Chapter 40 #2
The world narrows to a pinpoint. I drop beside him, knees hitting hard ground. My hands shake as they hover over his body, suddenly afraid to touch him—as if contact might confirm what I can’t accept.
“Dane.” My voice breaks on his name.
My fingers press against his throat, searching for a pulse. Nothing. I slide my palm to his chest, pushing fabric aside, seeking any sign of life. His skin is cold under my touch.
This isn’t happening. Not like this. Not after everything.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” It comes out hoarse, half-strangled.
I press harder, as if pressure alone could restart what stopped. My hand splays across his chest, fingers spread wide, feeling for anything—a flicker, a tremor.
Magic seeps from my fingers—not Faelan’s cold precision, but something older. Ancient fae power, the kind my mother tried to bury, rising without permission.
It’s not enough. His heart stays silent.
No.
I push harder, and the wall I’ve built around the bond shatters. That thread I’ve been ignoring, denying, pretending wasn’t real—it blazes to life between us. My magic follows it like water finding a channel, pouring through the connection straight into his chest.
And there—deep in the stillness—I feel his angel blood respond.
Not fighting my power. Recognizing it.
Fae and angel. Ancient enemies. Ancient allies. Two magics that shouldn’t work together, tangling around his stopped heart like twin serpents.
The bond pulls taut between us. I feel his essence—scattered, fading, almost gone—and I grab hold.
Come back.
Not a request. A command.
Then—Loss. Nothing. My magic crashes against emptiness—
I pour everything into the bond. Every scrap of power I have left. The connection between us burns white-hot, searing through whatever barrier death tried to build.
COME BACK.
His body convulses.
A violent gasp tears from his throat—lungs expanding like he’s been underwater for minutes. His back arches off the ground. His eyes fly open, wild and unseeing, and a sound rips out of him that’s half scream, half roar.
I grab his shoulders, holding him down as his body fights against the shock of living again. His heart slams against his ribs—not gentle beats returning, but a violent hammering, like something caged finally breaking free.
“Dane!” I grip his face, force him to see me. “I’ve got you. You’re here. You’re back.”
His chest heaves. His hands claw at the ground, at me, at anything solid. The angel blood and fae magic still crackle through him, still rebuilding what was broken.
Then his eyes focus. Find mine.
“Nova.” My name comes out shredded. Barely a rasp.
“I’m here.” My voice cracks. “I’m here. Don’t move. Don’t—“
He moves anyway. Of course he does. His hand lifts—trembling with the effort—and his fingers brush my jaw. Cold. Weak. But deliberate.
“Did we win?” he asks.
A sound escapes me. Half laugh, half sob. “We won.”
His eyes close for a moment, and I think I’ve lost him again. But then they open, sharper now. More present.
“Help me up.”
“Dane, you died. Your heart stopped. You can’t—“
“Help me up.”
I want to argue. Want to keep him still, keep him safe, keep him breathing. But I know that look. I’ve seen it every time he’s put his pack before himself.
I slide my arm under his shoulders and help him sit. He goes gray, sweat breaking across his forehead, but he doesn’t make a sound. Just breathes through it, jaw locked, until the world stops spinning.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
The Fade collapses around us. Reality snaps back—colors bleeding in, gravity settling, sound rushing like a flood.
We’re back in the clearing. The battle is over.
Marcus’s body lies twenty feet away, Kyle still sitting beside it.
But the clearing tells the story of what happened while we were gone.
The ground is torn up from the fighting, but there are no bodies except Marcus’s. Shadow Peak wolves stand scattered through the clearing—not attacking, but containing. Holding position.
“They arrived just in time,” Ben says quietly, approaching us. Blood streaks his shoulder, but he’s standing. Whole. “Marcus’s faction was overwhelming us. The compulsion made them too strong, too coordinated.”
I look around—Marcus’s faction wolves are frozen in human form now, horror etched on their faces. The compulsion broke when Marcus died. I can see it in their eyes, the terrible understanding of what they were forced to do.
Derek kneels beside Marcus’s body, Torres standing behind him with shaking hands. Elena sits against a tree, face buried in her palms. Mateo stares at his own hands like they belong to someone else.
Caleb steps forward, meeting my eyes with that steady Alpha-to-Alpha acknowledgment. “Your wolves held the line. We just made sure they didn’t have to hold it alone.”
Now that the compulsion is broken, both packs move together—binding wounds, checking injuries, offering support. Shadow Peak wolves help Marcus’s faction as readily as they help Dane’s loyal core. No division. No hesitation. Just pack taking care of pack.
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate, but they’re all I have.
“We’re still pack,” Caleb says simply. “Different territory. Same blood. Same bonds.” His gaze shifts to Marcus’s body. “And we remember the wolves who died proving it.”
Shadow Peak didn’t just save my pack from slaughter. They reminded us what pack actually means.
Derek drops to his knees beside Marcus’s body. His hands hover uselessly. “I attacked Callum,” he says to no one, to everyone. “Reyna watched me go for him. I couldn’t stop.”
Torres backs away from Wyatt, shaking. They’d been mid-combat when the compulsion shattered. Torres’s claws had been inches from Wyatt’s throat.
Wyatt steps forward into the space between the two groups. “You were used,” he says, voice carrying no anger. Just exhausted truth. “Marcus broke free. So did you.”
Ben approaches Elena, crouches beside her. “He died protecting Kyle. That’s what matters.” He glances at Marcus’s body. “That’s what we’ll remember.”
Harper moves among them, checking Torres’s wounds from fighting Wyatt. No judgment in her touch. No hesitation. Just pack taking care of pack.
Kari settles beside Elena. Neither speaks. They just sit together—two wolves who know what it’s like to be weapons in someone else’s hands.
Jensen sits apart from the others, Kira and Tomas flanking him. Weeks in the Fade left marks that go deeper than physical: gaps in memory, confusion about time passing, the haunted knowledge that they were stored like tools.
Reyna approaches slowly. Jensen’s eyes are hollow, unfocused—still half-trapped in whatever nightmare the suspension created. She crouches beside him, waits. When he finally looks up, recognition floods his face.
“You came for us,” he whispers.
“Always.” She grips his shoulder. “You’re home now.”
Tomas reaches over, grips Jensen’s other shoulder. Three wolves who survived the same nightmare, anchoring each other. Kira’s voice comes out rough from disuse. “They told me Marcus didn’t make it. That he died protecting one of ours.”
Jensen nods slowly. “Then we make it count.”
Kyle stands over Marcus’s body, young face torn between guilt and gratitude. “He saved me.” His voice cracks. “I stayed loyal to Alpha, never wavered, and Marcus still saved me. That’s pack.”
Callum appears at my shoulder, sees Dane battered but still conscious in my arms. “Marcus broke Faelan’s hold,” he says quietly. “Took a killing blow protecting Kyle.” He pauses. “His last words were for you. ‘Tell Dane I’m sorry. For all of it.’”
Around us, both factions help each other. The division Marcus helped create—his death erased.
But the cost was brutal.
Dane hasn’t spoken since Caleb stepped away to coordinate with his wolves.
He’s been watching—his pack healing, his wolves choosing each other, the fractures mending in real time. I feel him leaning heavier against me with each passing minute, his weight shifting as his body fails him by degrees.
“You need to rest,” I murmur.
“Not yet.” His voice is fading, words slurring at the edges. “Need to see.”
“You’ve seen. They’re okay. You’re okay. Let go.”
His eyes track across the clearing one more time—Callum helping Derek stand, Kari sitting silent beside Elena, Ben standing watch at the perimeter with his back to Harper. His pack. Broken and bleeding and choosing each other anyway.
“Good,” he breathes. “That’s good.”
His weight goes slack against me. His eyes close.
“Dane?” I grip him tighter. “Dane!”
But his pulse is there—steady now, stronger than before. He’s not dying.
He’s just done.
I lower him to the ground carefully, keeping his head in my lap. Around us, the pack keeps moving, keeps healing. Lyanna appears at my side, her hands already glowing with soft light as she assesses him.
“He’ll be all right,” she says quietly. “His body just needs time to catch up with what his heart demanded.”
I brush hair from his forehead, watching his face finally relax into something like peace.
“Stubborn bastard,” I whisper.
But I’m smiling when I say it.