Chapter 22 - Ronan
The wards come down right as I’m about to lay into my own brother, and the whole settlement goes to hell all at once.
I’ve got maybe ten seconds before they break through the trees, and I don’t spend a single one of those seconds thinking about the battle to come.
I spend them all on her.
I’ve got Selene by the arm before I’ve even thought about anything else, my argument with Ryder forgotten as I haul her roughly back toward the boats, toward Cole, toward anywhere that isn’t here.
My wolf doesn’t care that she went behind my back.
Doesn’t care about the tablet, or the island, or any of it.
My wolf only knows there’s about to be a battle, and she’s far too fragile and standing right in the middle of it.
“Get on a boat.” I push her toward the water. “Now. Cole, get her out of…”
“No.” She plants her feet. Digs in. She’s just a slip of a witch, less than half my size, in the path of three packs, and she will not move. “No, Ronan. I’m not leaving.”
“You’ll die out here,” I snap.
“Then I’ll die trying to stop it.” Her chin tilts in defiance. “You don’t get to start a war with my bond magic and then ship me off so I don’t have to watch. I’m staying. I’ll help however I can.”
There’s no time. The trees are already moving, heavy with three packs converging against one, and I’m not scared of what’s to come; it’s everything I’ve planned for. But I am scared for her.
And I stand there for more wasted seconds wanting to throw her over my shoulder and carry her onto the boat myself, and knowing she’d find some way of getting back on dry land. Knowing that I’m wasting valuable time. And yet, she’s all I’m worried about.
This is the woman who went behind my back.
Who I told only hours ago in my own kitchen that I’d never trust again as long as I lived.
And I know that I’d still put my own body between her and every wolf on this island without a second thought.
My wolf is so certain of her that I struggle to tear my eyes away long enough to assess the incoming threat.
“Then stay far behind me.” My voice comes out tight. “Whatever happens out there, you stay behind me. You stay near the boats.”
She nods.
I know I shouldn’t trust her, but I’ve waited a lifetime for this moment, and I have work to do.
I turn just as the tree line breaks open and the island comes through, and the beach turns into a riot of noise and violence as the packs hit the upper cabins, which, thank the goddess, are empty, as was always the plan.
My wolf feels huge under my skin tonight. Bigger than I’ve ever been. Selene’s bond magic burns through me and through every wolf at my back, and we move like one animal, fast and vicious. Two years of quiet, careful work. Two years, for this exact moment.
Somewhere behind me, my people are moving into position, and the sound of it is enormous, but I keep my eyes forward, because I decided years ago how tonight ends.
It ends with me standing in Callum’s hall, Ralph’s old grounds.
It ends with every one of them finally knowing my name.
I’ve wanted it so long I can taste the victory before the battle has even begun.
I don’t waste my time on foot soldiers.
I cut straight up the beach toward the high ground, toward the three men I crossed an ocean of patience and vengeance to reach, and the crowd gives way in front of me because there isn’t a wolf on this island stupid enough to get in my way tonight.
They all feel the bond magic; I know it.
At my back, I feel Ryder’s presence, his previous argument dropping away, and I know he’d follow me anywhere, even if I don’t doubt he’ll have enough to say when it’s done.
The brothers are waiting. Callum out front, Tristen and Aiden at his flanks. And behind them, three women I assume are the mates that Selene has been talking to: Ava, Serena, and Emily. Their eyes go wide when they see me approach.
“Stand down.” Callum’s voice cracks over the top of everything.
He isn’t even shifted. He’s standing there with his hands open, holding his ground, and that only makes me even angrier.
“Ronan. Call them off. We don’t want to slaughter your people.
We don’t want to kill anyone here tonight. Stand your wolves down.”
I hear him. I just don’t care.
Aiden’s head snaps toward me, and I watch it hit him. “He’s got a bond witch,” he says, low, to his brothers. “Feel that. That’s why they’re moving like one body. He’s got one working through the whole pack.”
“Then it’s worse than we thought,” Tristen says grimly.
Good. Let it be worse. Let it be every single thing they should be afraid of, because that’s exactly what this is.
“We know what he did to you.” Callum again, even while more of their wolves break through the trees.
“To your mother. He did it to us, too, Ronan. Whatever you think we got, it wasn’t gentleness.
We’ve spent years erasing his evil hand from this island and rebuilding.
He’s dead. You don’t have to bleed for a dead man. ”
“Don’t.” My wolf snarls it for me, low and terrible. “Don’t even try to pretend we’re the same.”
“We’re on the same side of this—” Tristen calls out.
“We are not the same,” I growl.
And I stop listening. Because listening is just a distraction at this point, and I didn’t do all this, build all this, to be talked out of taking what is mine. What is Ryder’s, too, even if he can’t bring himself to see it.
I go straight for Callum.
He says he doesn’t want this, but I can see how pissed his alpha wolf is behind his eyes.
I see one moment of hesitation, like he’s wondering if I’ll pull back.
But I give him nothing, and he shifts mid-step and meets me head-on, and we come together hard enough to shake the ground as all hell erupts around us.
Distantly, I note Ryder shifting too, and I realize there was never any doubt he’d stand beside me.
He’s strong. Alpha recognizes alpha, and I can sense his natural advantages—brought up here with his brothers, healthy, fed, not living on scraps.
I don’t care what he says about Ralph; I know enough about these brothers to know they haven’t struggled the way we did.
Callum may have a strong wolf, but I have the bond magic running through my veins.
I can feel my pack behind me, sense their willingness, and how they’re all following the plan we set, flanking left and right through the tunnels I built so they can ambush from the rear.
All I have to do is focus on the three alphas.
I drive him back toward the rocks, and I feel it coming, everything I’ve waited thirty years for, his throat open under my jaws…. He twists from under me, and his claws rake up to try to throw me off.
Someone screams my name, and it cuts straight through the violence. I’d know that voice anywhere because it speaks straight to my soul.
Then, all of a sudden, she’s there. Selene is in between us, throwing herself into the closing gap between our wolves as Callum’s claws come up.
Even if he wanted to hesitate, there would be no time.
His claws catch her straight across her slender body, and the sound she makes tears through me as she drops to the ground and doesn’t get up.
Everything stops.
The whole beach. Both sides. Every wolf feels the ripple of her bond magic, and they freeze.
The air feels thick with something I can’t even comprehend, and I realize that I’m screaming her name.
Everyone stares, shocked that a witch would throw herself in between two warring alphas. No one could survive that.
Callum shifts back so fast he staggers. He’s staring at his own hands, at the blood on them, at her. “I didn’t…she came out of nowhere…” He holds his hands up, his voice unsure. “I was aiming for you…”
I don’t even hear the rest of what he’s saying. I’m already on my knees with her, and there’s so much blood, too much, and her eyes are open, but they’re drifting somewhere I can’t reach, somewhere I can’t follow, and I have never been this afraid in my whole life.
“No.” My hands start shaking, and I feel Ryder at my side. “No. Selene. Look at me. Stay with me. Look at me, come on…”
Her lips move, but nothing comes out. And the words tear out of me. In front of all of them. In front of my half-brothers, my enemies, and every wolf in the cove, and I don’t care. I will never care about anything ever again.
“I love you.” My voice cracks as I hold her, trying to get her to focus her eyes on me.
“Do you hear me? I love you. I’ve loved you ever since I laid eyes on you, but I was too much of a coward to admit it, and now…
” I can’t say it; I glance around frantically, looking for Emma or Dax, but I’m unsure if they made it over on the boats before the attack began.
“Please. Somebody help her. I’ll leave the island.
I’ll give you anything you want, all of it.
Just help her. Please don’t let her go.”
“Move.” Emily is already there, dropping to her knees across from me, shoving my bloody hands off the wound. “Let me in. Move your hands. Let me work, now.”
Behind her, the other mates push forward, Ava and Serena, and they walk straight out into the open ground between the two packs, putting themselves between every wolf on the clifftop. Two other witches join Emily, and everyone seems to hold their breath. Not one shifter on either side moves.
Emily’s hands press flat over the wound, and the witches chant. Her magic pours out of her, and I watch the light as Selene’s torn flesh begins to slowly close, the bleeding stopping. But it’s too slow; it’s not like when a shifter heals by shifting. I don’t know if it’s going to be enough.
“Come on,” she mutters, and she’s talking to Selene, not to me. “Come on. You didn’t do all this for nothing. Don’t you dare.”