A quick death would be merciful. Korren does not deserve mercy.
I crouch beside him and grip his jaw, forcing him to meet my eyes. "You wanted my territory. You used my mate as an excuse to take it. You sent wolves to hurt her while I was away." I lean closer until my breath fogs against his tear-streaked face. "I want you to remember this moment in whatever hell awaits you. I want you to remember that you lost everything because you tried to take what belongs to me."
Then I tear out his throat with my bare hands.
The blood is hot against my skin, pumping weakly as his heart struggles to understand that it no longer has anywhere to send its contents. I watch him bleed out, making sure the last thing he sees is the face of the wolf who destroyed him.
When it is finished, I rise and turn to face the battlefield.
Korren's wolves have gone still. Some have already shifted to human form, their heads bowed in submission. Others remain frozen in their wolf shapes, uncertain whether to fight or flee. The battle is over. Their alpha is dead, their cause is lost, and every one of them knows that challenging me now would be suicide.
"Anyone else?" My voice carries across the blood-soaked snow. "Anyone else want to threaten my pack? My territory? My mate?"
Silence answers me. Then, one by one, the enemy wolves lower themselves to the ground. Bellies exposed. Throats bared.The ancient gestures of surrender and submission, offered to the alpha who has proven himself the stronger.
I do not acknowledge them. I turn and begin walking back toward the keep, leaving Torben to handle the aftermath. There will be time for politics later. Time for absorbing Korren's territory, for dealing with his surviving wolves, for all the tedious work that follows victory.
My legs are heavy with exhaustion, each step dragging through the blood-soaked snow. The fury that carried me through the battle is fading, leaving behind the bone-deep weariness of a body pushed past its limits. I have not slept since the night before the march. Have not eaten since dawn yesterday. The wounds I barely noticed during the fighting make themselves known now, a dozen cuts and gashes that throb in time with my heartbeat.
But through the bond, I sense her. Pain faded to a dull ache, which means her wounds are not severe. And beneath the discomfort, something else. Something that feels like pride and exhaustion and fierce, defiant joy. She fought. She survived. And she is waiting for me.
My pace quickens without conscious decision. The trudge becomes a walk, the walk becomes a lope, and then I am running, exhaustion forgotten, wounds ignored, nothing mattering except closing the distance between us.
She is alive. She is waiting. And I will not make her wait a moment longer than necessary.
The keep comes into view as the light begins to fade, and I push harder despite the exhaustion dragging at my limbs.
The gates stand open, which should alarm me, but I can see the guards on the walls and smell the familiar scents of my pack drifting on the evening air. The attack has been repelled. The fortress held. And there, standing in the center of the courtyard with blood on her clothes and a sword still strapped to her hip, is Iris.
She looks like something forged in battle rather than born from it. Her dark hair is tangled and matted with gore. A bandage wraps around her ribs, visible through the torn fabric of her shirt. Bruises darken her jaw and her knuckles are split and swollen. She has never been more beautiful.
I slow to a walk as I approach, giving her time to see what I have become. Blood coats my skin from hairline to heel, dried brown in some places and still glistening red in others. My hands are crusted with it, my nails torn from tearing through flesh and bone. I am the beast they have always whispered about, the monster that lurks beneath the alpha's civilized mask, and I will not pretend otherwise.
She does not flinch. She does not step back or look away or show any sign of the fear that should be flooding through her at the sight of me. Instead, she walks forward, steady and deliberate, closing the distance between us until she stands close enough to touch.
Then she presses her forehead against my chest, directly over my heart, and breathes.
"You're alive."
The words are quiet, meant only for me, and something loosens in my chest at the sound of them. I have been held together by fury and adrenaline for hours, running on nothing but the need to reach her, and now that she is here, now that she is real and solid and warm against my blood-soaked skin, the edges of that control begin to fray.
"I told you I'd come back." My voice is rough, scraped raw from the sounds I made while killing. My hand comes up to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling in her matted hair. "You had my word, remember?"
"You're covered in blood."
"Most of it isn't mine."
She pulls back just enough to look at my face, and I brace myself for what I might see in her eyes. Horror. Revulsion. The dawning realization that she has bound herself to something more monster than man.
What I see instead is understanding. Acceptance. And beneath that, a dark approval that makes my breath catch.
"Korren?" she asks.
"Dead."
She nods once, something settling in her expression, and takes my hand to lead me into the keep. We pass the wolves who bow their heads as we walk by, through corridors that still smell of smoke and blood, up the stairs to my chambers. The guards who usually stand watch are absent, dismissed or dead, and she pushes open the door without hesitation.
The room is exactly as I left it. Furs piled on the bed where we lay together the night before the battle. The lingering scent of our mingled arousal still clinging to the fabric.
