Updated Dec 29, 2025 • ~9 min read
POV: NOVA
The victory celebration was Isolde’s idea.
Three days after we’d repelled the rival court’s attack, she announced a formal feast to honor the fortress’s defenders. It sounded magnanimous. It felt like another trap.
“We don’t have to go,” Dorian said as Kira helped me dress in yet another formal gown—this one deep midnight blue that made my copper skin glow.
“If we don’t go, it looks like we’re afraid. Like we’re weak.” I checked my reflection. “Besides, I’m curious what Isolde’s planning.”
“That’s what worries me.”
Through the bond, I felt his unease. He didn’t trust Isolde any more than I did.
The great hall had been decorated lavishly—banners celebrating our victory, tables laden with food and wine, vampires in their finest formal wear. It looked like celebration.
It felt like a funeral.
Dorian and I entered together, his hand on my lower back—a small gesture of support that didn’t go unnoticed. Whispers followed us as we moved through the crowd.
“They share a bed now.”
“She fought in the battle. Saved the general’s life.”
“The wolf bride is becoming one of us.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that last one.
Isolde presided from the high table, resplendent in silver that matched her hair. “General Vale. Lady Nova. So glad you could join us.” Her smile didn’t reach her violet eyes. “Please, take your seats of honor.”
We were seated at the high table—not together, I noticed. Dorian was placed at one end near Viktor, while I was at the other end near Lord Brennan and several council members I didn’t recognize.
Separating us. Isolating us from each other.
“Nervous, wolf girl?” Lord Brennan leaned over, his breath reeking of wine. “Don’t worry. We won’t bite. Much.”
I ignored him, focusing on the food being served. Elaborate dishes I still didn’t fully recognize, prepared with techniques that probably took hours.
Wine was poured—deep red, smelling of berries and something darker. The vampire beside me raised his glass.
“To victory! To the fortress! To General Vale!”
The hall echoed the toast. I raised my glass along with everyone else.
“And to Lady Nova,” Viktor added from across the hall. “Who fought like a demon and saved lives.”
More cheers. I felt Dorian’s approval through the bond.
I drank, the wine sweet and rich on my tongue.
Conversation flowed around me. Politics and gossip and the usual vampire court nonsense. I participated minimally, more focused on watching Isolde across the table.
She was planning something. I could see it in the way she watched me, in the slight smile playing at her lips.
Then my stomach cramped.
Sharp. Painful. Like something was twisting my insides.
I set down my glass, trying to breathe through it. Just a cramp. Nothing to worry about.
Another cramp, worse. My vision swam.
Through the bond, I felt Dorian’s alarm spike.
“Nova?” His voice, distant. “Are you alright?”
I tried to answer. My tongue felt thick, my throat closing. The room spun.
Poison.
The wine had been poisoned.
I stood, or tried to. My legs gave out. Someone caught me—Viktor, his face tight with concern.
“Get the healers!” he shouted. “Now!”
Everything became chaos. Vampires rushing, voices shouting, my body seizing as the poison spread through my system.
Then Dorian was there, gathering me into his arms, his face pale with terror.
“Hold on,” he said, voice breaking. “Just hold on, Nova. Please.”
I wanted to tell him I was fine. That I’d survived worse. But my throat wouldn’t work, my lungs burning, my wolf howling in my mind as the poison tried to kill us both.
He ran. I felt the movement, the fortress blurring past, then the healer’s chambers coming into focus.
Voices I didn’t recognize. “What poison?” “How much?” “When?”
Dorian’s response: “I don’t know. The wine. She drank from my glass.”
Silence. Then: “The poison was meant for you, General. Nightshade mixed with vampire toxin. It would have made you mildly ill. But for a wolf—”
“It’s lethal,” someone else finished.
Terror through the bond. Absolute, crushing terror.
“Save her,” Dorian commanded. “Whatever it takes. I don’t care about the cost.”
Hands on me, forcing something down my throat. I gagged, convulsed, my body fighting the cure almost as hard as the poison.
“We need to purge it from her system. General, you’ll have to give her your blood. It’s the only thing strong enough to counteract both toxins at once.”
“Do it.”
Sharp pain at my throat as Dorian bit his own wrist, then pressed the bleeding wound to my lips.
“Drink,” he commanded, voice layered with power that my wolf instinctively obeyed.
I drank. His blood was cold, metallic, tasting of ancient power and desperation. It burned going down but in a different way than the poison—cleansing fire instead of destroying flame.
My body convulsed harder. I heard screaming—realized distantly it was me.
Then darkness.
I woke to Dorian’s voice.
“Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I can’t lose you too.”
His hand gripped mine, cold and trembling. Through the bond, I felt his terror, his grief, his absolute certainty that I was dying.
I squeezed his hand weakly.
He jerked upright, eyes wide. “Nova? Can you hear me?”
“Unfortunately,” I croaked. “Your blood tastes terrible.”
He laughed—a broken, relieved sound—and pressed his forehead to mine. “You’re alive. You’re actually alive.”
“Hard to kill wolves.”
“Apparently.” He pulled back slightly, searching my face. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was poisoned. Otherwise fantastic.”
Laurel, the fortress healer, appeared. “You’re incredibly lucky. If the general hadn’t acted immediately, you’d be dead. The combination of nightshade and vampire toxin should have killed you within minutes.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Because you have a hybrid constitution now. The general’s blood you ingested during the binding ceremony gave you some vampire resistance. And your wolf fought the nightshade.” She checked my vitals. “You’ll be weak for a few days, but you’ll recover fully.”
After she left, it was just Dorian and me in the quiet medical chamber.
“The poison was meant for you,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Isolde?”
“Almost certainly. Though proving it will be difficult.” His jaw clenched. “She tried to kill me and nearly killed you instead.”
“Because I drank from your glass.”
“Why did you?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. Habit? We’ve been sitting together so much during training that I just… reached for the nearest glass.”
Through the bond, I felt his emotions roiling—guilt that the poison had been meant for him, terror at how close I’d come to death, rage at whoever had done this, and underneath it all, something fierce and possessive.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said quietly. “Watching you seize, seeing the poison work through your system, knowing there was nothing I could do except hope you were strong enough to survive—” His voice broke. “I can’t lose you, Nova. I know I have no right to say that, I know you haven’t forgiven me, but I can’t—”
I touched his face, stopping the desperate flow of words. “I’m here. I’m alive. You saved me.”
“Barely.”
“Still counts.”
He leaned into my touch, eyes closing briefly. “I was terrified. Completely, utterly terrified.”
“I know. I felt it through the bond.”
“And I realized—” He opened his eyes, meeting mine. “I’ve been lying to myself. Telling myself I was honoring your mother’s promise, protecting you out of duty and guilt. But Nova, it’s more than that now. Somewhere along the way, I—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Don’t say something we can’t take back. Not while I’m lying in a sick bed recovering from poison.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not ready to hear it. Not ready to process what it means.” I pulled my hand back. “I almost died tonight. Give me time to just… exist. Without heavy confessions.”
He nodded, accepting. But through the bond, I felt what he’d been about to say.
Love. He loved me.
The realization should have terrified me. Should have sparked rage that my family’s murderer dared to love me.
Instead, I just felt tired. And confused. And maybe, buried deep, something that might have been reciprocation.
But I wasn’t ready to examine that. Wasn’t ready to admit that I might be falling for him too.
“Rest,” Dorian said, standing. “I’ll have Viktor post guards. And I’m going to have a conversation with Isolde about security.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself.”
He left, and I was alone with my thoughts and the bond humming with his lingering terror.
Someone had tried to kill me. Or rather, tried to kill Dorian and got me instead.
The message was clear: the vampire court saw me as a threat. As something to be eliminated.
Well, if they wanted a threat, I’d give them one.
I’d survived the massacre. Survived twenty years on the run. Survived forced marriage and vampire politics and now poison.
I wasn’t going down easy.
And anyone who tried would learn exactly how fierce a Redwolf could be.
Even one bonded to her family’s murderer.
Maybe especially one bonded to her family’s murderer.
Because now I had something I hadn’t had in twenty years: a true partner.
Someone who’d give me his blood to save my life.
Someone who’d been absolutely terrified of losing me.
Someone who might love me, even if I wasn’t ready to love him back.
It was complicated and messy and nothing like what I’d planned.
But it was mine.
And I’d protect it with everything I had.
Just like he was protecting me.
Partners in survival.
Whether either of us had planned it or not.
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