Chapter Forty Three

**Bastion’s POV**
The plan was simple.
We would plant Aria in the oasis and wait for Lawson to find her. I would be stationed a half mile to the northeast and Rory would be a half mile to the northwest. She would battle the Alpha one on one, defeat him, and the war would end.
The plan was simple.
The plan was also bullshit.
Why Rory suggested it was beyond me. There were so many holes, so many variables that weren’t accounted for.
What if the Alpha brought the entire council with him to the fight? I mean, fuck. She couldn’t stand the day before and we were sending her to fight the strongest man in the pack by herself?
Sure, we would be nearby. But what if she couldn’t call to us?
The only hope I had in ensuring her safety was to keep our mate channel open. If she did endure great pain, at least I would feel it. I just prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
Even though we had just discovered her pregnancy the day before, I was already completely obsessed with those babies. I hadn’t ever realized how badly I wanted children until I had them dangled in front of me.
I imagined them running into our chambers as toddlers, jumping on our bed to wake us up and wrestling with me for the covers. It was sappy and a teeny bit insane, but I didn’t care. I liked thinking up random scenarios like that. It lifted my spirits, especially with war on the horizon.
I had only participated in two wars since joining the military at Crimson Moon, and those were small scale. I’m talking like less than a hundred combatants total. This would be six times the size with far more at stake.
I didn’t know what I would do if something actually did happen to Aria. I didn’t know how the whole destiny thing worked in the first place. Was it set in stone, or could it be altered? If she were to die, the prophecy would be forfeit. So she had to live, right? Yet again, I was forced to trust the gods.
Aria, Rory, and I walked to the oasis together right after dinner.
She didn’t eat much, which I wasn’t a fan of. She said she was too nauseous, but wouldn’t listen when I tried to use that as leverage to get her to drop out of the fight. *Great*. My pregnant and sick mate was going to throw down with the most powerful wolf in the world. What could go wrong?
She could sense my hesitation, and pulled me aside after Rory went to join his men.
“Bas, I’ll be fine. I promise.” Her emerald eyes pierced mine and I melted into her simple contact.
“You can’t promise that, baby. You know you can’t. I couldn’t live without you. It would kill me.” I cradled her velvety soft face in my hands, pulling her to my lips. After a slow and delicate kiss, she pulled away.
“I have faith. War is no walk in the park, but we can do this. I know it.”
No matter how much I wanted to believe it, I couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding just beneath the surface. I didn’t like it.
I ran the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip, eyeing it, memorizing it before I had to leave.
“Don’t leave me.” I begged, pouting like a child.
“I won’t.” She promised again, giving me her most reassuring smile before breaking my grasp and stepping just out of reach, her hands crossed behind her back.
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you, Bastion. Fight well. I’m counting on you.” I gave her one last nod and was on my way, refusing to turn back because if I saw her again, I knew I wouldn’t leave.
I arrived right on our scheduled time. I had thirty men under my charge. We kept Rory and I’s groups small so we could sneak away if our Queen needed us.
They would need to push through the rest of our army to make it to us, so our opponents were not expected to be great in number.
It was a quarter after seven when I first smelled them. Twenty-seven wolves. All shifted.
I announced the information to the group, and the wolves removed their clothes to shift themselves. We would be easy for the vampires to distinguish, since friends of the crown didn’t have the natural repulsion anymore. We no longer had the ‘wet dog smell’ that Rory had described to me.
We lined up in our fighting stances as the sprinting wolves peeked out over the horizon. The war had begun.