Updated Dec 29, 2025 • ~6 min read
POV: NOVA
Dorian died in my arms.
One moment he was there—warm and alive and telling me through the bond that he loved me.
The next: gone.
The bond didn’t break. Couldn’t break. But it went silent. Empty. A connection to nothing.
And something in me shattered.
Not gently. Not quietly. With the force of a star collapsing.
I looked up at Vladmir—at the vampire king who’d taken everything from me twice. First my family. Now my mate.
He was smiling. “One down. Now for the abomination child—”
He didn’t finish.
Because I transformed into something that had never existed before.
Not wolf. Not vampire. Not even hybrid.
Pure rage given form. Grief manifested as power. Love transformed into unstoppable violence.
I was massive—twice the size of my normal hybrid form. My eyes blazed both colors simultaneously. Every claw, every fang, every inch of me designed for one purpose:
Destroy.
I moved faster than thought. Grabbed Vladmir by the throat before he could react.
“You took my mother,” I snarled, voice layered with wolf and vampire and something entirely new. “You took my pack. You took my childhood. And now you’ve taken my mate.”
He tried to speak. I squeezed harder.
“There’s nothing left of me that’s human enough to show mercy. Nothing left that remembers diplomacy or politics or trying to be better than my enemies.” I met his ancient eyes with my blazing hybrid gaze. “There’s only rage. And you’re going to meet every ounce of it.”
I didn’t kill him quickly.
I tore him apart.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Making sure he felt every second of it.
When he finally crumbled to ash—destroyed so completely there was no essence left to resurrect—I threw my head back and howled.
The sound carried across the battlefield. Every vampire, every wolf, every living thing stopped to listen.
It was grief. Fury. A promise that anyone who’d sided with the king would meet the same fate.
Vladmir’s army heard it and ran.
Those who didn’t run fast enough met my claws.
I carved through them like paper, unstoppable in my grief-fury. Viktor tried to stop me, to call me back to reason, but I was beyond reason.
Dorian was dead.
Our daughter would grow up without a father.
The world would never know the man he’d been trying to become.
And I would carry this loss forever, mate bond hanging empty in my chest, a connection to absence.
Unacceptable.
All of it unacceptable.
So I destroyed everyone responsible.
Battlefield became slaughter. I was mercy’s opposite, rage incarnate, death on four legs.
When the last of Vladmir’s forces fled or died, I collapsed beside Dorian’s body.
Shifted back to human. Naked and covered in blood and broken beyond repair.
“No,” I whispered, gathering him into my arms. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to die saving me and leave me alone. That’s not how this works.”
His chest was still. No heartbeat. No breath. No life.
But the bond—
The bond was still there. Silent. Empty. But present.
Like something was holding on by a thread, refusing to fully break.
“Dorian,” I begged. “Please. Our daughter needs you. I need you. You can’t leave us. Not now. Not when we’ve finally built something worth keeping.”
Nothing. No response. No flutter of consciousness through the bond.
Mara appeared beside me, tears streaming down her face. “Nova—”
“He’s not gone. The bond isn’t broken. He’s still—” I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t admit he was dead when the bond said otherwise.
“You’re right,” Laurel said, kneeling on Dorian’s other side. She checked his vitals, face grave. “He’s not fully gone. The mate bond is tethering his essence. Keeping him from complete death.”
Hope flared. “Then we can bring him back?”
“Maybe. But Nova—” She met my eyes. “It would require a massive blood transfusion. Your hybrid alpha blood is the only thing powerful enough to fully heal damage from a king-killing weapon. But the ritual is dangerous. Your body will fight it to protect the pregnancy. You could lose the baby. Or both of them.”
The choice crashed down on me with impossible weight.
Save my mate or protect my daughter.
Lose Dorian or risk losing Aria.
No good answer. Just lesser evils.
Exactly like the choice that had broken Dorian twenty years ago.
“I can’t choose,” I said, voice breaking. “I can’t lose either of them. I can’t—”
Mara gripped my shoulders. “Then don’t choose. Fight for both. You’re the strongest person I know, Nova. If anyone can save them both through sheer stubborn refusal to accept loss, it’s you.”
I looked at Dorian’s still face. At my hands on my swollen belly where our daughter grew. At the impossible choice fate had given me.
And I decided.
“Prepare the ritual,” I told Laurel. “I’m saving both of them. I don’t care how dangerous it is. I refuse to choose between them.”
“Nova—”
“That’s an order. From your alpha. From your co-ruler. From a woman who’s already lost too damn much.” I met her eyes. “Prepare it. Now.”
She nodded and rushed off.
Viktor appeared, covered in blood but alive. “The battle’s won. Vladmir’s forces scattered or dead. But Nova—” He saw Dorian. Saw my face. Understood. “What do you need?”
“I need you to command the fortress while I attempt something incredibly stupid and dangerous. If it works, we both live. If it doesn’t—” I swallowed hard. “Take care of our daughter. Make sure she knows her father was a hero. That he died saving us.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“Maybe not. But if I do—” I gripped his arm. “Promise me.”
“I promise. But you’re going to survive this. Both of you. All three of you. Because you’re too damn stubborn to do otherwise.”
I laughed through tears. “You’re right. I am.”
They carried Dorian to the medical chambers. I walked beside him, one hand on his chest, the other on my belly.
Both of them silent. Both of them in danger.
Both of them mine to protect.
And I would.
Even if it killed me.
Even if the ritual failed.
Even if I was choosing between impossible odds.
I would try.
Because that’s what you did for family.
You fought. You bled. You refused to quit.
And you saved them.
Or died trying.
I was about to find out which.
The ritual chamber awaited.
My mate lay dying.
My daughter kicked inside me, strong and fierce and demanding to be born.
And I was the only thing standing between life and death for both of them.
No pressure.
None at all.
Just impossible choices and desperate love and stubborn refusal to accept loss.
Exactly like always.
Except this time, the stakes were everything.
And I had to win.
Had to.
Because the alternative—a world without Dorian, or a world where our daughter never drew breath—was unthinkable.
So I wouldn’t think it.
I’d just fight.
Like I always did.
For my mate. For my daughter. For our impossible family.
Together.
Or not at all.
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