Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 75

POV: Adeline

Night battles were the worst.

The darkness turned every shadow into a potential enemy, every sound into an ambush. Wolves relied on scent and instinct, but Ironclaw had learned to mask their approach, to circle and strike from angles we couldn't anticipate.

The attack came at the darkest hour, that dead space between midnight and dawn when even wolf eyes struggled to pierce the gloom.

I was stationed at the northern perimeter when chaos erupted from the west. Howls split the night—alarm calls, pain calls, the terrible sounds of wolves dying. The bond flared hot in my chest as Aiden's presence shifted from alert to engaged to—

Then I lost him.

Not the bond itself. I could still feel the thread connecting us, still sense that he was alive somewhere in the darkness. But his focus had narrowed to something immediate and desperate, his consciousness contracting to pure survival in a way I had never felt from him before.

He was fighting. Hard.

I ran.

The western line had become a nightmare. Ironclaw had committed their largest wolves here, their most brutal fighters, overwhelming our defenders through sheer mass. Bodies lay everywhere—I tried not to look at the faces, tried not to catalog which ones I had shared meals with, trained with, laughed with.

Where is he? Where—

The bond screamed.

Pain exploded through me—not my pain, but his, flooding through our connection with devastating clarity. I felt the impact of claws rending flesh, felt the crack of ribs giving way, felt the hot rush of blood that meant something vital had been punctured.

"No." The word tore from my throat. "No, no, no—"

I stopped trying to fight through the battle. I stopped following the sounds or the scents or the tactical positioning.

I followed the bond.

It pulled me through the chaos like a rope around my heart, tugging me past dueling wolves and fallen bodies and flames that had caught in the underbrush. The pain kept coming in waves—each one making me stumble, each one driving a spike of ice through my chest.

He was dying. I could feel him dying.

Not him. Please. Not him.

I found him in a small clearing near the stream.

He was surrounded.

Five Ironclaw wolves circled his massive black form, darting in to snap at his flanks, retreating before he could retaliate. They were wearing him down, exhausting him through constant small attacks while his blood painted the ground beneath him.

He was still standing. Still fighting. But I could see what they couldn't—the way his back leg dragged, the way his breathing came in ragged gasps, the way his movements were slowing as blood loss claimed what strength remained.

They would kill him. In minutes, maybe less. They would tear him apart while I watched.

Something inside me broke.

No—something inside me was released.

My wolf surged forward with a ferocity I had never experienced. Not the controlled fury of battle, not the calculated violence of gamma training. This was something older, deeper, more primal. The kind of rage that had no thought behind it, no strategy, no plan.

Just the absolute, unquestionable need to destroy anything threatening my mate.

I hit the first Ironclaw wolf before it registered my approach, my claws opening its throat before my paws touched the ground. The second turned to face me and lost its eyes for the mistake. The third tried to flee—I caught it in three strides, my jaws closing around its spine with a crack that echoed through the clearing.

The remaining two abandoned their assault on Aiden and converged on me.

I didn't care.

I fought with no regard for my own body, taking hits that should have stopped me, trading wounds for killing blows. My wolf was fully ascendant now, and she knew only one thing: protect him. Protect him or die trying. There was no third option.

The last Ironclaw wolf fell with my teeth in its throat.

I didn't remember releasing it, didn't remember crossing the remaining distance to where Aiden had finally collapsed. I only knew that suddenly I was there, my wolf's body pressing against his, my muzzle searching for his heartbeat.

Still there. Faint. Fluttering. But there.

"Aiden." I shifted just enough to speak, my human hands pressing against the worst of his wounds. There was so much blood. Too much blood. "Aiden, stay with me. Stay—"

His wolf eyes opened. Found mine. Something passed through the bond—not words, but emotion. Love. Regret. Fear.

Get out, I felt. More coming. Leave me—

"No." I wrapped my arms around his massive neck, as if I could hold him to this world through sheer force of will. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare leave me."

More wolves were coming. I could hear them approaching through the trees—Willow Ridge, by their scent, reinforcements finally arriving. But I couldn't look away from Aiden's fading eyes.

"You promised," I whispered. "You promised you wouldn't leave me. You promised—"

His eyes closed.

For one terrible moment, the bond went silent.

Then—there. A pulse. Weak but present. He was still alive. Still fighting to stay.

"I need help!" I screamed into the darkness. "I need help now!"

They came.

Luca first, his face going pale as he took in the scene. Then others—Freya, Marcus, wolves I couldn't name through the blur of terror in my eyes. Hands reached for Aiden, carefully, reverently, lifting him while I refused to release my grip on him.

"He's alive," someone said. "Barely. Get him to Elara. Now."

They were running, and I was running with them, and the whole time I kept one hand on Aiden's fur and one eye on the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Stay with me. Stay. I didn't fight this hard to lose you.

The words became a prayer, a command, a desperate plea to whatever spirits governed the fates of wolves and mates and the bonds that connected them.

Don't you dare leave me.

You promised.