Chapter #7 Destiny

Emara Dell POV

The Cabin, Dawn

I woke with a jolt, like someone had grabbed my soul and yanked.

Heat rushed through my chest, bright and urgent, and my breath fogged in the cold air as I pushed myself upright. My heart wasn’t beating normally. It was answering something. A call. A pull. A promise.

Rowan, tangled in blankets, sat up instantly.

“What? What’s happening? Did the stew go bad? Am I dying again? Because I swear...”

“Someone’s coming,” I whispered.

The words weren’t mine. They came from deeper. From Morana.

“He is here.” Her voice rolled through my bones like a storm. “Go.”

My hands shook as I shoved my feet into my boots and threw a cloak over my shoulders, stumbling toward the cabin door. Shadowfire flickered along my fingertips, reacting to the bond pounding against my ribs.

When I stepped outside, the world stopped. Snow drifted softly through the trees. The morning light hit the clearing in a perfect, pale glow. And he stood at the treeline.

Tall. Broad. Bare-chested despite the cold, with muscles carved by gods with too much time. Silver hair messy from running, his pale skin glowing faintly under the moon’s lingering light, and those small, smooth white horns curling from his head like something ancient had carved its claim onto him.

Fenric. His name slammed into my soul immediately. He was the kind of beautiful that hurt to stare at for too long. My breath caught.

“Holy mother of abs,” Rowan whispered behind me. “If that’s not your mate, I’m suing the goddess.”

I couldn’t speak. Fenric’s eyes locked onto mine, electric, wild, and hungry, and something inside me unfurled. Softly at first. Then violently. My chest ached with it.

He took one step forward. And I… moved.

It wasn’t a decision. It was instinct. Fate. My feet left the porch and hit the snow, one after another, faster and faster, until I was running across the clearing toward him.

Fenric broke into a sprint at the same moment, his speed inhuman, effortless, and breathtaking.

We met in the middle.

He caught me around the waist, lifting me off the ground in one motion like I weighed nothing, spinning me as the snow swirled around us. I gasped as his chest pressed against mine, heat and cold colliding in a rush that made my lungs seize.

Then he kissed me. It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate, starved, and ancient. As if he’d waited centuries for this moment.

His lips moved against mine with a hunger that stole the world out from under my feet, and I clung to his shoulders, breathless, dizzy, and absolutely undone. Shadowfire flared around us like silver lightning, and I felt him shudder, actually shudder, as the bond snapped fully into place between us.

When we finally broke apart, I was panting. He rested his forehead against mine, both of us shaking.

“Emara,” he breathed, his voice cracked with emotion, “goddess… you are real.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn’t even know why.

Maybe because, this, him, this bond, this warmth, felt like something I had prayed for in another lifetime. Something I never thought someone like me would ever have.

Rowan cleared his throat loudly.

“Well,” he announced, clapping, “if anyone needs me, I’ll just be...oh I don’t know...quietly sobbing into a tree because romance is alive and well.”

Fenric didn’t even look away from me, though a tiny smile ghosted across his mouth.

Then his expression changed and he lowered himself to his knees in the snow.

My breath hitched. “Fenric… you don’t have to...”

“I do,” he murmured.

He bowed his head, his horns catching the light. The snow fell gently around him as his voice rolled through the clearing like a vow etched into the bones of the world.

“Emara Dell… my Shadow Luna. My second life. My salvation. I failed my mate once in the last age,” he said, his head still bowed. “I will not fail you.”

My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

“You were broken under a merciless moon. I will break the world before I allow it to happen again.”

Shadowfire flickered across the ground like it was listening.

Rowan covered his mouth, openly crying. Fenric lifted his gaze to mine, and my knees almost buckled.

“I vow,” he whispered, “to destroy anything that ever made you feel small. To defend your body, your heart, and your spirit. To love every inch the goddess crafted. To stand at your side until the mountains crumble and the moon burns out.”

He reached for my hand.

“And if the world dares touch you with cruelty again… it will answer to me.”

Something inside me broke open. Something soft and wounded. Something that had never been held or cherished or chosen.

For the first time in my entire life…I felt loved.

Truly, completely. and ferociously loved. Exactly for who I was. I pulled him to his feet and kissed him again, my tears sliding into the snow.

Behind us, Rowan sniffed loudly. “Okay,” he said, “I take it back. If he hurts you, I’m biting his dick off.”

Fenric didn’t even blink. “Fair enough,” he said soberly.

And gods help me…I laughed.

Wrapped in snow, shadowfire, and the arms of the man that fate carved from death itself, I laughed like someone who finally had a future worth fighting for.

_________________________

A few hours later...

The wards trembled.

A hard, sudden pulse rolled through the clearing, it was enough to make the stew pot rattle on the table. Morana hissed in my mind, sharp and alert.

“Outside. Now.”

Rowan froze with a wooden spoon halfway to his mouth. Fenric’s head snapped toward the door, the air around him tightening like a pulled bowstring.

I stepped onto the porch first. Snow drifted silently, but the woods were packed with bodies, dark shapes emerging between the pines one by one. Warriors. Enforcers.

And at their front, Alpha Corvin. He stopped dead when he saw me. His face drained of color.

“…Emara?”

A whisper. A prayer. A ghost.

I folded my arms. “Surprised?”

He stumbled forward, his eyes wide, and his breath uneven. “You...you were dead. I smelled your blood. I saw the snow... I thought... gods, I buried you.”

“You didn’t bury me,” I said coldly. “You abandoned me.”

His mouth opened, then closed. His wolf pressed against his skin in frantic disbelief. “How… how are you alive?”

Before I could answer, Fenric stepped out behind me like the dawn of a nightmare, massive, scarred, horned, and beautiful in the most terrifying way.

Corvin jerked back like he’d seen a demon.

“Who the hell is that?”

Fenric slid an arm around my waist, slow and deliberate, pulling me against his chest. “Her mate,” he said, his voice low and pleased. “Her destiny.”

Corvin’s shock cracked into rage so fast it was almost comical.

“Mate? Mate? You’ve been alive for two days and you’re... with him?”

Rowan snorted from behind me. “Trust me, she upgraded.”

Corvin rounded on Rowan. “Silence!”

Rowan bowed dramatically. “As the court commands.”

Corvin turned back to me, his eyes burning. “You’re coming home. Right now. Both of you.”

He pointed at Fenric as if issuing a death sentence. “And that thing is not stepping foot in my territory.”

Fenric laughed, low, ancient, and murderous. I stepped forward until the ward light glowed between us, a shimmering wall of power.

“You don’t give me orders anymore,” I said. “I am not your Luna.”

Corvin flinched. Like I’d stabbed him.

“Emara,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “you can’t just… walk away.”

“I already did.”

His breath trembled, shock warring with anger. “Why him? Why this? You don’t even know what he is.”

Fenric rested his chin on my shoulder, his lips brushing my skin just to spite him. “She knows everything she needs to know.”

Corvin’s wolf snarled so loud it echoed through the trees. “You left me,” he snapped. “You ran into rogue territory and...”

“I ran because your pack murdered me.”

Silence slammed into the clearing. Corvin swallowed hard. Shame flickered across his face, then fury. “You still belong to BloodFang. You still belong to me.”

Fenric stepped past me to the edge of the ward line, towering over him, his power crackling in the air like frostbite and fire.

“She belongs to no man,” Fenric said. “She belongs to herself. I am simply the wolf blessed enough to stand beside her.”

Corvin’s hands curled into fists. “You can’t take her.”

“I’m not taking her,” Fenric said. Then he smirked. “She chose me.”

My heart pounded. I stepped fully into view, glowing with shadowfire.

“I am the Shadow Luna,” I said, my voice carrying through the clearing. “I bow to no one.”

Corvin staggered back, devastated. I continued, softer but unshakable. “We will return to the pack, but not for you. For justice. For balance. For the goddess who gave us a second life.”

Corvin opened his mouth, then closed it. I turned my back on him. Rowan was already tossing clothes into a pack. “Well,” he said cheerfully, “that went great.”

Fenric brushed a kiss against my temple, his grin razor sharp as he watched Corvin tremble in fury.

“Pack quickly, luna,” he purred.

He turned back to Corvin with a look of pity. “You’re looking at her like you finally see her. Pity. You’re too late. Her future isn’t yours anymore. It’s mine.”