Chapter 327
327
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327
Aria’s POV
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It had been a week since the clash on the border.
A week of silence.
Too much silence.
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The East had not returned, not even to harry our patrols. The borderlands remained untouched, the forest quiet but for wind and birdsong. To the others, it was a blessing. To me, it was a warning.
“Just a probe,” I muttered under my breath, the word like iron on my tongue. A
test.
That was all the last skirmish had been. Lucien had not come to conquer. He had
come to measure us.
The realization set my blood burning.
I strode through the halls of the keep, ignoring the startled looks of the guards, and made for the border myself. If I was right—and I knew I was—their calm was nothing but the calm before the storm.
But when I arrived, what I found nearly sent me into a fury.
The watchtowers were lax. Warriors lounged against the walls, half–hearted in their patrols. I caught two playing dice in the dirt, another with his eyes half–closed as though sleep could be stolen on duty. Their postures told me what my nose already had: there was no edge in them, no fear of attack.
“Complacent fools,” I hissed, my wolf surging forward with a snarl.
I let my aura loose.
The weight of my presence crashed over the border post like a storm wind, bending spines and forcing knees to the ground. Wolves gasped, clawing at the
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earth as my will pressed down on them. A few whimpered outright.
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“Do you think the East cowers because of one battle?” My voice cut through the air like a blade. “Do you think they tremble behind their walls because you had the fortune of facing me once?”
One brave–or stupid–warrior dared to stammer, “Perhaps, Commander…. perhaps they saw your strength and-”
“—and what?” I roared. “Decided to bow their heads and never rise again? Do you take Lucien Stormridge for a fool? Do you think Alphas test with blood and then vanish out of fear?”
The soldier paled, bowing low.
“Punishment,” I snapped, my tone brooking no argument. “Every wolf who neglected his watch will run drills until his paws bleed. Let the sting remind you that the East has not gone. They are watching. Always watching.”
The men lowered their heads, chastened. But it wasn’t enough.
I stayed. I would not allow my wolves the excuse of idleness. I stood sentinel at the border myself, eyes sharp, aura heavy over the land. Outwardly, I was steel. Inwardly, I was fire.
Because I knew.
Lucien was no coward. His retreat had been too sudden, too precise. He had left before the fight could tip into its true weight. If he had unleashed his wolf that night, if he had met me claw for claw–Moon above, I wasn’t certain I would have walked away whole.
The thought unsettled me. Excited me. Frightened me.
My grip on my sword tightened until my knuckles ached. I forced myself to stillness. I could not afford distraction. Not now.
Night fell, draping the forest in shadows. I remained at the watch, pacing the ramparts, senses stretched thin. The men thought me relentless; in truth, I was
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hunting. For hours there was nothing. And then-
A prickle at the back of my neck.
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The air shifted, faint but sharp, like lightning caught in the lungs. I froze . My wolf’s ears twitched, straining. Somewhere beyond the treeline, too subtle for the others to notice, a presence lingered. Not the blunt stink of rogues. Not the familiar musk of my own wolves. Something colder, sharper–disciplined. Suppressed.
Eastern Wolf.
I did not see him at first. He was good. Better than most spies I’d crossed blades with. His aura was folded so tightly it was almost absent, a void where life should have been. But no wolf alive could erase himself completely. Even a storm behind walls leaks thunder.
I slipped from the wall and into the forest without a word. Branches whispered against my armor as I moved, light–footed, every sense fixed on that invisible thread.
The moon broke through the canopy in fleeting shards of silver, and in one of them I saw him.
A shadow where none should be, his form shifting with the trees, his movements quiet as a stalking predator.
Lucien Duskgrave.
The sight struck me with the same force as it had on the battlefield: lean strength, fluid grace, every inch of him sharpened for war. But there was no battlefield now. No army. Only him, alone, moving through my woods as if he belonged here.
I held my breath, watching.
He crouched low, scanning the border posts with eyes like molten gold. Calculating. Measuring. Not attacking–never that. He was counting numbers, memorizing rotations, studying weaknesses. A wolf preparing not for today, but for the war to come.
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My heart thundered, and yet I moved not an inch. His Alpha aura was wiped out, I couldn’t even feel his wolf nature, I wanted to see what he was going to do. He had chosen his ground well, where shadows and silence shielded him.
Still, the urge tore at me. To challenge him. To rip that calm mask from his face and force the storm out into the open..
Instead, I shifted back a step, letting the darkness swallow me. My wolf snarled inside, unwilling, but I mastered her. There would be a time to strike. Tonight was not it.
He paused suddenly, head tilting. My breath stilled. For a heartbeat I thought he had sensed me, but his gaze swept the border again, sharp and intent, before he turned and melted back into the deeper forest.
Gone.
I exhaled slowly, unclenching my fists. My chest was tight with fury, with admiration, with a dangerous thread of something I dared not name.
Lucien Stormridge was not content with probing my defenses in the open. Now he walked in my lands, silent as a ghost, a storm cloud drifting where it pleased.
And I knew then, beyond any doubt-
The next time we met, it would not be by accident.
It would be war.
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