When the smoke cleared, the valley was a graveyard. Silas's trackers searched the wreckage for three days. They found the bodies of Valerius's generals. They found charred scraps of Iron-Fang banners. But they found no sign of the Alpha or his consort.
"They're gone, Rikae," Silas said, stepping into the ruins of the command center. "The heat from that blast... if they didn't make it out in the first five seconds, there wouldn't even be bones left to find. The pack is celebrating. We've broken the Iron-Fang Empire."
Rikae stood at the edge of the crater, staring into the dark woods of the No-Man's-Land. He looked "perfect" as always, his suit clean, his posture straight but his eyes were hollow.
"They aren't dead," Rikae said quietly.
Silas frowned. "The scouts searched for ten miles. No tracks. No scent. The fire wiped everything."
Rikae placed a hand over his heart. Beneath the ribs, in that hollow space where the Moon had stitched his soul to another's, there was a faint, jagged pulse. It wasn't the warm hum of a mate. It was a cold, rhythmic throb, like a bruise that refused to heal.
"I can feel her," Rikae whispered. "She's cold. She's hurting. But she's breathing."
"Rikae, if they survived, they'll be back. Valerius will want revenge."
"Let him come," Rikae said, turning away from the ruins. His voice had lost its velvet warmth. It was pure steel now. "He has the woman I was supposed to love. She has the heart she chose over mine. But he's a King of nothing now."
Rikae walked past his Alpha, his mind already calculating the next move. The "Gold Standard" Beta was gone. In his place was a man who had burned his own home to kill his enemies.
He knew Lisra was out there. He knew she was tending to Valerius's burns in some dark cave, still playing the martyr, still choosing the ghost over the living.
And Rikae would wait. He was a Beta; he had the patience of a mountain. But mountains eventually crumble.