Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 74

POV: Adeline

The attack on the eastern flank came without warning.

One moment, the patrol was reporting quiet borders. The next, Ironclaw wolves were pouring through a gap in our defenses that shouldn't have existed—a tunnel, we would learn later, dug over weeks beneath our scent markers, emerging behind our lines with devastating effect.

Freya was closest.

I was three hundred yards away when the chaos erupted, helping coordinate the southern defense rotation. The sounds reached me first—snarls, screams, the unmistakable crash of wolves colliding at full speed.

Then the bond flared with Aiden's alarm, and I knew.

I ran.

The eastern flank had become a slaughter. Ironclaw wolves outnumbered the patrol three to one, and more were pouring from that cursed tunnel every second. Bodies littered the ground—ours and theirs—and in the center of it all, fighting like something out of the old legends, was Freya.

Her honey-brown wolf was smaller than most of the attackers. Lighter. Built for speed rather than brute force. But she moved through them like water around stones, her teeth finding weak points, her claws opening wounds, her body bending away from killing blows with dancer's grace.

She was holding the line.

Alone.

The other patrol members had fallen or scattered, overwhelmed by the initial surge. Only Freya remained, positioning herself between the breach and the path to the pup dens. If the Ironclaw wolves got past her, there would be nothing stopping them from reaching the children again.

She knew that. And she refused to retreat.

I watched her take a blow that should have ended her—a massive Ironclaw wolf slamming into her side, sending her rolling across the churned earth. She was up before she stopped moving, back in the fight, bleeding from a dozen wounds but still standing.

Still fighting.

Still buying time.

The tunnel. We need to close the tunnel. My wolf's tactical mind cut through my horror. Stop the flow, then we can end this.

I howled—the rally call, the one that pulled Willow Ridge wolves from their positions to converge on a crisis point. Then I plunged into the battle.

Fighting toward Freya felt like swimming against a current made of teeth and claws. Every few feet, another Ironclaw wolf blocked my path. I tore through them with a fury born of desperation, my wolf fully ascendant, nothing human left in the violence I dealt.

Freya went down again. This time she didn't get up immediately. Two Ironclaw wolves closed on her, and I was too far away, too slow—

A third wolf hit them from the side. Luca, his massive form bowling them over with sheer momentum. More Willow Ridge wolves arrived behind him, the reinforcements finally reaching the breach.

I made it to Freya's side as she struggled to rise.

"You came," she gasped, blood staining her muzzle.

I shifted just enough to speak. "Always."

Her wolf eyes met mine—exhausted, relieved, filled with something I recognized from my own reflection. The look of someone who had been certain they were about to die and was surprised to find themselves still breathing.

We shifted together and fought back to back.

It was different than fighting alone. Every time I committed to a strike, I felt Freya covering my exposed flank. Every time she pressed forward, I was there to guard her retreat. We moved in tandem, learning each other's rhythms without discussion, our wolves communicating in that wordless way pack members developed after years of running together.

Except we had only known each other for weeks. And yet—

It felt like we had always been fighting side by side.

The tide turned when the Willow Ridge wolves finally sealed the tunnel, collapsing its entrance with controlled explosions that sent Ironclaw scrambling. Cut off from reinforcements, the remaining attackers were overwhelmed. Those who didn't die, fled.

When the last enemy wolf disappeared into the trees, I slumped against Freya's wolf form and let myself breathe.

We shifted to human together, sitting in the churned mud among the fallen, too exhausted to move. Freya's wounds were closing slowly, her wolf healing working overtime. My own injuries throbbed with every heartbeat.

"You held," I said finally. "Alone. Against all of them."

She laughed weakly. "Stupidest thing I've ever done. Luca's going to yell at me for a week."

"You saved the path to the dens. You saved the children."

"I saved time." She leaned her head against my shoulder. "You saved me."

We sat in silence, shoulder to shoulder, blood and mud making it impossible to tell where one of us ended and the other began.

"I never had a sister," Freya said quietly. "Growing up, I mean. Always wanted one. Used to pretend the trees in the forest were my siblings, which is just sad enough that I've never told anyone."

I wanted to smile but wasn't sure I remembered how. "You're telling me now."

"You're different." She turned to look at me, her dark eyes serious beneath the exhaustion. "You came. When I was alone and they were everywhere and I was so sure I was about to die, you came. You fought beside me. You stayed."

My throat tightened. "That's what pack does."

"No." She shook her head. "That's what sisters do."

The word landed in my chest with unexpected weight. Sister. I had never had one either—never had siblings at all. But sitting here with Freya, covered in shared blood, alive because we had fought for each other...

"I do now," I said softly. "A sister. I have one now."

Freya's hand found mine, squeezing once.

"Sisters in blood," she said.

And despite everything—the war raging around us, the casualties mounting, the enemy still circling—I felt something settle into place. Something that had been missing for longer than I could remember.

Family. Real family. Forged in fire and sealed in the blood we had shed together.

"Sisters in blood," I agreed.

We sat there until the healers came, still holding hands, still alive.

Together.