News from Dark Water

Violet:

I don’t know what woke me. It wasn’t a sound, not exactly. The camp lay quiet beneath me, the fire reduced to a low glow of embers, the lycans sprawled in exhausted sleep after their patrol rotations. The night air cooled my skin as I rested along a thick branch high above them. But something felt wrong. The Badlands didn’t breathe the way forests did. They didn’t whisper or hum. They waited. And something had just stepped into that waiting.

My eyes opened slowly, and I stayed perfectly still. Instead of moving, I let my senses stretch outward. The perimeter wards hummed faintly along the edges of camp—steady, intact. Then there it was. A shift in the dark. Heavy. Deliberate. Not rogue. Not lycan. Something else. It moved wrong, its gait uneven, almost dragging. When the wind shifted, it carried a faint scent with it—rot and iron and something bitter that stung the back of my throat. A Badlands creature.

It had slipped through a weak pocket in the perimeter, likely where the fractured land distorted the magic. It was clever... or starving. It crept low along the ridge, its malformed body blending into stone and shadow. Two warped horns curled back from its skull. One arm hung too long, clawed fingers scraping rock with a faint, sickening rasp. Slowly, its head lifted. It caught sight of the dim glow of the campfire and stilled. I felt its focus sharpen.

Below me, someone shifted. Alec. I felt his awareness spark almost at the same instant as mine. He was good. But he was still on the ground.

The creature coiled.

I moved.

I didn’t climb down. I dropped.

The world narrowed into sharp, precise focus as I launched myself from the branch. The beast lunged toward camp at the same moment, its maw splitting open to reveal rows of jagged teeth. It never made a sound. I hit it mid-charge, my knees driving into its shoulders hard enough to knock it sideways. My hand was already moving. The dagger slid from my thigh sheath in one smooth motion, and I drove it straight through its eye.

The resistance was thick and wet. The blade sank deep with a crunch as blackened blood burst outward. The creature convulsed beneath me, claws tearing uselessly at the air. I twisted the dagger hard, and the body collapsed beneath my weight. Dead mass hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Silence swallowed the clearing again.

Behind me, I heard fast, controlled movement as Alec rose to his feet, power flaring instinctively while the rest of the camp stirred. But it was already over. I stood slowly, my breathing steady despite the blood dripping from my arm and cheek. The creature twitched once before going completely still.

Alec reached me within seconds. His eyes scanned me first, not the beast. “Are you hurt?” His voice was low, tight.

“No,” I replied, wiping a smear of black blood from my jaw. “It didn’t get close.”

His gaze shifted to the creature and back to me, something dark and impressed flickering in his expression. “You dropped from the trees,” he muttered.

“Yes.”

He exhaled slowly, tension rolling off him in waves as the others fully woke. But he didn’t look at them. He looked at me. Then his jaw flexed. “Come on,” he said quietly.

“It’s dead,” I reminded him.

“I know,” he replied, eyes softening just slightly. “You’re covered in it.”

Without waiting for argument, he guided me toward the river just beyond the tree line. His hand hovered at my back—not touching, but close enough that I felt the heat of him. The river cut through the Badlands like a ribbon of silver under moonlight. Cold. Clean.

I crouched at the edge and dipped my hands in first. The water stung where small cuts lined my knuckles. Alec knelt beside me, and for a moment neither of us spoke. Then he gently caught my wrist before I could scrub at my cheek.

“Hold still.”

His voice had lost its edge.

I did.

He dipped a clean cloth into the river and carefully wiped the dark blood from my skin. His movements were controlled, almost reverent. The cool water traced along my jaw, my temple, down the side of my neck. The contrast between the violence from minutes ago and this quiet was startling.

“You woke before it crossed the inner line,” he said softly.

“I felt it.”

His thumb brushed accidentally along my cheek as he rinsed the cloth again. “You dropped without hesitation.”

“It was going for the fire.”

His eyes lifted to mine, searching. “You didn’t hesitate,” he repeated, as though that part mattered most.

I shrugged faintly. “You were waking up.”

Something shifted in his expression then, something warmer and protective. He rinsed blood from my forearm next, checking carefully for deeper wounds. There were none. The river rushed quietly beside us.

“You could have let me handle it,” he said after a moment.

“I know.”

His brow furrowed. “Then why didn’t you?”

I met his gaze evenly. “Because I was closer.”

Silence settled between us again, but it wasn’t tense. It was charged.

“You terrify things that terrify me,” he admitted quietly. “That creature crossed a warded perimeter without triggering magic, and you killed it before it could take three steps into camp.”

I considered that. “I don’t like when things sneak toward my people.”

The words had barely left my mouth when Alec went utterly still. Not physically at first—but inside. I felt it through the faint thread that always hummed between us now. His posture didn’t change, but his eyes unfocused slightly, gaze turning inward.

A mind-link.

It hit him hard.

His hand, still loosely around my wrist, tightened reflexively. Not enough to hurt—just enough to anchor himself. His jaw locked. Power rippled beneath his skin like something trying to break free.

“Alec?”

He didn’t answer immediately. I felt flashes—panic not his own, the sharp metallic tang of blood through the link, shouted commands layered over each other. Darkwater.

When his eyes snapped fully back to mine, they were no longer soft. They were blazing.

“Darkwater is under attack,” he said, voice low and controlled in a way that meant it was taking everything he had to keep it that way. “Neal’s men breached the outer defenses.”

Ice slid down my spine. “How many?”

“Enough.” His gaze hardened. “They’re not there to take territory.”

I didn’t like the way he said that. “Then what?”

His expression shifted—not to fear, but to fury so sharp it almost burned. “Neal sent a message through the link before the fighting started.”

The river suddenly felt too loud. Too far away.

“What message?” I asked.

Alec’s fingers loosened from my wrist slowly, deliberately, as though he was afraid of what he might do if he didn’t. “He made it clear he isn’t just pushing for dominance anymore.”

The air between us thickened.

“He’s looking for you.”

The words didn’t echo. They sank.

Somewhere in the distance, a howl split the night from camp—an alert signal, sharp and urgent as the news rippled outward through the pack. Alec was already rising to his full height, every line of him turning Alpha in a heartbeat. Controlled. Lethal.

But beneath it, I felt something else.

Not fear for his territory.

Fear for me.