CHAPTER 202: BROKEN PROMISES...

[ Old World - Blackmoon Colony ]

By the time Kieran pushed through the last barricade of guards and stalked out into the open air, his chest felt too tight, his hands balled so hard his knuckles ached.

The outskirts were quieter than the inner camp...except they weren’t.

From inside the camp, faint but still sharp enough to cut through his head, came the raw, broken cries of Lyla. She was deep in labor. From the sounds of it... a hard one.

He stopped for a moment. Listened.

Her cries rose again, long and painful. The kind that scraped against bone.

But they didn’t pull sympathy from him...only another deeper, sharper ache.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face.

Because every scream, every damn sound of pain reminded him of someone else. Of Autumn.

Alone. Out there. Without him. He knew she was closer to her due date... and it made him all the more desperate.

His jaw locked so hard it hurt.

He had told himself he would give it another day. Just one more fucking day to see if she came back... His scouts came back without a single clue. But standing there, feeling his pulse hammering and those cries chasing him like ghosts, he realized he couldn’t do it...this wait was killing him...it was worse than the last time.

He couldn’t stand there while she was out there...maybe suffering like that. Maybe...worse.

"Goddammit!"

The word ripped from his throat before he could stop it.

He started pacing the edge of the border, boots grinding into the dirt. His hands kept clenching and unclenching, his mind running circles like a wild animal caught in a snare.

What if she was hurt?What if she was bleeding out somewhere,struggling with the babies...?

What if she was...

"Enough."

He wasn’t going to drive himself mad standing here.

Kieran turned and whistled...loud.

One long, piercing note that sliced through the cool air.

Somewhere deep in the woods, a sound answered him. Not a call, but a rhythm...thunder in the ground. Hooves.

A massive black horse emerged from the trees, its muscles rippling under its gleaming coat, breath puffing in the cool morning air.

Kieran didn’t wait.

He took two quick steps, grabbed the saddle less beast by the mane, and hauled himself up even as it surged forward. His leg swung over, body finding its rhythm in motion, his eyes locked straight ahead.

The wind caught his hair, stung his eyes.

He was headed for the woods.

The trees blurred past as the black stallion thundered beneath him.

But Kieran wasn’t seeing the trees anymore.

The wind in his ears was drowned out by another sound...one he had heard months ago...Karl’s laughter. Low...mocking. And then... the silence.

The world had gone dark.

"Karl!" His voice had echoed in that void, the kind where sound seemed to hit something soft and die before it reached your ears.

And then the ground was back there below his feet. He was no longer dangling... he was suddenly back in the mist from that dark realm... and he was bent over Thorgar... the shadow beast in front... Velor to the side.

And then he staggered back just a little because it made no goddamned sense for the old wolf to be there in front of him... and wait...there was his blade lodged deep inside his back too? Like what the fuck was happening?!

Kieran’s hands had moved on instinct...grabbing the hilt, yanking it free...warm blood slicking his palm, the metallic tang hitting his nostrils.

" KIERAN... "

And then he heard her scream. " NOOOOO! "

His head had snapped up. Autumn’s eyes were wide, burning with something he couldn’t name at the time. Anger. Fear. Betrayal. Maybe all of it. But why?

Before he could ask her, she had crumpled...even before he could move or help her...her body had given way as one of Thorgar’s men swept her up and made a run from there.

"Autumn!"

He had lunged, but the shadows shifted, alive, the beast between them twisting into form again. Those pale, soulless eyes had pinned him in place.

He was dragged back into action and just like that...everything else had vanished from his mind.Perhaps it was better for Autumn to be away from that place, he had thought.

He could never have fathomed it would be the last time he ever saw his beloved. Couldn’t even think in his wildest dream.

Steel clashed. Claws tore. The void shook around them.

And then... it vanished all of a sudden... just like that.

One heartbeat they were locked in a fight for their lives.The next, the beast was gone.

Thorgar was gone as well.

Kieran and Velor stood alone, weapons dripping with dark blood that already felt cold.

The mist had completely retracted.

"What in the name of all the gods just happened?" Velor’s voice had been tight, panicked.

Kieran had no answer. He just started running...heading straight for Skathheim because he needed to make sure Autumn was alright!

But the Skathheim gates shut tight. Not a single guard answered their calls.

Kieran and Velor tried everything but Skathheim had really locked them out. Completely.

They had sent five messenger scouts separately. But not one came back with a reply.

And it was at that moment that they knew there was only one another way left to get inside...through force.

Velor had been the one to say it out loud.

"The only way in now is to breach the walls."

Kieran had clenched his fists, felt the skin split at his knuckles.Autumn would never like that but he wasn’t left with any other choice.

"That’s war."

"Then it’s war."

And thus was the Allied Army from the New World called forth. It was a big risk, one that could have led to both Alphas losing their packs and posts... But they both took the risk... Willingly so.

He could still see the banners rising over the hills. Could still hear the sound of thousands of boots hitting the frozen earth in unison. Could still smell the oil, the steel, the sweat.

Days bled together...fierce battle...one after another. The cries of the wounded mixing with the snarls of wolves in their true forms...massive,wild ones from the Old world vs agile, tactical ones from the New world. The ground had turned black in places from the blood.

And yet when they finally breached those walls...no Autumn... not even a trace.

They had annexed the territory. Burned Skathheim’s borders down to nothing in places. But she was nowhere.

Kieran’s jaw tightened now as the stallion charged deeper into the woods. He had never gone back to the New World after that.

How could he?

His mate was still out here. Pregnant. Alone.

He spat into the wind, the taste of metal still in his mouth from that night.

"God dammit, Autumn," he muttered, fingers curling tighter into the horse’s mane. "I swear Autumn, I will find you. I don’t care who I have to kill to do it."

The trees swallowed him, and the wind carried nothing but the pounding of hooves.