Gabriel would never have entered the forest bordering Nightshade Castle if desperation had not driven him there.
The betrayal was still raw, a wound that refused to clot. Rogue attacks had plagued his territory for weeks, their precision too deliberate to be coincidence. Tonight, the truth had finally surfaced. There was a traitor within his inner circle. He had suspected it for some time, but suspicion was a far cry from confirmation. Now, there was no denying it.
What he had not anticipated was the sheer density of traps woven through these woods.
Now he lay ensnared and bleeding, his massive silver-furred form pinned by a bear trap clamped viciously around his paw. The silver bit deep, its poison burning through flesh and bone alike, severing his ability to shift and draining his strength with each passing heartbeat. The agony pulsed in time with his breaths, relentless and unforgiving.
The glade itself was a cruel deception.
Under different circumstances, it might have been beautiful. Moonlight spilled across moss and wildflowers, the leaves whispering softly as a nearby stream murmured its endless song. It was the sort of place the Moon Goddess herself might have favored, a sanctuary shaped by her hand. But Gabriel had learned the hard way that beauty often concealed danger.
Any prayers he had offered her in recent years had gone unanswered.
Unmated and nearing his thirties, Gabriel had felt the pressure within his pack intensify. Doubts had festered. Challenges had risen. Whispers questioned his strength, his worth, his ability to produce heirs. Females had come to him openly, desperately, each hoping to be chosen as Luna in the absence of a destined mate. Yet Gabriel had refused them all, clinging stubbornly to faith.
Faith that had led him here.
He would die at the edge of vampire territory, betrayed by his own, trapped like an animal, his trust turned against him.
Pain flared again, white-hot and blinding. Gabriel threw his head back and howled, the sound tearing from his chest in a raw expression of fury and despair. The Moon Goddess had abandoned him. Of that, he was certain. His vision swam, the world dissolving into fractured shadows as he struggled to steady himself.
Then he heard it.
Footsteps.
Someone was running toward the glade.
Instinct surged. He forced his body low, muscles coiling despite the agony, teeth bared in silent warning. If this was the end, he would not meet it passively. Storm, his wolf, roared in agreement, rage and pain intertwining within their shared consciousness.
"Don't yield," Storm urged fiercely. "Fight. Die fighting."
Gabriel needed no encouragement.
The figure emerged moments later.
She was tall and slender, her presence startlingly out of place in the wilderness. A torn crimson gown clung to her frame, stained with dirt and leaves, as though she had fled some grand affair in haste. Raven-dark hair spilled freely around her shoulders, unbound and wild. She had been running barefoot.
Gabriel rose as much as the trap allowed, towering and threatening, determined to remind her that he was not helpless.
And then her scent reached him.
It cut through the copper tang of blood and the bitter sting of silver like a blade through smoke. Rich. Dark. Sweet. Like night-blooming fruit and molten cocoa. The wind carried it straight to him, and something inside his chest cracked wide open.
Hope flared.
The rage that had consumed him faltered, warping into something unfamiliar and devastating. He snarled instinctively, baring his teeth, and immediately regretted it as her eyes widened in fear.
Damn it.
He was not growling at her. He was furious at the trap. At the betrayal. At fate itself.
She stood before him. The woman he had waited decades to find. His mate.
Found not in triumph, but in ruin. Injured, ensnared, and vulnerable in enemy territory.
Storm strained against the trap, frantic. "Mate. Mate!"
"Stop," Gabriel snapped internally. "You're terrifying her."
She spoke then, her voice soft and unsteady. "Please… please don't hurt me."
She stepped closer despite her fear, bare feet brushing the grass. Gabriel held himself rigid, forcing Storm into stillness as she approached a silver wolf the size of a warhorse.
"I'm not here to hurt you," she whispered. "I'm going to let you go. Before they catch me."
Her courage stunned him.
She examined the trap, her expression twisting with horror before hardening into resolve. Delicate fingers reached for the silver, and she hissed sharply as it burned her skin. Gabriel growled in protest, but she only grimaced and tried again.
"Steady," she murmured. Perhaps to herself, perhaps to him.
Blisters bloomed across her fingers as she wrenched the mechanism open.
With a final, shuddering snap, the trap released. Gabriel tore his paw free and collapsed back, licking the wound as she staggered away, clutching her hands to her chest.
She retreated until her back struck a tree, nowhere left to run.
"There," she breathed. "You're free."
Footsteps thundered in the distance. She was being pursued.
In that instant, Gabriel forgot his pain entirely.
She was in danger.
He rose, wounded but resolute, placing himself between her and the approaching threat. There were words he longed to give her. Truths that burned in his chest. But language would have to wait.
His mate needed protection.
And Gabriel would bleed, fight, and burn the world itself to keep her safe.