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The shot has to be perfect. One chance. Miss, and I reveal my position while accomplishing nothing.

I sight along the crossbow's simple mechanism, accounting for wind and the movement of the fighting combatants. My pregnant belly makes the shooting position slightly awkward, but medical knowledge guides my aim toward the specific point where Kain's subclavian artery runs close to the surface—protected normally by tactical armor, but exposed through the damage to his vest.

The bolt flies true.

It takes Kain in the side of the neck, just below his left ear. Not immediately fatal, but severing blood supply to the brain with surgical precision. He staggers, confusion replacing focus as cognitive function begins to fail.

Vex doesn't hesitate. With his opponent compromised, he drives forward with decisive force. Claws find Kain's throat, tearing through feline anatomy with devastating efficiency.

The Feline captain drops to his knees, then forward onto the stone. Blood pools beneath his still form.

"Kain is down," Vex announces, his voice carrying clearly across the mountain face. "Council operation is terminated."

The response is immediate. Search teams converge on our position, but without central coordination. Some units continue following previous orders. Others attempt to establish new command structure. The result is chaos instead of systematic pursuit.

Council reinforcements circle overhead, but their approach becomes hesitant without ground-based tactical direction. Nobody wants to make the decision to escalate without proper authorization.

And most importantly, none of them want to risk their own lives pursuing a target that's already cost them their operational commander.

One by one, the search teams withdraw. Emergency extraction protocols engage for the remaining specialists. Within an hour, the mountain falls silent except for wind and distant thunder from the approaching storm.

We wait in concealment until full darkness confirms the Council withdrawal. Only then do we emerge from hiding, moving carefully through terrain now emptied of threats.

"Is it over?" I ask, hardly daring to believe we've survived.

"This particular threat is finished," Vex confirms. "They'll send other teams eventually, but not immediately. Not with winter approaching and other territories requiring their attention."

Months of breathing space. Time to prepare better defenses. Time for our child to develop safely in my womb, to be born into a world where we've carved out our own space.

Time for us to become something more than captive and captor, something stronger than either could achieve alone.

The storm breaks as we make our way back toward the den, rain washing the blood and scent of battle from the mountain face. By morning, it will be as if the Council forces never existed.

But we'll remember. The mountain remembers.

And when they return—if they return—they'll find something different waiting for them.

Not an isolated Chimeric alpha protecting claimed property.

But a mated pair defending their chosen territory, their family, their future.

The transformation is complete. What began with storm and claiming has become partnership forged in blood and defended with everything we possess.

Let them come again when they dare.

We'll be ready.

CHAPTER 25

MOUNTAIN PASSAGE

Amelia's POV

The mountain wind cuts through my cloak like ice-cold knives. Six months have passed since that final battle on the ledge—six months of constant movement, looking over our shoulders, building something unprecedented from the ashes of everything we abandoned.

My hand rests on my swollen belly, feeling the distinctive flutter of movement beneath stretched skin. Our child kicks with increasing vigor, perhaps sensing the thin air as we climb higher into the treacherous pass between towering peaks.

"Easy," I murmur, speaking to both the baby and myself as loose stone shifts beneath my boots.