Page 74 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

I look back at Poppy one last time, committing every detail of her face to memory in case fate decides to be cruel again.

“You hear me?” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her cheek. “You’re coming back.”

Then, before I can lose the courage to leave, I lean down and press my lips softly against hers.

The kiss is gentle, nothing like yesterday’s desperate attempt to hold on to her. Nothing like the fevered passion that has always existed between us.

It’s a promise.

“I love you, Poppy,” I whisper against her lips. “I always have. I always will.”

For a fraction of a second, I could swear her fingers twitch beneath my hand.

Hope explodes inside my chest, but duty tears me away before I can convince myself it wasn’t my imagination.

I rise to my feet, every instinct screaming at me to stay, yet forcing my legs to turn toward the battle raging beyond the trees.

If I want Poppy to come home to us, then I have to make sure she still has a home to return to.

Without another glance behind me, I shift into wolf form and launch myself toward the northern border, where the night has already erupted into war.

Dark figures draped in black robes stand beyond the barricades, their hands raised toward the sky as ribbons of jetted, corrupted magic lash through the air like living serpents. Every blast that collides with a warrior throws them backward with enough force to splinter trees, while the earth itself blackens wherever the magic lands, leaving behind patches of dying grass and smoking soil.

The remaining witches of Aoife’s coven, who were helping the guards, meet them head-on.

Ancient words roll from their tongues as circles of pale gold light bloom beneath their feet, crashing against the dark spells in brilliant explosions that shake the forest. For every ribbon of corruption the enemy casts, one of Aoife’s sisters counters with blinding white magic, the two forces colliding in violent bursts that illuminate the clearing like lightning.

Lowering my head, I throw myself straight into the enemy ranks. My jaws clamp around the arm of a hooded witch before she can finish another incantation, sending her crashing into the ground. Another raises both hands toward me, and a spear of black energy tears across my shoulder before I can dodge.

Agony explodes through me, and I let out a tortured howl as blood splatters across the grass, but I refuse to fall.

Not while Daniel is somewhere behind these borders.

Not while Poppy is fighting for her life.

Not while I finally have something worth living for.

More dark witches emerge from the shadows, their laughter echoing through the battlefield as corrupted magic rains down upon wolves and witches alike.

For the first time since Jackson’s war, defeat feels possible, even just because the war out here feels like it manifested from the war raging inside my head.

Another witch aims her offense at me, and I’m about to close my eyes to brace for impact when a sudden pulse of power ripples across the clearing, grabbing everyone’s attention by the neck—even the dark witches.

The surge of power isn’t dark or corrupted, but it feels ancient. Pure. And I can feel it in my bones.

Every witch on the battlefield freezes.

Every wolf stops fighting.

A blinding column of white light crashes down from the heavens into the center of the battlefield, forcing every one of us to shield our eyes.

The corrupted magic dissolves the instant it touches the light, sizzling out like it’s been burned.

The dark witches stagger backward in horror, and the brilliant light takes a pause, the forest seemingly holding its breath with the magic.

It’s long enough for me to drop my gaze to a lone woman standing where the light had fallen, her white robes billowing around her as strands of golden hair dance in a wind that exists for no one else.

She slowly lifts one hand, speaking in a calm but authoritative tone, “You have trespassed long enough!”