Chapter Twenty Seven –
Castle and Cookies.
Julian didn’t flinch. His smirk came back, sharper. “Good. Because your council will need to hear that just as clearly.”
I growled. “Tomorrow?”
“They’ll want proof you’re not chasing ghosts. That this isn’t bond-frenzy, but strategy.” His eyes narrowed. “They’ll want to see their King-not just the wolf who can’t breathe without a mate beside
him.”
My hands curled. Two nights to balance man and wolf before both broke.
The lieutenant reached me before the pavilion roof was even stretched taut. Damp cloak, clipped voice, “Your majesty. Ashthorne banners. South ridge.”
Julian swore under his breath. “Of course.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Two score visible. More behind the treeline. They’ve set standards in the soil.”
Not signals now. Banners. Warriors. A warning painted in cloth.
I looked south, where the fog thickened. I could almost hear the Ashthorne wolves breathing, taste their hunger for payback. My wolf lunged against me. Drive them back. Tear them down.
“Hold position,” I said, steel ringing in my tone. “Our line doesn’t move.”
Julian arched a brow. “Restraint? From you?”
My vision flared gold at the edges. “Not restraint. A message. If Ashthorne crosses, they won’t just meet Valemont’s teeth. They’ll meet mine.”
The lieutenant bowed and sprinted off, relief and dread mingling in his scent.
Julian let out a low whistle. “Two camps, one ridge, one prize. No one’s sleeping well tonight.”
The pavilion canopy cracked taut in the wind. My men worked with steady hands, knowing this was more than shelter. It was a throne planted in fog. A reminder: I was here. I wasn’t leaving.
Two nights. Then she chooses. Or I take her.
My gaze cut back to the south ridge. My wolf howled in my bones, a vow Ashthorne would hear in their marrow.
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Touch them, and I’ll end your line myself.
Elara’s POV
Morning in Valemont should have begun with fog snagging in pines, hearthfires coaxed back to life, and porridge cooling in wide bowls.
Instead, I had a circus.
The circus’s name was Aeron Quinn.
“Hold still, pup,” Cassia ordered for the twelfth time. She crouched like a general laying siege, comb in one hand, hair ties between her teeth. “If you’d just let me ”
“Nooo, Aunty Cassha!” Aeron wriggled on his stool, curls bouncing. “Not ponytail. I a dwagon, not a pony!”
“You’re a wolf pup,” she growled, trying to lasso a curl.
“Wolves no sit!” he declared. “Wolves go grrr!” He demonstrated with a growl that sounded more like a hiccup.
From the wall, Caius smirked, blade balanced across his shoulders. “He’s not wrong. Wolves don’t sit for grooming. They fight, eat, break furniture.”
“Don’t encourage him!” Cassia snapped.
“Mommy!” Aeron wailed, twisting toward me. “Save me!”
I glanced up from my laptop. Different notes blinked on the screen this time- Heroine’s fear must cost her something real. Build stakes earlier. Don’t let subplot drown climax.
My wolf wasn’t interested in edits. She was pacing.
“You look fine,” I told him. “Like a very ferocious dragon-wolf hybrid,”
His grin split wide. “See, Aunty Cassha? Mommy says | dwagon!”
Cassia groaned, throwing down the comb. “Fine. Be a dragon. But when your curls trip you, don’t come crying.”
“I fly!” Aeron announced, launching himself from the stool. Caius caught him easily, swung him until
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Chapter Twenty Seven – Castle and Cookies
his squeals shook the rafters.
“Careful!” I warned.
“He’s tougher than he looks,” Caius said, spinning him once more before setting him down.
Aeron darted to his crayons, sprawling on the floor. “Castle for Mommy! Big-big one!”
Cassia groaned. “Not the castle again.”
“Yes castle!” Aeron scribbled furious towers and waving stick figures. “Castle for Mommy. For me. For Daddy King!”
The room stilled. My chest clenched.
But Aeron beamed, holding up the crooked towers. “See? My castle!”
Cassia clapped her hands. “Brilliant. Forget treaties. He’ll redraw the Territories with crayons.”
Caius stretched, grin sharp. “And tax us all in cookies.”
“Cookies IZ breakfast,” Aeron declared, bolting for Luna Lyanna’s biscuit jar.
I caught him mid-sprint. “Not before porridge.”
“Cookies IZ porridge!” he argued with toddler certainty.
“Goddess help me,” I muttered.
#3
Cassia swiped one of my edit notes and read aloud in mock-dramatic tone, “Raise heroine’s stakes.’ Sounds like someone wants you to stab your cousin by chapter five.”
“Cassia.”
“Encouragement,” she said sweetly.
The door opened. Luna Lyanna glided in with a tray, porridge steaming. “Eat first. Build castles later.” She smoothed Aeron’s curls with maternal calm as he sulked,
My mother followed, healer’s satchel bumping her hip. She pressed a hand to my cheek. “How many pages?”
“Enough,” I lied.
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Chapter Twenty Seven – Castle and Cookies
VPH
Caius smirked. “If she collapses, Cassia can narrate edits until the poor editor surrenders.”
Cassia threw him a biscuit. He caught it in his mouth. Aeron roared with laughter.
By midday, I finally hit send. Draft final. Offline for a week.
The second it left my inbox, Aeron climbed into my lap. “Mommy done?”
“Yes, pup.”
“Good. Play now. No more tick-tick-tick.”
I kissed his curls. “Deal.”
That was when the alarms split the air.
A howl-long, sharp, urgent-rose from the border. Boots thundered the corridor. Caius was already moving, blade in hand. Cassia darted to the window, crimson sweater flashing like a banner.
A scout burst in, breathless. “Ashthorne! Warriors-on the ridge!”
The words tore the air from my lungs.
Luna Lyanna’s voice cut steel. “Evacuate the young to the lower hall.”
“No!” I clutched Aeron tight. He trembled, dragon dangling. “If Ashthorne came this far, they came
for us.”
Dominance spiked in the chamber-Caius’s blade gleaming, Cassia’s eyes fierce, wolves bristling in
the hall.
Aeron whimpered into my shoulder. “Mommy, no fight. Stay.”
I pressed a kiss into his curls, “I’ll keep you safe.”
But outside, the horns rolled again-low, relentless, like drums beaten by war.
Ashthorne had come,
And peace was gone.
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Chapter Twenty Eight-On the Ridge
Thorne’s POV
The mist along Valemont’s southern ridge had teeth.
You could smell it when the wind shifted-iron under pine, the sharp musk of wolves pressing too close to the line. Ashthorne. Their patience was never clean. It was the kind that waited to be broken.
I stood at the edge of my pavilion, coat heavy on my shoulders, rain dripping from the canvas roof. Beyond the torches and wet grass, my men waited in disciplined silence. A dozen Crescent wolves, chosen for order and oath, their pale-gold eyes fixed south. Steady. Unflinching. But their hackles bristled beneath the skin. They felt it too-the prickle of eyes watching from the fog.
“They’re inching closer,” Julian said at my side, tablet in one hand, hood shoved back so the rain slicked through his hair. His voice was easy, but his jaw was tight. “Half an hour ago they were a ridge back. Now they’re right at the treeline.”
I didn’t need the feed to know. My wolf pressed against my skin, snarling, every sense dragging
south.
“They want us to twitch,” I said.
“They want Valemont to twitch,” Julian corrected, mouth curving without humor. “Best outcome for them? Darius strikes first. Then Ashthorne gets to cry outrage before the whole Territories.”
A growl rumbled through me, deep enough the torch poles shivered. My men shifted under it, wolves pressing back against mine.
“Send word to the southern flank,” I ordered. “If Ashthorne steps one inch into our firelight, they’ll regret the breath it cost them.”
Julian tapped the command across his screen but his eyes stayed on me. “You’re vibrating like a storm cloud, Thorne. If you give me the word, I’ll move half the line forward and remind Ashthorne why they hate Crescent ground.”
My fists flexed. “Not yet.”
The words burned. My wolf wanted blood. Ashthorne had already thrown a blade at my son once-
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