Chapter 34 – Oaths in Ashes
The copper tang of blood still lingered thick in the air as Rowan stood in the middle of the battlefield, the grass beneath his boots slick with mud and the fallen. The full moon bathed the clearing in a cold, silvery light, casting eerie shadows over the carnage left in the wake of the rogue attack.
He hadn’t stopped moving since the battle ended, his hands bloodied and shaking, not from exhaustion, but from the white-hot fury burning through him. Around him, the warriors gathered what remained of the wounded. Cries of pain echoed through the trees, and the scent of death clung to everything.
But Rowan couldn’t focus on any of it.
His eyes stayed locked on a single point—the edge of the woods.
It was there he had last seen her.
Giselle.
Dragged away by the rogue leader like she was nothing more than a trophy of war. The image of her limp form in that monster’s grip was seared into his memory. He’d fought like hell to get to her, carving a path through snarling jaws and snapping teeth, but he hadn’t made it in time.
He failed.
And now she was gone.
"Alpha..." a voice broke through the haze of his thoughts. It was Rhea, her clothes torn and blood spattered, her face pale but calm. "The western ridge has been secured. We're still gathering the wounded—”
“Keep them inside the southern barracks,” Rowan cut her off, his voice like gravel. “No one leaves the inner perimeter until we know the rogues are gone for good.”
She hesitated, then reached out. “Rowan... we’ll find her.”
He shook his head and pulled away, scanning the woods again. “She wasn’t supposed to be out. She was locked away, Rhea. Locked away, and somehow they got to her.”
Rhea’s lips tightened, but she said nothing more. She knew as well as he did what the Elders would say. That Giselle led them in. That she orchestrated the attack.
That she was a traitor.
Rowan growled low in his chest, his wolf snapping with rage. ‘She didn’t do this. She didn’t betray us.’
He refused to believe it.
“She’s not one of them,” he murmured aloud, more to himself than anyone else. “They took her. They used her. She would never—”
One of his warriors limped over, eyes wide with guilt and fear. “Alpha... there’s no sign of her trail. The rogues covered their escape well.”
Of course they had. Whoever was leading them knew what they were doing. They’d waited for a night of celebration. Waited until Rowan was vulnerable, exposed on the stage with Rhea, announcing a mating that would never happen.
He clenched his fists until his claws threatened to break through skin.
“I need a full search team,” he snapped. “Every tracker we have. I want that bastard’s scent traced to the ends of the earth.”
“But the Elders—” the warrior started.
“To hell with the Elders!” Rowan’s voice thundered across the field, drawing startled glances from those still moving among the dead. “They let this happen. They locked her up like a criminal while the true enemy slipped past us in plain sight. I won’t sit back and let them spin their lies.”
‘We have to find her,’ his wolf growled in his head. ‘She’s ours. She’s hurting. You felt it—when she disappeared from our link. Something happened to her.’
“I know,” Rowan whispered aloud, turning toward the trees again. The moonlight reflected off the blood drying on his skin. “I’m coming for you, Giselle. No matter what it takes. I’ll bring you home.”
Behind him, his Beta approached cautiously. “What about the Elders, Alpha?”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “They’ll get their answers soon enough.”
And when he had the truth—when he exposed the real traitor hiding in their midst—he would make damn sure they regretted ever doubting his mate.
Inside Rowan, the storm raged on, blistering hot and threatening to tear through his skin.
He took a few steps closer to the bloodstained ridge where she’d been taken, fists trembling at his sides, breath hitching against the rise of his fury. And then—he snapped.
Rowan threw his head back and let out a roar so fierce and primal it seemed to shake the very trees surrounding them. His voice thundered through the night, splitting through the silence and catching everyone’s attention.
“I will find her!” he bellowed. “Do you hear me? She is my mate, and I will bring her back! No matter what it takes!”
The entire clearing froze. Warriors tending to wounds, healers moving the injured—every head turned in stunned silence to face him. His voice had cut through the haze of battle, drawing in the stares of every packmate within earshot. Some looked at him with awe. Others with uncertainty.
And one with unmasked fury.
A slow, heavy tread approached from the other side of the clearing.
“Enough,” came Elder Malric’s low growl as he stepped into the moonlight, his face twisted in contempt. His robes were stained with soot from the fires and blood from those he had tended, but it was the fury in his eyes that caught Rowan’s attention.
“You disgrace yourself,” Malric hissed, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. “Standing there screaming like some feral beast, defending the very she-wolf who has endangered us time and again.”
Rowan turned slowly, his eyes glowing with his wolf’s simmering rage. “Speak carefully, Elder,” he said in a tone that promised violence.
“You still think she’s innocent?” Malric scoffed. “After this? After tonight? She led them here. She distracted you. You paraded around the stage, proclaiming a false mating to a crowd that had no idea your loyalties had already shifted.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about my loyalties,” Rowan snarled.
“I know exactly where they lie,” Malric snapped, stepping forward boldly. “With a rogue. A wolf born outside this pack. Raised in filth and shadows. She’s not one of us. She never was.”
“She’s my mate!” Rowan shouted, his voice echoing through the trees once again. “She was taken, Malric! She didn’t lead them here. She fought for us—bled for us! And you locked her away like a criminal!”
Gasps rippled through the gathered wolves, but Rowan didn’t care. Let them hear the truth.
Let them know the fury that burned in his blood.
Because Rowan wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t rest.
Not until Giselle was back where she belonged.
Safe.
Home.
In his arms.
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