Chapter 8 UNIFIED HUNT

Nyra's POV

The floor seems to slant below me, the world shifting on its axis. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, could not think, could not even feel anything beyond the distant space expanding in my chest.

I did not remember moving, but suddenly I was shoving past Gareth, my feet carrying me toward the grand staircase with desperate speed. My heartbeat sounds in my ears, drowning out everything but the insane prolongation pulsing through my veins. Not again. Not again. Not again.

I take the stairs two at a time, my hand barely touching the flashy handrail. I heard Draven's heavy footsteps behind me, feeling the rush of his Alpha power crackling through the fresh air before a storm, anger and fear joined together into something frightening.

The corridor stretches endlessly before me, each step seeming to extend the distance rather than close it. When I finally reached the guest chamber where Auren was taken, I opened the door with enough force to crack the wood against the stoned wall.

The room is beyond empty. Silent. The four-poster bed stands undisturbed, its covers still neatly tucked in. The wooden toys Gareth had quickly gathered for him, carved wolves and bears, sit untouched on the small table. The window is wide open, curtains rolling like ghosts in the cold night breeze. My stomach declines, a sickening void opening inside me. Then I see it.

A single scrap of black fabric caught on the edge of the window frame, flapping weakly against its wooden prison. I cross the room in three streps, fingers trembling as I pluck it free. The texture is wrong, not wool or cotton, but something slippery and rough. The fabric warriors use for secret missions are treated to minimize scent.

A simple odor loiters in the air, sharp and unfamiliar, not pack, not destructive, but something else altogether. Something that raises the hair on the back of my neck and sends first warning signals racing through my body. My blood runs cold as recognition hits. Kael's men.

Draven fills the doorway behind me, his massive frame blocking the light from the corridor. His scent shifts, darkens with an anger so intense that it makes the air feel heavier and harder to breathe. I hear the simple crack of bones as his hands begin to shift unintentionally, claws extending from human fingertips.

"Gareth," he complained, not looking away from me, from the evidence gripped in my trembling hand. "Gather the trackers, send word to the northern outposts." "I want every warrior assembled within the hour."

Gareth hesitates only for a second. "The Elders will want to meet, to discuss strategy before."

"I do not give a damn what the Elders want," Draven cuts him off, his voice dropping to a register that makes my wolf instinctively want to bare her throat. "My son has been taken, strategy is secondary to speed now."

My son. The words hang in the space between us, weighed with newfound recognition and fierce possession.

My voice shook as I turned to face him fully, the scrap of fabric seized in my fist like a lifeline. "They took him."

Draven's eyes met mine, and what I see there steals the breath from my lungs, not just anger or determination, but fear. The same fear that is flowing through my veins, turning my blood to ice.

"We will find him," he says, and there is something in his tone I have never heard before, a vulnerability beneath the steel, a father's desperation behind the Alpha's command.

For the first time since I walked back into Crescent Moon territory, I did not see the man who abandoned me, who chose duty over love, power over happiness. I see someone else, someone just as terrified as I am, just as willing to tear the world apart to find what has been taken.

"How?" My voice cracked on the word, betraying the fractures spreading through my carefully built walls.

Draven steps closer, close enough that I can see the mark of silver in his irises, smelling the pine and smoke scent that, even after all these years, makes something inside me ache with recognition.

"Because Kael made one critical mistake," he says, his voice low and deadly. "He did not just take a child, he took the son of an Alpha and a forsaken mate." His eyes shone with something ancient and victimizing. "And there is nothing more dangerous in this world."

He stretches his hand toward me, not touching, not confidently, but offering.

"We hunt together," he says, and it is not a question but a statement, an acknowledgment of something primal and undeniable between us.

For seven years, I have carried my pain like armor, wrapped my bitterness around me like a disguise. I have told myself I would never again trust Draven Blackthorn with anything I valued and anything I loved. But this is not about us. It is about Auren.

I take his hand, feel the familiar calluses against my palm, the strength in his fingers as they close around mine.

"We hunt together," I agree, sealing an agreement that is more binding than any mate bond.

Beyond the window, the moon rose full and heavily above the forest, and it filled the land with silver light. Somewhere below that same moon, my son waits, scared, alone and surrounded by enemies. But not for long.

Tonight, Kael Nightbane will learn what it means to steal from wolves.

The pack house bursts into chaos within minutes. Warriors stream through the corridors, their faces hard with purpose. Some shift mid-step, bones cracking and reforming as hair ripples across the skin, while others remain human, gathering weapons and supplies with silent efficiency.

Inside me, my wolf paces restlessly, desperate to break free, to hunt and to tear through forest and field until we find our cub. I push down the urge to shift, panic will not help Auren now. Strategy will.

Draven stands in the center of the great hall, his presence drawing every eye like a lodestone. He has shed the formal attire of the Alpha's chambers, now dressed in black gear that mirrors what I wore during my years as a lone wolf mercenary. The sight jars me, this warrior version of him mixing with my memories of the man in ceremonial furs and silver chains.

"They have perhaps a two-hour head start," he announces, his voice reaching every corner of the room. "The storm tonight will slow them down, they will not risk shifting with a hostage child."

My breath catches. I had not even noticed the gathering storm, but now I could hear the distant rumble of thunder, feeling the electric charge in the air. Nature itself matches with our hunt.

"Alpha," one of the Elders, steps forward, a weathered woman with silver hair pulled into a tight braid. "This looks like a trap, Kael would not risk such a bold move without possibilities."

"Send scouts first? Negotiate?" "While my son spends hours or days in the hands of a man who has sworn to destroy our bloodline?" Draven's words slice through the air like blades. "No. We move now, with overwhelming force."

My fingers find the pendant at my throat, a small silver wolf, the only thing I kept from my time as Draven's mate. The metal is warm against my skin, almost pulsing with an energy that mirrors the restless beating of my heart.

"Kael will not expect us both," I say, the sound of my voice strange in this hall where I once stood as Luna. "He knows Crescent Moon politics." "He will expect debate, planning, proper channels." My lip curls with remembered frustration. "He will expect you to be slowed by protocol."

Draven's eyes find mine across the room, something unreadable sparks in their depths. "And he will expect you to hunt alone."

A murmur spreads through the gathered wolves. Most have avoided looking directly at me since my return, the forsaken mate, the one who left, the symbol of their Alpha's one great failure. But now their eyes track between us, sensing the shift in dynamics, the faking of an unexpected alliance.

"Together we are unpredictable," I continue, stepping closer to the map spread across the central table. "And we know something he does not." Draven raises an eyebrow. "What is that?"

"The western passes." I point to a section of the map where the mountains create a natural barrier between territories. "These were not properly mapped when I left. Kael will be expecting us to track him through the main valleys, where his forces can funnel us into prepared positions."

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across Draven's face. "But you found another way through."

I nod. During my years in exile, I mapped every inch of the borderlands, finding hidden paths and forgotten trails, my insurance against ever being truly trapped. "There is a series of ravines that connect, creating a passage too narrow for large groups, but perfect for a surgical strike team."

Gareth leaned forward, studying the area I had indicated. "That is dangerous land in a storm."

"For them," I agree. "But not for us." I look at Draven. "Not if we move as one."

Understanding passes between us, a reminder of how seamlessly we operated once together, before politics and duty and heartbreak separated us. In battle, we were legendary: the Alpha and Luna, whose wolves moved as if they were sharing one mind, anticipating each other's moves before they happened. The mate bond may have been severed, but the muscle memory of fighting together remains sketched in our bodies.

"Gareth, you will lead the main force along the expected route," Draven commands. "Make enough noise to convince Kael that is our primary approach." "Nyra and I will take a small strike team through the western passes."

The room falls silent as we look across the table. At that moment, seven years of bitterness and betrayal seem to withdraw, not disappearing but fading into the background of something more urgent, more primary.

"For Auren," he says softly, words meant only for my ears.

"For our son," I replied, the words felt strange and powerful in my tongue.

Outside, lightning cracks across the sky, revealing the pack house in stark white relief. The storm gathers strength, mirroring the mounting anger in my veins. I feel my wolf stir deeper inside me, muscles coiling, claws itching to tear through the flesh.

Kael wanted to strike at the heart of the Blackthorn pack. Instead, he is awakened by something far more dangerous than he could have imagined: two wolves with nothing left to lose and everything to fight for.

A parent's love is fierce. A wolf's revenge is merciless. And tonight, Kael Nightbane will face both.