Chapter 2 His Narrow Territory

His Narrow Territory

Nyla's POV

I ignored him and twisted the key to start the bike but he blocked my way. Not only that, the bike refused to respond.

“Move aside,” I said, not even looking at him. “I don't have time for this.”

He didn't move. He just stood there with his arms crossed, blocking the only clear path off the road, watching me like I was a puzzle.

“I wonder why you’re crying in a wedding dress,” he said, tilting his head. “Did you steal the bike… or did Calder finally do something stupid enough to make his own bride run?”

My heart skipped.

He recognized the motorcycle.

Everyone who had ever crossed paths with Calder knew this Harley. It wasn’t just another motorcycle. It was his signature ride.

And if I was the one riding it, in a torn wedding dress, he didn't need to be a genius to guess something had gone wrong at Silvermoon.

I stared at him.

That question wasn’t coming from a place of concern. He wanted information he would use against Silvermoon.

If something had gone wrong inside Silvermoon, people like him would want to know for the sake of field politics, so he was trying to satisfy his own curiosity. 

I glared at him.

“Get out of my way before I lose my temper.” I said.

Damon laughed softly, like I'd told a joke instead of a warning. “Oh, I'm terrified.” 

He was fucking pissing me off, on a normal day, I would have snapped but tonight, I didn’t have the energy. I just wanted to leave. So, I ignored him again and tried the ignition again. 

He nodded toward the back of the bike instead of backing away. “You can lose your temper all you want, sweetheart, it won't put fuel back in your tank.”

I turned my head, and that was when I saw the thin smoke curling up from the exhaust. My stomach started pounding in fear.

I had escaped Silvermoon only to be stranded on an empty road.

Before I could think of what to do next, he suddenly lifted his head.

His playful expression disappeared. Then I heard it too, the low, distant rumble of motorcycles, more than one, closing in fast.

My heart dropped straight into my stomach.

Calder must have noticed the Harley missing by now. He must have sent his enforcers after me.

Panic crashed into me all over again.

Damon looked toward the road behind me before turning back.

“You've got a few minutes before they catch up,” Damon said, and for the first time, all the teasing had dropped out of his voice. “You can choose to go back or follow me.”

I hesitated because everything I’ve ever heard about Iron veil is that they’re wolfless monsters who answer to no pack and only follow their own rules, they might be wolfless but powerful.

My mother used to warn us as pups that if we wandered too far past the northern fence, the Iron Veil would find us first. Going anywhere with a man like that should have been the easiest no of my life.

But going back to Calder was worse. 

I was still thinking over it when the headlights spilled over us.

The Silvermoon enforcers rolled to a stop in a tight formation, and Rex was at the front of them, exactly like I knew he'd be.

“Nyla.” His voice was mean and all business, like he was collecting a runaway package instead of a person. “You're coming back with us.”

I didn't answer him. I looked at Damon instead.

He looked back at me, completely unbothered, like none of this was his problem yet. He was simply waiting to see which way I'd follow before he decided on what to do.

I nodded and that was all it took. Damon stepped in front of me, unhurried, and looked at Rex like he found the whole situation mildly entertaining. “Is that an invitation? Or are you planning on dragging her back by force?”

“She belongs to Silvermoon,” Rex said.

“Funny.” Damon smirked. “She doesn't look like she agrees.”

Rex's jaw tightened, and he barked the order before I could brace for it.

“Seize her!” 

The enforcers moved forward half a step.

“Take one more step… And you’ll be picking your men up in pieces.” Damon said, in a cold voice. 

That was when I finally looked at the ground. A faded painted line stretched across the road, almost worn away with time. I hadn’t paid any attention to it before, but now I understood why everyone had suddenly stopped. This wasn’t just another road in the forest. It was the exact border between Silvermoon and Iron Veil.

I looked back at the Silvermoon enforcers. Just moments ago, they had been ready to drag me home by force. Now, not a single one of them dared to take another step. Even Rex was calm now. The confidence on their faces had been replaced with hesitation, and that was all the proof I needed. They knew exactly where they were standing, and they knew crossing that line would have consequences.

Damon spoke so calmly that it almost didn’t match the tension in the air. He pointed at the road between us with the tip of his boot.

“You’re standing on a very narrow strip,” he said with an easy smile. “You either turn and leave. One step this way, you’re stepping into my territory. So you should think very carefully before deciding which side you want to be on.”

Rex’s eyes shifted from Damon to me and then back again, silently weighing his options. I could almost see the battle in his head. If they crossed that line, they wouldn’t just be taking me back. They would be starting a fight inside Iron Veil’s territory, and judging by the hesitation on their faces, none of them liked the odds.

“This isn't over,” Rex finally said, backing his bike up a slow foot at a time. “You'll pay for this, Damon.”

Damon didn't even bother answering. He just watched them go, unbothered, until their taillights shrank into the dark and the sound of their engines faded out completely.

I braced myself for him to tell me to get on his bike, to take me wherever the Iron Veil called home. Instead, he pulled off the road at a run-down gas station a little further on. It had broken windows and a sign missing half its letters.

“Wait here,” he said, already swinging off his bike. “I'll fill a gallon, enough to get your bike moving again.”

Then he was gone, walking off into the dark like leaving me alone in the middle of nowhere was nothing at all.

The second he was out of sight, my stomach finally gave out. I doubled over and threw up right there on the cracked road, my whole body shaking with everything I'd been holding down since I walked through that door in my wedding dress. I hadn't let myself feel any of the pain until now.

I sat down onto the ground afterward, my knees pulled to my chest, the cold pavement seeping through my dress. Hours ago I'd been standing in front of a mirror, watching a servant pin white flowers into my hair, thinking my biggest worry that night was whether Calder would cry when he saw me walk in. If the moon goddess herself had looked me in the eye this morning and told me how tonight would end, I wouldn't have believed a single word of it.

Then I heard a distant rumble of bikes.

I stood up fast, my hand closing hard around the handlebar before I even understood what was happening. Headlights cut through the darkness from both directions at once, and riders closed in around the gas station, spreading out around the pumps, forming a loose circle around me.