Page 72 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

Not now.

Not when Poppy is lying unconscious in my arms, suspended somewhere between life and death.

“I need every available warrior at the northern border!” Dorian bellows as he spins toward Connor. “Sound the second alarm. Evacuate the children and get everyone who isn’t a fighter underground.”

Connor doesn’t hesitate, barking orders to the Nightclaw soldiers before taking off at a sprint.

Around us, the chanting of the witches never falters.

The sisters continue holding hands around the fire, their voices rising higher now, louder, as though refusing to allow whatever is happening beyond the borders to interfere with the ritual.

I tighten my arms around Poppy.

“I’m not leaving her,” I murmur, the words escaping before I even realize I’ve spoken them aloud.

Dorian’s head snaps toward me.

“Damian—”

“No.” I shake my head fiercely, refusing to loosen my hold on her even as another siren joins the first. “I’m staying right here.”

The mate bond pulses weakly against my chest, so faint that it terrifies me. I lower my forehead against Poppy’s, desperately searching for even the smallest indication that she’s still fighting whatever is torturing her soul.

“You hear me, Poppy?” I whisper against her skin. “You’re not doing this alone anymore.”

Another explosion echoes somewhere beyond the trees, close enough that the ground trembles beneath us.

Flynn curses under his breath.

“Dark magic,” he growls, narrowing his eyes toward the forest. “I can feel it.”

Aoife finally tears her gaze away from Poppy, though her chanting sisters never stop.

“They’ve come for her,” she says gravely.

The words strike me harder than any physical blow ever could.

“They’re trying to interrupt the ritual,” Dorian adds.

“They know if this succeeds,” Flynn says, his voice tight with understanding, “they lose whatever control they have over her.”

A vicious growl builds inside my chest.

Then they’re too late, I think, with rage pulsing through my veins.

Because I’m not letting them have her. Not after everything we’ve survived, not after finally understanding what she’s always meant to me.

I brush trembling fingers through the strands of blonde hair plastered across Poppy’s forehead, unable to stop staring at her peaceful face despite the war erupting around us. It feels impossibly cruel that the woman I’ve spent ten years convincing myself to hate is the very woman I can’t imagine living without.

I was wrong. Wrong about her. Wrong about us.

Wrong about everything.

I never stopped loving her. Not when she disappeared, nor when I discovered she’d hidden Daniel from me.

Not even when she stood in that warehouse with blood-red eyes and nearly tore me apart.

Somewhere beneath all that anger…all that resentment…all those years spent mourning what I thought I’d lost…