The Alpha's Plump Mistake
The golden light of her mark wrapped around me like warm sunlight as her hands cupped my burned, bloodied face.
“Lawrence… my love… you did it,” she whispered through tears of relief, pressing her forehead to mine.
“I told you… no one touches the cradle…” I rasped, slipping an arm heavy with exhaustion around her waist, drawing her and my babies close.
But the victory lasted no longer than a heartbeat.
Beneath his fallen body, the light did not die.
A crack of blinding white fire began spreading outward from the wound in his chest. His golden armor melted into slag as his corpse swelled—choked with compressed starfire that had been bound inside him since the dawn of time.