Page 61 of Shifting Hearts

FIFTEEN

When the Wolves Come

Lucien

T hey send four. Not Alphas or diplomats. They send killers.

Dressed in gray leather, black blades strapped to their thighs and eyes devoid of mercy. I smell them long before they cross the outer ward and I’m already waiting.

Emilia’s still asleep, curled in the blankets with her mark glowing faintly on her shoulder. My mark. I touch her hair, my heart squeezing like it’s caught in a fist. She looks so peaceful. I wonder if she’ll ever look that way again.

Because what’s coming? It won’t leave us untouched.

They don’t knock. But then again, they never do.

The first wolf breaches the boundary with a pulse of dark magic, snapping through the protection spell like brittle glass. I’m already at the front door when he steps onto the porch. He doesn’t smile but neither do I.

“Lucian Blackwood,” he says flatly. “You’ve been summoned.”

“No.”

He blinks. “You don’t get to refuse.”

“I just did.”

Another wolf flanks him, taller, broader, silver scars crisscrossing his throat. “Then we take the girl.”

“You can try.” My smile is feral and I see the smaller man swallow.

They don’t wait for permission. They leap. The fight is fast and furious. Brutal. I move through them like a shadow with teeth - sharp, efficient, unforgiving.

Bones crack and flesh splits. I don’t let myself feel it. Not the pain or the fury. Not the familiar pull of the old darkness I buried years ago.

But I let it out anyway. Because this? This is what I was made for.

Not politics. Not peace. This. Protecting what’s mine.

The last wolf tries to run. He makes it to the treeline before I slam him to the ground, my hand on the back of his neck, claws digging into his spine.

“I want you to deliver a message,” I snarl in his ear.

He whimpers. “Anything…”

“You come for her again, I won’t just kill you,” I growl into his ear. “I’ll burn your entire bloodline down to ash.”

He scrambles away, trailing blood and piss and I let him go. For now.

When I walk back into the cabin, I’m soaked in it. Blood, smoke, and old instincts. Emilia is standing in the middle of the room, pale and still.

“I felt it,” she whispers. “All of it.”

“I didn’t want you to wake up,” I say, not moving closer to her. Afraid she’ll push me away now that she knows what I really capable of.

“You think I can sleep through you going full murder-wolf on the front lawn?” She’s trying to make a joke, but her voice trembles.

I finally go to her. I pull her tightly against my chest, not caring about the dirt or the blood that stains my skin. I Let her feel that I’m still here. That we’re still here.

“They’ll keep coming,” she says against my chest.

“Let them,” I growl.

“But how long can we keep running?”

“We don’t run,” I say quietly. “We hunt.”