Chapter 13 Faith
THIRTEEN
FAITH
For a few heartbeats after Thalen’s sharp command, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Faith stood frozen, the violent crack of fist against bone still echoing in her ears and the metallic scent of blood still sharp in the charged air.
The fight between Kovrak and Varrek had been a brutal, shocking blur.
Her palms throbbed where she’d clenched them, her nails having dug deep crescents into her skin.
She hated everything about this situation.
Hated the raw, public display of primal aggression, hated the instability that seemed to simmer just beneath the court’s polished surface.
But more than that, she hated the cold, calculated gleam in Varrek’s eyes, even as he wiped blood from his split lip.
He hadn’t wanted to win the fight. He’d wanted to start it.
To prove a point she was now painfully aware of.
She was the vulnerability, the crack in the prince’s armor.
And her very humanity was the weapon being used against him.
The crowd’s murmurs were a dark tide around her, a mixture of shock, excitement, and that undeniable, ugly doubt Varrek had planted.
Fragility. Uncertainty. Human weakness in a powerful shifter world.
The words seemed to stain the air. A sickening wave of understanding washed over her.
This was the cost. To stand beside him meant standing in the crossfire.
Could she? The warmth of last night in the clearing, the partnership in the kitchen, the way he’d looked at her during their dance…
it felt real. But was it worth all this?
She watched Kovrak, his chest still heaving and a trickle of blood at his knuckles. He didn’t look at the crowd or his rival. His ice-blue eyes, burning with protective rage, found hers across the space. In them, she saw no regret for the violence, only a fierce, unapologetic claim.
This is my world. This is what protecting you looks like.
The moment stretched, thick with unsaid things.
Then Kovrak’s head snapped to the side, his nostrils flaring.
His gaze sharpened toward the edge of the square.
Faith followed his look. At first, she saw only the banners flapping in the wind.
Then she caught it—a wisp of smoke, too dark, too thick, rising not from the lanterns but from a vendor’s awning.
“Fire!”
The cry went up a second later, slicing through the tension.
Not a controlled festival flame, but a hungry, orange lick of chaos erupting from one of the silk-draped stalls.
The scent of burning fabric and ozone cut through the air.
The crowd, already on edge, dissolved into panic.
The orderly square became a churning sea of confusion as people surged away from the spreading flames, screams ripping through the festive music that had abruptly stopped.
Kovrak’s voice, deep and commanding, rose above the din. “Thalen! The eastern quadrant, now!” He was already moving, his focus shifting from her to the crisis with terrifying efficiency.
Faith’s mind raced. Run. Get to safety. But her feet stayed planted. The fire was spreading with unnatural speed, leaping between stalls with alarming precision. This wasn’t an accident. This was a diversion.
As if to confirm her fear, a new scent reached her—musky, wild, and utterly foreign to the pride’s territory. It wasn’t tiger. It was something rougher. It was the smell of an intruder, of an enemy waiting in the smoke and chaos.
Her eyes locked onto Kovrak’s retreating form, then swept over the panicking crowd—elders being jostled, children crying, families separated.
The fear in her gut hardened into resolve.
She would not be the fragile human who fled.
She was the baker who remembered orders, who calmed morning rushes, who managed chaos with a steady hand.
She stepped up onto the base of a nearby stone planter, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Listen!” Her voice, sharp and clear, cut through the noise. A few heads turned. “Move to the main courtyard! Go now, in an orderly line! Help the elders!”
She pointed toward the wide, open space away from the burning stalls, her tone brooking no argument. The nearest shifters, caught between terror and command, instinctively followed her direction, creating a flow away from danger.
Kovrak, already at the edge of the blaze, glanced back. He saw her there, not cowering, but directing. Sensing his mate in partnership with him in crisis, he let out an approving shout.
“Listen to Faith!” he commanded as he moved toward the burning stalls.
Faith’s feet hit the cobblestones just as a tremor shuddered through the ground, a deep, threatening vibration that shook her to the core. It was the thunder of heavy, running bodies.
But not human.
From the mouth of a shadowed side street, twenty massive wolves burst into the light, their movements a coordinated blur of muscle and snapping jaws. They were bigger than any Earth wolf, their eyes holding a feral, calculated intelligence that chilled her more than simple animal rage.
Her gaze sliced through the smoke. There, on the periphery, Varrek was melting into the retreating crowd. He turned and gave the scene one last glance, and his green eyes landed on hers across the chaos. His split lip curled in a smile that was pure, cold satisfaction.
Icy clarity washed over her, burning away the last of her fear.
This wasn’t a freak accident or a random rogue attack; it was a meticulously staged demonstration of Kovrak’s supposed weakness.
Varrek’s weapon wasn’t the wolves or the fire—it was the narrative.
The prince, smitten with a fragile human, lets his people burn.
“Oh, hell no,” Faith whispered, the words swallowed by the roar of the flames.
She would not be the excuse for his failure. She would be the proof of his strength.
Their strength as a partnership.
A roar tore the sky, a sound of such primal authority it seemed to momentarily still the very air.
Kovrak’s form blurred, his body contorting in a flash of impossible motion.
Where the prince had stood, a massive white tiger now crouched, muscles coiled beneath a pelt like fresh snow marked with jet-black striping.
Thalen shifted beside him, and a ripple of transformation followed as a line of his warriors became a wall of striped, powerful predators.
The sight was breathtaking—terrifying beauty unleashed with singular purpose.
The clash was immediate. Tigers met wolves in a whirlwind of fur, claws, and deafening snarls. It was brutal, elegant chaos of pure power. Her heart hammered, screaming for her to find Kovrak in the fray, to ensure the white tiger with the ice-blue eyes wasn’t falling beneath grey fur.
She wrenched her gaze away. Trust. That was the terrifying part. She had to trust him to do his job so she could do hers.
“This way! Move!” Her voice cut through the din. She grabbed the arm of a dazed elderly man, his eyes wide with smoke and confusion. “You two!” she barked at a pair of younger shifters. “Take him. Follow that line to the courtyard. Now!”
She became a whirlwind of deliberate motion, her mind working with sharp, efficient clarity.
She tipped over heavy water barrels, sending cascades across cobblestones to create a damp barrier between the advancing fire and a narrow escape route.
She directed families around burning vendor frames, her hands firm and her instructions leaving no room for debate.
The fear was a live wire in her veins, but it fueled her, sharpening every sense.
Then, a sound, thin and desperate, pierced the air. A child’s cry.
Faith spun. Through a veil of smoke, she saw him—a little boy, no older than five, pinned under the collapsed beam of a food stall. Embers danced in the air around him, landing perilously close to his tunic.
Logic fled. Instinct took over.
She lunged forward, the heat from the nearby flames warming her skin. The beam was monstrously heavy as she threw her weight against it. Her muscles screamed. With a guttural sound of effort, she heaved, and the beam shifted, just enough.
“Come on, sweetheart, I’ve got you.” Her voice was rough with smoke. She dragged him free, his small body light in her arms. “Run that way, to the blue banners. Run and don’t look back!”
He scrambled away, his sobs fading into the din. Faith took a gasping breath. She turned to retreat. Then a sharp, splintering crack overhead was her only warning.
The world erupted in a shower of sparks and agony.
A burning support, weakened by the fire, gave way.
A searing weight crashed across her shoulder and back, driving her to her knees.
White-hot pain lanced down her leg as something heavy—another piece of the stall—trapped her ankle.
She was pinned, the yellow fabric of her sundress smoldering where embers caught, the hungry fire licking dangerously closer.
Smoke coiled thick and black, choking her.
The roars of the tigers sounded distant now, muffled by the roaring in her own ears.
This is it. After everything, I’m taken out by a falling food stand.
A bitter laugh caught in her throat, turning into a cough that racked her whole, trapped body. She hoped the boy made it to his parents. She hoped Kovrak would handle the crisis and that everyone would be safe. She hoped he knew how much he meant to her.
Then, through the blurring haze, hands. Strong, sure hands gripped the wreckage pinning her leg. The weight lifted with a grunt of effort.
“Foolish, brave girl,” Merral’s voice, strained but steady, reached her.
“Got you!” Liora’s arms hooked under her shoulders.
Together, they hauled her upright. Her ankle gave a sickening throb of protest, refusing to hold weight. The world tilted sideways from the smoke inhalation. She clung to them, her saviors, their faces streaked with soot and determination.
“The wolves are retreating,” Merral panted, half-carrying her as they stumbled toward clearer air. “The fire will be contained soon.”
The sounds of battle were indeed fading, replaced by the shouts of shifters organizing bucket lines. The town square was a scarred, smoldering tableau, but it was standing.
They had held.
By the time they reached the transport vehicle parked at the edge of the chaos, Faith’s body was a symphony of pain.
Blisters had risen in angry welts along her right arm.
Her ankle was a swollen, throbbing mess.
She was vaguely aware of being helped into the back seat, of Liora bundling a cloth around her burns.
Then he was there. Kovrak emerged from the thinning smoke, naked and bloodied. His eyes, those pale blue lasers, scanned the area with frenzied intensity until they landed on her. The command in his frame dissolved when he realized she was injured.
He crossed the distance in three long strides, and slid into the seat beside her, his body a wall of heat and coiled power.
“Drive,” he growled at Thalen, who was already behind the controls, his own face grim.
Then his attention was entirely on her. His hands came up to frame her face with a touch that was devastatingly gentle. He brushed a streak of soot from her cheek. His gaze traced the burns on her arm and the awkward angle of her ankle.
“Look at you,” he murmured, the words rough. His eyes lifted to hers, the storm in them shifting from fear to something fiercer. A possessive, blazing pride. “You magnificent, infuriating creature. You stood your ground. You protected my people.”
He carefully gathered her against him, ignoring the way his bare skin was smeared with soot, sweat, and blood. He comforted her as they made their way to the palace, his arm a steel band around her shoulders, holding her close to the solid beat of his heart.
“The healers will fix you up in no time.” His voice was a vow, spoken against her hair. “And then, you will be under my personal care for the next few days,” he added, the rumble deepening into a promise that heated her blood despite the pain.
She wanted to protest. To tell him that she could handle her own recovery. But the thought of him wanting to take care of her and ease her pain, loosened something inside her chest.
This man really did care deeply for her.
“Thank you,” she managed as she nestled deeper into his protective embrace.