turning back to Aria. “You scared me to death,” I told her, carefully brushing a strand of hair from her face.

“Sorry,” she murmured, her eyes finding mine. “Didn’t have time to call first.”

Despite everything, I laughed—a short, relieved sound. Even injured, she maintained her spirit.

“Next time you decide to jump in front of a bullet, maybe give me a heads up,” I scolded.

“No promises.” Her fingers tightened weakly around mine.

“Darren.” Liam had reappeared at the edge of the privacy screen. “There’s something you should see.”

I hesitated, unwilling to leave Aria’s side.

“Go,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I squeezed her hand gently before following Liam to another section of the bunker, where several monitors had been set up. Bella was sitting in front of them.

“What is it?” I asked.

Bella turned and pointed at the screens. Each showed a different news channel or social media feed, but all featured the same footage: our battle, captured from multiple angles by the cameras Alfira had set up. “The footage Alfira was streaming,” she said. “It’s everywhere.”

“The public response is overwhelming already,” she went on, pulling out her phone and scrolling through comments and news articles. “When the humans attacked, sentiment was already shifting our way. But this—” She pulled up a specific clip.

I watched as the footage showed a white wolf—Aria—throwing herself between a human soldier and a cowering child. The bullet impact was clearly visible, blood blossoming on her white fur. Yet she remained standing, protecting the child before carrying him to safety.

“This has been viewed over eight million times in the last two hours,” Bella said. “A werewolf taking a bullet to save a human child—it’s changed everything.”

Liam nodded. “Riots broke out in the city when people saw the military firing on the medical stations. Police tried to control the crowds, but it just made things worse. There are demonstrations in front of government buildings across the country.”

I stared at the screens, stunned. “They’re on our side?”

“Not everyone,” Bella muttered. “But a whole hell of a lot more than ever before. The government can’t spin this. They can’t claim we’re monsters when the whole world just watched one of us risk her life to save a human child.”

Another screen showed crowds in the city, holding signs with pictures of Aria in wolf form, overlaid with the words ‘PROTECTOR’ and ‘HERO.’

I looked back at the footage of Aria, my chest tightening as I watched her protect that child without hesitation, even at the cost of her own safety. There had been no calculation in her actions, no thought of how it might look or what advantage it might bring. She had simply seen someone in danger and acted.

“I need to get back to her,” I said, already turning away from the screens.

Liam nodded in understanding. “Go. We’ll handle things here.”

I returned to Aria’s bedside, but she was fast asleep. Sighing,I sat beside her, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. Even faced with death, she had chosen to protect rather than harm. To save rather than destroy.

I couldn’t believe that this amazing woman was the leader of our people alongside me.

And even more than that, I couldn’t believe that she was going to be my wife someday.