CHAPTER 6: Princess

 

The moment stretched like glass about to shatter.

Damon stood framed by the broken window, backlit by moonlight, looking like some kind of avenging angel. Behind him, his wolves waited with the kind of stillness that meant violence was only a heartbeat away.

My sons glowed brighter on their beds, responding to the power saturating the room. Too much Alpha energy. Too much threat. Their small bodies couldn't handle it.

"You need to leave." I forced the words out steady despite my heart trying to punch through my ribs. "My children are sick. Whatever you think you want from me, it can wait."

Damon's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Your children are sick because you're suppressed. Because you don't know how to control the power in your bloodline. I can teach you. I can help them."

"Like hell you can." Ezra's voice dropped into a register that made the floor vibrate. His Lycan King aura flooded the room, suffocating. Every wolf except Damon dropped to one knee, compelled by power that predated pack hierarchy.

But Damon just laughed. "Impressive. But I'm not one of your subjects, Your Majesty. I'm a Silverpaw Alpha. We don't kneel."

"Then you'll die standing." Caden moved so fast I barely saw it, shifting mid-leap into a massive black wolf that went straight for Damon's throat.

Damon shifted faster. His wolf was silver-white like mine, but bigger, more savage. They collided in midair with a sound like thunder.

"No!" I screamed, but my voice was lost in the chaos.

Damon's wolves poured through the windows. Kyle met them in his rust-colored wolf form, all teeth and fury. Maya had a gun out, silver bullets that could drop a wolf in its tracks. Thorne was chanting something in that old language, his hands glowing with violet light as he threw a protective barrier around the boys' beds.

Ezra didn't shift. He didn't need to. He moved through the attacking wolves like death itself, breaking necks with his bare hands, moving faster than anything human-shaped should be able to move.

And I just stood there, useless, while everyone fought to protect me and my children.

No. Not useless.

Something was building inside me. The same thing that had broken the suppression curse when my babies were threatened. Power that felt older than pack bonds, older than wolf instinct.

Royal blood, Thorne had said. Silverpaw Alpha.

"Stop!" The word came out of me like a shockwave.

Everyone froze. And I mean everyone. Wolves mid-leap hung suspended in the air. Caden and Damon locked in combat went still. Even Ezra paused, his hand around the throat of a wolf he'd been about to kill.

I didn't know what I'd done. Didn't know how. But suddenly I could feel every wolf in the room like they were extensions of my own body.

"Put them down." My voice didn't sound like mine anymore. It echoed with something ancient. "All of you. Put your wolves down and get out of this room before you hurt my children."

Thorne was staring at me with something like awe. "The Alpha Voice. She's manifesting the Alpha Voice."

I didn't care what it was called. I just needed them to stop.

Caden shifted back to human form, naked and bleeding from a gash across his ribs. Damon did the same, looking at me with an expression I couldn't read.

"Well," Damon said softly. "There you are."

The other wolves retreated, slinking back through the broken windows. Kyle and Maya stayed, but they'd lowered their weapons. The room still crackled with tension, but at least no one was actively dying anymore.

"Everyone out." Ezra's command wasn't as powerful as whatever I'd just done, but it was enough to get Kyle and Maya moving toward the door. "Except you." He pointed at Damon. "You and I are going to have a conversation."

"No." I surprised myself. "He's my brother. If anyone's talking to him, it's me."

Caden looked like he wanted to argue, but he just grabbed a sheet from one of the medical supply shelves and wrapped it around his waist. "I'm not leaving you alone with him."

"Neither am I," Ezra said.

Damon held up his hands in mock surrender. "By all means, let's all have a family meeting. Though we might want to do something about the children first." He nodded toward the beds.

I turned. Ash and Ryder had stopped glowing so brightly, but their breathing was still too shallow. Whatever I'd done to stop the fight, it hadn't healed them.

"The bonding ritual," Thorne said quietly. He'd stayed in the corner, probably because no one had explicitly told him to leave. "It's the only way. Both fathers, under the full moon, with the mother present. Tonight is the last night before it's too late."

"Convenient," Damon said. "A ritual that requires the help of the Lycan King and the Alpha who rejected you. Tell me, sister, do you trust either of them enough to let them that close to your children?"

It was a fair question. One I'd been avoiding asking myself.

I looked at Caden, who'd rejected me because I wasn't good enough. At Ezra, who'd watched me struggle for three years because he thought I needed to suffer to be strong. At my brother, who'd apparently been planning this reunion since I was a baby.

None of them had earned my trust. But my sons didn't have time for me to work through trust issues.

"I trust them to save my children," I said. "After that, we'll see."

Damon's expression hardened. "You're making a mistake. These bonds they're offering you? They're chains. They'll use the children to control you, to keep you weak and manageable. I'm offering you freedom. Power. The chance to be what you were born to be."

"What I was born to be is their mother." I moved to the beds, placed a hand on each boy's forehead. "Everything else is secondary."

"For now." Damon moved toward the window. "But when this is over, when your children are safe, we're going to talk about our family. About what was taken from us. About the people who murdered our parents and thought they could erase our bloodline."

He shifted mid-step, his silver wolf landing on the window ledge. "The full moon rises in three hours. Plenty of time for a bonding ritual. I'll be watching, little sister. And if either of your mates tries anything that puts you at risk, I'll kill them both and damn the consequences."

Then he was gone, his pack disappearing into the night like they'd never been there.

The silence he left behind felt fragile.

Maya poked her head back in. "So that was intense. Everyone still alive in here?"

"Barely," Kyle muttered, shifting back to human and accepting the clothes Maya tossed him without comment. "Someone want to explain what the hell just happened?"

"The Luna manifested Alpha Voice," Thorne said, like that explained everything. At our blank looks, he continued. "It's a power unique to royal bloodlines. The ability to command wolves regardless of pack bonds or hierarchy. It's been three generations since anyone's seen it."

"Great." I felt exhausted suddenly, like whatever I'd done had drained every bit of energy I had left. "Add it to the list of things I don't understand about myself."

Caden was at my side immediately, steadying me when my knees buckled. The mate bond flared at the contact, painful but grounding. "You need to rest before the ritual."

"I need my children to not be dying." But I let him guide me to a chair because standing was becoming theoretical.

Ezra was watching us with an unreadable expression. "The ritual requires both fathers to be fully committed. No hesitation. No doubt. If the bond wavers even slightly, it could kill them instead of healing them."

"I'm committed." Caden's voice was hard. "I'll do whatever it takes."

"Even share?" Ezra's smile was sharp. "Even accept that you're not enough on your own? That you need me?"

"If it saves my sons, I'll share with the devil himself."

"Close enough." Ezra turned to me. "And you, Lena? Are you ready to accept a Triadic Bond? To be tied to both of us permanently? Because that's what this ritual does. It's not temporary. It's not something you can undo later when things get complicated."

I looked at my children. At Ash with his mismatched eyes and Ryder with his too-serious expression. At the boys I'd carried and birthed and raised alone for three years. The boys who were dying because I'd been too proud to ask for help sooner.

"I'm ready."

Thorne started gathering supplies, muttering about moon water and binding herbs. Maya and Kyle began cleaning up the broken glass, giving us space but staying close enough to help if needed.

And I sat there between my two mates, watching my children fight to breathe, and wondered if this was going to save us or destroy us.

Outside, the full moon was rising.

We had three hours to save my sons' lives.

Three hours to bind myself to two men I barely trusted.

Three hours before everything changed forever.

The clock was ticking.