Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 43

POV: Adeline

The blade caught the light before it found its target.

I saw it happen from twenty yards away—the flash of steel, the Ironclaw wolf lunging toward Luca's exposed flank, the trajectory that would have opened his Beta from shoulder to hip.

And Aiden stepping into its path.

The sound that left my throat wasn't human.

He twisted at the last moment, turning what would have been a killing blow into something less—but the blade still bit deep, carving a line across his ribs before the attacker fell to Luca's counterstrike. Blood bloomed through Aiden's shirt, dark and spreading, and his hand pressed against the wound as his knees buckled.

Everything stopped.

The chaos of the skirmish faded to a distant roar. The shouts of wolves, the clash of bodies, the snarls and screams—all of it dissolved into meaningless noise. There was only Aiden. Only the way he swayed. Only the crimson seeping between his fingers.

No.

I was running before I knew I'd moved.

No. No. No.

The word repeated in my skull like a heartbeat, like a prayer, like the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity. My wolf surged forward with a force that nearly shifted me mid-stride, her panic bleeding into mine until I couldn't tell where I ended and she began.

I reached him as Marcus caught his other side. Aiden's face had gone pale beneath the blood and dirt, his jaw clenched against whatever sound wanted to escape.

"I'm fine," he managed through gritted teeth.

"You're not." My voice came out sharp. Brittle. "Don't lie to me."

The skirmish was ending—Ironclaw wolves retreating back across the border, our patrol giving chase until Luca's sharp whistle called them off. We had won, if this could be called winning. But I couldn't make myself care about victory.

"We need to get him back," Marcus said. "Elara—"

"I'll take him."

"Adeline, he's heavy, you can't—"

"I said I'll take him."

Something in my voice made Marcus step back. I ducked under Aiden's arm, wrapped my own around his waist, and took his weight against my shoulder. He was heavy—dense with muscle, solid in a way that made every step burn. I didn't care.

Other wolves moved to help. I snarled at them.

It wasn't rational. Wasn't fair. But my wolf had taken the reins, and she would not allow anyone else to touch him. Not now. Not while he was bleeding and vulnerable and hers. Some distant part of me understood that I was acting like a feral thing, that the pack was watching, that this display would be remembered and discussed. I couldn't bring myself to care. Let them talk. Let them see. He was mine to protect, and I would carry him alone or collapse trying.

The walk back to the packhouse stretched into eternity. Aiden's breath came in short, controlled pulls, his hand still pressed to his side. Blood dripped onto the forest floor, marking our passage in dark splatters.

"You don't have to carry me," he said.

"Shut up."

"Adeline—"

"I said shut up." My voice cracked. "Save your strength."

He went quiet after that. Let me guide him through the trees, up the packhouse steps, down the hall to his room. By the time I lowered him onto the edge of his bed, my arms were trembling and his shirt was soaked through.

"Out," I said to the wolves who had followed. "All of you. I need water, clean cloth, the kit from Elara's stores. Go."

They went.

The door closed. Silence fell.

I knelt before him, my hands finding the hem of his ruined shirt. "I need to see it."

He didn't argue. Just helped me peel the fabric away from the wound, hissing slightly when it pulled at the edges where blood had begun to dry. The cut ran along his lower ribs—deep enough to need stitching, shallow enough to have missed anything vital. Relief hit me so hard my vision blurred.

"It's not that bad," he said.

"You're bleeding." I reached for the supplies someone had left inside the door—water, cloth, needle and thread, a jar of salve that smelled of herbs and honey. My hands shook as I wet the first cloth.

"You're shaking."

"Because I can't lose you." The words ripped out of me, raw and unguarded. "Because I watched you fall and for one second I thought—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't give voice to the image that had seared itself into my mind: Aiden on the ground, still and silent, gone in a heartbeat the way Caleb had been gone.

"Adeline." His hand caught my chin, tilted my face up to meet his eyes. They were dark with pain but steady, so steady, anchoring me the way they always did. "I'm right here."

"You almost weren't."

"But I am."

I pressed my lips together and focused on the wound. Cleaned it with careful strokes, watching pink-tinged water drip into the basin. Threaded the needle with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling. The stitches were neat despite my unsteady hands—gamma training again, the muscle memory of patching up wolves after battle.

He didn't flinch. Didn't make a sound. Just watched me work with an expression I couldn't read.

When I finished, I spread the salve across the stitched line and pressed a clean bandage over it. The bleeding had stopped. The wound was closed. He would heal.

He was alive.

The realization broke something loose in my chest.

I set aside the supplies and sat back on my heels, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a hollow ache and the sharp awareness of how close I had come to losing everything I'd only just allowed myself to want. My hands were still trembling. I pressed them against my thighs, trying to still them, but the shaking had migrated deeper—into my chest, my lungs, the very architecture of my bones. I had held myself together through the carrying, the cleaning, the stitching. Now that it was done, I was falling apart.

"Adeline."

I looked up.

Aiden reached for me—his hand closing around my wrist, fingers warm against my racing pulse. He tugged, gentle but insistent, pulling me up from the floor and down onto the bed beside him.

"You'll hurt yourself," I protested weakly.

"Don't care."

He settled me against his uninjured side, his arm wrapping around my shoulders, his thumb finding the pulse point at my wrist and stroking over it in slow, soothing circles.

"You won't lose me," he said quietly.

"You can't know that."

"I can." His lips brushed my temple. "Because I have too much to live for now. Because you gave me something worth fighting to come back to." His thumb continued its gentle circuit over my pulse. "I'm not going anywhere, Adeline. Not without a fight. Not without you."

I should have argued. Should have reminded him that promises couldn't stop blades, that wanting to survive wasn't the same as surviving, that I had heard similar words before and still ended up alone.

But I was so tired. And he was so warm. And his heartbeat was steady against my shoulder, proof that he was here, alive, real.

"Stay with me tonight," he murmured. "Just... stay."

"I wasn't planning on leaving."

His arm tightened around me. I felt the exhale that left him—relief, gratitude, something deeper that neither of us had words for yet.

I stayed.

Through the long hours of the night, I watched him breathe. Counted each rise and fall of his chest like treasure, like prayers, like the most precious currency in a world that took everything I loved. When his breathing shifted into the deeper rhythm of sleep, I let myself relax into his side and kept counting anyway.

One breath. Another. Another.

Each one a promise kept. Each one a moment stolen from the darkness that wanted to claim us both.

I didn't sleep. I didn't want to. I wanted to be awake for every second of having him alive beside me, warm and breathing and mine.

Mine.

The word settled into my bones with a certainty that should have terrified me. Instead, it felt like coming home.