Chapter 151
Emily’s POV
“They’re here.”
The mark on my neck flared with a sharp, burning pain that almost brought me to my knees.
Declan.
I could feel him. It wasn’t like before–he was closer now.
Nathan’s focus snapped directly to me. “Emily?”
Before I could answer, a loud blast shook the ground.
The glowing energy lines surrounding the forest flashed bright silver against the dark sky. We were standing outside the main building, surrounded by warriors.
And then, my head exploded with noise.
The entire pack link flooded back into my mind. Zynair’s ritual actually worked–she had burned out the exact une on the dagger that was blocking me. All this time, I’d blamed the silver collar, but it was the blade cutting me
off.
Blake’s voice screamed through the link. “They’re hitting the eastern border!”
“No, Blake, redirect them!” Nathan snapped through the bond, his Alpha tone taking over. “Push them toward the
south side! Force them down into the ravine trap!”
Around us, massive wolves blurred into motion, tearing toward the trees.
Nathan locked his dark eyes on mine. “You ready?”
I tightened my grip around the dagger. The metal pulsed painfully against my palm. The blade hated me as its naster; it wanted its true owner, the Rogue King.
‘Yes.”
୮
Nathan shifted right in front of me. Bones cracked and heavy fur erupted across his body as Asher, his wolf, took wver. A massive black wolf now stood beside me, his golden eyes fixed on mine.
“Behind me, little moon,” Asher’s voice echoed directly in my mind.
Nyx surged forward inside my mind, and a second later, my own body shifted into a sleek white wolf. I locked the dagger safely between my jaws, and we raced toward the southern hills.
The forest blurred past. Howls echoed all around us as we reached the edge of the grassy ridge overlooking the deep ravine.
Down below, the rogues were throwing themselves against the glowing barrier.
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Every single impact hit my body, I could feel the strain inside my bones.
O
The shield wasn’t just powered by the crystals. The crystals only directed the energy to keep it balanced. The real
power source was me.
That was the difference between my barrier and Varga’s. Mine controlled the physical world. Nothing living could orce its way through. Varga’s shield during my trial had only protected magic and souls, meaning physical things ould still pass.
Discovering that in Declan’s library changed everything. And the witch had helped me with the crystals–without
her, we couldn’t have done this.
Thank you for helping me, Zynair. And I hoped Nathan would forgive me for what came next.
Nathan shifted back, and I followed a second later. We scrambled over to one of the emergency supply boxes we’d hidden along the ridge, grabbing the clothes and radios inside. Since half our fighters were outsiders who couldn’t ise our pack link, we’d left these stash spots all over the territory.
Nathan pulled on a pair of shorts, grabbed a radio, and keyed the mic. “Marcus, guard the civilians. If they get past us, you’re the last line of defense.”
“Copy that,” Marcus’s voice crackled through the static.
Nathan dropped the radio and gripped my shoulders. “Emily… we don’t have to drop the shield.”
I looked past him, down into the green hollow where the rogues were tracking. “We do. I can’t hold it up forever, Nathan. If we don’t. trap them now, we lose everything.”
He stared at me, his fists clenching.
Then, he turned to the mind link. “Deactivate the southern section.”
Kane’s voice snapped back. “Blowing it now!”
A massive blast rocked the hills. One of the stone pillars shattered in a burst of silver fire, and a wide gap tore
>pen in the barrier.
୮
The rogues rushed in. It was a dark wave of bodies charging straight into the trap at the bottom of the ravine.
From the high, wooded slopes above, our warriors moved in for the ambush.
Chaos erupted.
I raised the dagger, and my power, the Moon Tide, exploded outward. Silver waves rolled across the bottom of the avine, and the air thickened like water. The charging rogues slowed down drastically. Some collapsed entirely into the grass beneath the heavy pressure.
And then, I reached deeper.
Empathy. Compulsion. I pushed my power through every single rogue below us in the hollow, searching for the poison Varga had planted inside them- the rage, the corruption, the infection. One by one, I ripped it out and
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burned it away.
Their glowing red eyes faded. Confusion replaced their bloodlust. Several rogues staggered backward along the bottom of the slope, shaking their heads. One of them looked up at the grassy ridge, directly at me, his eyes
clearing.
“Thank you.”
Then, he turned and attacked the rogue beside him instead.
“It’s working!” Nathan shouted over the noise.
But there were too many. Way too many. And not all of them were cursed. Some wanted this. Some loved the killing, and those ones kept coming up the wooded paths.
Suddenly, the dagger pulsed violently. Pain tore up my arm.
‘Emily-”
“It’s fighting me,” I panted, my knees shaking. “It belongs to Declan… and Silas…”
There were too many rogues, and I was using too many different powers at once–holding up the shield, freezing
hem in the grass, and clearing their minds.
Nathan grabbed my arm to hold me up. I could feel our mate bond, and he was trying to support me, but his >hysical strength wasn’t the kind of power I needed right now.
Suddenly, another blast thundered through the hills, and even more rogues flooded through the shattered barrier. They poured straight through the new opening at the base of the hollow.
“What the fuck?!” Nathan roared into the pack’s mind link.
“…The witch.”
Kane’s panicked voice crashed into our minds through the pack k. “The second crystal is down! A witch lestroyed it!”
Nathan’s face turned murderous. “Which witch?!” he roared.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Kane shouted back. “There’s too much smoke–I can’t see shit!”
Deep beneath my skin, the mark burned scorching hot. Declan was close. Too close.
I scanned the madness below, my eyes locking onto the shattered pieces of the second crystal near the tree line. Smoke rolled through the thick brush, drifting over the bodies scattered across the green slope.
And then, I saw him.
Declan.
He was standing dead center in the middle of the slaughter, completely untouched. The wind whipped his hair across his face, his all–black clothes making him look like a shadow against the grass. While everyone around him
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fought and bled, he just stood there.
Right beside him were the witches.
Varga’s hands burned with dark magic, while Zynair stood just a step behind her, looking down at the bloody ground with a guilty expression.
Slowly, as if he felt my gaze, Declan lifted his head.
He looked straight past the fighting, straight up the steep slope, and locked his eyes right on mine.
They weren’t his normal eyes anymore. They glowed a deep, terrifying crimson–the exact same blood–red shade as his psychotic father, Silas.
A slow, wicked smirk spread across his face.
“Found you.”