Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 84

POV: Adeline

The aftermath of the night attack revealed our losses in cruel daylight.

Eighteen dead. Forty-three wounded. Sixteen critically.

I moved through the healing quarters helping where I could—carrying supplies, holding wolves down while Elara worked on wounds too severe for them to bear alone, offering water and quiet words to those awaiting treatment.

It was during my third circuit that I found her.

Freya lay on a pallet near the back of the healing quarters, her honey-brown hair matted with blood, her face pale beneath a lattice of fresh wounds. An apprentice healer knelt beside her, working with trembling hands to staunch the bleeding from a gash that ran from her shoulder to her hip.

The world tilted.

"Freya." Her name came out strangled. I crossed the distance between us and dropped to my knees beside her pallet. "Freya, can you hear me?"

Her eyes fluttered open. Unfocused at first, then sharpening with recognition—and, impossibly, amusement.

"Hey," she whispered. "You look terrible."

"I look—" The laugh that escaped me was closer to a sob. "You're lying there bleeding out and you're worried about how I look?"

"Someone has to." She tried to smile, but the expression collapsed into a wince of pain. "The eastern flank. There was this big one—must have been one of their war wolves. Got through before we could stop him."

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

"Didn't know you cared this much."

I grabbed her hand, gripping it hard enough that my knuckles went white.

"Idiot." The word cracked in my throat. "You're my sister. You don't get to die on me."

Something flickered in her eyes—surprise, warmth, and beneath it all, fear she was trying to hide.

"Elara!" I shouted. "I need Elara now!"

The head healer appeared moments later, her silver hair escaping its braid, her hands still stained from the previous patient. She took one look at Freya's wounds and her expression went carefully blank—the kind of blankness that meant the situation was worse than she wanted to show.

"Move aside. Let me work."

I released Freya's hand and scrambled back to give Elara room. The healer's power flowed into Freya immediately—that silver-gold light I had seen so many times over the past weeks, now pouring into wounds that seemed impossibly deep.

"The war wolf," Freya murmured, her voice growing fainter. "I took him down. Three others too. But he got me first."

"Be quiet," Elara ordered. "I need to concentrate."

"She's always telling me to be quiet. You'd think she'd be used to my voice by now—"

"Freya." I moved back to where she could see me, hovering just outside Elara's working space. "Stop talking. Just... stop talking and focus on staying alive. Please."

Her eyes found mine again. The humor had faded, replaced by something raw and frightened.

"I'm scared," she admitted, barely a whisper.

"I know." I reached out and touched her hair—the only part of her I could reach without disturbing Elara's work. "But you're going to be okay. You have to be. I didn't find a sister just to lose her."

The healing took hours.

I stayed the entire time, refusing to leave even when Luca came to report on the defensive reinforcements, even when Aiden sent word that he needed me at the command table. I knelt beside Freya's pallet and prayed to gods I wasn't sure I believed in—the Moon Spirit who was supposed to watch over wolf-kind, the old gods of forest and stone, anything or anyone who might listen.

Don't take her. Please. She's one of the only good things in my life.

I've lost so much. Don't make me lose her too.

Please.

Elara finally sat back as the sun began its afternoon descent, exhaustion carved into every line of her face.

"She'll live," the healer said quietly.

The relief hit me so hard I nearly collapsed. "You're sure?"

"The wounds are closed. The internal damage is repaired. But—" Elara hesitated. "She'll carry scars, Adeline. The war wolf's claws went deep. There's only so much even healing magic can do."

I looked at Freya—unconscious now, her breathing steady, her face peaceful in a way it hadn't been during the healing. The bandages covering her shoulder and chest hinted at what lay beneath.

"She won't care about scars," I said. "She'll care that she's alive."

"And you? Do you care about scars?"

I thought about my own scars—the ones on my body, visible evidence of battles survived, and the ones inside, invisible but equally permanent.

"Scars mean you lived through something that tried to kill you. There's no shame in that."

Elara nodded slowly, then placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Stay with her. She'll want a familiar face when she wakes."

I stayed.

The healing quarters emptied slowly as wolves recovered enough to move to the recovery cabins or returned to duty despite their wounds. Others came in—new casualties from the continued siege pressure, minor injuries from patrol skirmishes. The work never stopped.

But I stayed with Freya.

She woke near evening, her eyes opening slowly, confusion giving way to recognition.

"Still here?" Her voice was rough, barely audible.

"Told you. Sisters don't leave."

A weak smile crossed her lips. "That war wolf. Did I at least look impressive taking him down?"

"You looked terrifying. In a good way."

"Good. I have a reputation to maintain." She tried to shift, winced, and settled back. "The scars. Elara told me. When she thought I was still unconscious."

"Freya—"

"Battle marks." She cut me off, her voice gaining strength. "That's what my grandmother called them. Proof you stood your ground when others would have run."

"She sounds wise."

"She was. Died fighting Ironclaw, actually. Ten years ago. Before Ronan took over." Freya's eyes went distant. "She would have liked you. Would have said you had iron in your spine."

I didn't know what to say to that. So I just held her hand, the way she had held mine through so many difficult moments since I arrived at Willow Ridge.

"The war is costing us everything," I said quietly.

"Not everything." Freya's fingers squeezed mine. "We're still here. That's something."

"It doesn't feel like enough."

"It never does, in the middle of it." She met my eyes with surprising intensity. "But we keep fighting anyway. Because giving up costs more."

I looked around the healing quarters—at the wounded wolves recovering in their pallets, at the healers still working despite their own exhaustion, at the evidence of a pack refusing to break despite everything thrown at them.

The cost was enormous. The losses mounting every day.

But we were still here.

Still fighting.

Still refusing to surrender.

Freya was right. That had to be enough.

For now.