Chapter 4

Elias' POV

“There is an attack on the bridge,” the soldier panted, his voice shaking as he stumbled into the makeshift command post.

I didn't move immediately, I just looked down at my hands, which were covered in the drying blood of my fallen brothers. The chaos outside was deafening, a relentless meat grinder that I honestly hadn't planned on surviving. It would have been a lot more peaceful to just stay down out there, frankly.

“Of course there is,” I muttered, wiping a streak of red off my jaw with the back of my sleeve. “Because why would anything go smoothly today? That would just be too efficient.”

A bitter weight settled in my stomach. If my father had just listened to me, if he had paused his grand strategy for even five minutes to look at the actual logistics none of this would have happened.

But the old man always preferred a dramatic speech over a solid perimeter defense and now we were paying the price in bodies.

“Sir, you don't understand,” the soldier pressed, wiping sweat from his forehead, his eyes wide with genuine terror. “It's not just a standard raid. The breach... It is stretching and coming directly from the Abyss.”

I froze, the cloth slipping from my fingers. “The Abyss?” I stared at him, my humor completely vanishing, replaced by shock.

“That's impossible. Nothing comes out of there. It's an empty, rotting crater. Unless the monsters down there suddenly figured out how to climb vertical rock faces, you're seeing things.”

“I wish I was, Commander,” the guy insisted, his voice cracking. “The dark energy is spilling over the northern borders and the guards at the checkpoint were torn apart in seconds. It's expanding.”

Disbelief warred with logic in my head, but the panic in his voice was too real to ignore. If the Abyss was opening up, the entire territory was compromised.

“Fine,” I said, strapping my blade back onto my hip, “We're moving out. We need to infiltrate the Abyss and plug the leak from the inside before the whole valley gets swallowed.”

The soldier's face went completely white as he took a step back, shaking his head violently. “Infiltrate? Sir, that's suicide! We'd die before we even cross the border. Nobody goes into the Abyss and lives.”

“Well, technically, we're dying up here too, so the scenery change might be nice,” I said, tossing a jacket over my shoulders before stepping close to him, my voice dropping its sarcastic edge, “Look at me. I don't care about the stories, and I don't care about the danger. There are still people alive within that chaos out there, holding the line. I am not letting them die while we sit here discussing folklore. Move out.”

We broke through the perimeter, and the logic of my plan immediately dissolved into madness.

The air near the lip of the canyon was thick and the shadows themselves seemed to be stretching, detaching from the rocks and snapping at our heels. Monsters—things that shouldn't exist—were pouring out of the tear in the earth.

“Commander! The line is collapsing! We have to pull back!” The soldier screamed over the din and he was right. Staying was a mathematical certainty of death. I gave the order.

“Fall back to the ridge! Move, move!”

We turned to run, sprinting away from the encroaching darkness. But as I hauled myself over a pile of shattered stone, my eyes caught a flash of something out of place. Amidst the dirt, the blood, and the swirling black smoke, there was a patch of pale fabric.

I stopped to see a girl lying there, fragile and unconscious, looking like a broken doll dropped in the middle of a war zone. Her face was smudged with dirt, completely still.

Every bone in my body told me to keep running because she was a casualty of the void. Bringing a corpse—or a dying civilian—into a tactical retreat was stupid.

I actually took a step away from her, forcing my boots to move toward safety.

But then this weird pull tugged right at the center of my chest.

There was this sudden, intense pressure that made my lungs ache, dragging my eyes right back to her face.

“Sir! What are you doing?!” the soldier yelled, turning back at the edge of the clearing, his face panicked. “We have to go now!”

“There's a girl in there!” I yelled back, my voice tearing through the sound of snarling beasts.

“Leave her!” he screamed, gesturing wildly at the shadows creeping up the rock face. “She's already gone! Come on, or you're going to die right there!”

I looked at the monsters closing in, then down at her face.

Yeah I am definitely going to regret this.

I spun around and bolted back into the chaos, sprinting hard against the tide of darkness. The snarling and gnarling of the Abyss beasts grew deafening, vibrating right in my teeth as they realized what I was doing.

I slid on the loose gravel, dropping down beside her, and scooped her up. She was incredibly light and dead weight as I hoisted her over my shoulder.

The second my skin brushed hers, that weird pull flared up into a burning heat but there was no time to analyze it.

“Hold on,” I grunted, turning on my heel and launching myself back toward the entrance of the canyon.

Behind us, the darkness let out a collective shriek. The snapping of jaws was right at my heels, the shadows reaching out to drag us both down into the dirt as I ran faster than I ever had in my entire life, carrying a stranger out of the mouth of hell.

×××

The camp outside the canyon was a mess of tents and bleeding men, but we were already breaking it down. The battle was over for now, the leak plugged, and the order had come down from the top.

We were heading back to IronVale soon.

“The horses are prepped, Commander,” Mac said, walking up to me while wiping grease off a leather strap. “We can move out within the hour.”

“Great,” I muttered, not looking up from the map I was pretending to study. “Can't wait.”

Mac let out a dry laugh. “You sound thrilled to see your family, sir.”

“I would rather wrestle a bear in a swamp than face my father right now,” I said, rolling up the parchment with a snap.

“And Easton? I have no words. The thought of listening to them lecture me makes me want to jump right back into the canyon.”

“Well, you might get a pass on the lecture today,” Mac said, adjusting his belt. “Word from the scouts is today was Easton's mating ceremony. The whole place is probably too drunk to notice us.”

I shrugged, walking over to a wooden crate. “Don't care. Easton can mate a tree for all I care, as long as it keeps him out of my hair.”

Mac went quiet for a second, his eyes shifting toward the medical tent. “And what about the girl we brought in?”

I paused, my fingers tightening on the edge of the crate, remembering her face.

It had that familiar ting to it, I wondered where I'd seen her before. “The nurses said she is stable now. The fever broke an hour ago.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Mac asked, his voice dropping lower. “She doesn't have a pack scent on her that I can recognize. Finding a rogue near the Abyss isn't normal, Elias.”

“I don't know,” I admitted, looking toward the tent canvas.

I really didn't know. I couldn't understand what that weird pull was, why my chest felt tight every time I thought about leaving her behind or why something about her felt familiar. But I was going to find out.

Once Mac walked off to finish with the horses, the quiet of the camp settled in. My boots felt heavy as I walked over to the isolated medical tent. I pushed the flap aside and stepped into the dim tent.

The nurses had cleaned her up and changed her into simple, clean clothing. She just laid there, completely still against the white sheets, looking tiny and incredibly fragile. The sight of her like that brought a strange, sudden ache to my chest.

Deep inside my mind, my wolf started to get restless. It was pacing, scratching at the walls of my thoughts, “Calm down,” I muttered to myself, stepping closer to the cot.

I hovered over her, looking down at her features. Hesitantly, I reached out, my fingers trembling just a fraction before I let my skin brush against the back of her small hand.

The spark came back instantly. A sharp, electric heat shot straight up my arm, making my breath hitch. And then the pull hit me again, ten times stronger than before, dragging my entire soul toward her and at the same time I recognized her.

She was Easton's girlfriend.

My wolf threw its head back in my mind, roaring a single word so loudly it made my vision blur.

“Mate…”

I pulled my hand away so fast it felt like she had actually burned me with a hot iron as dread flooded my stomach.

No way…

I staggered back a step, my back hitting the wooden support pole of the tent.

No. No, no, no.

This was definitely a mistake.