Chapter 508: ADREIN.

Maria.

The suffocating heat inside the infirmary was making my skin crawl.

I was pacing a tight, frantic circle around the room, my bare feet gripping the cold floorboards. The distant, terrible sounds of clanking iron, shouting men, and the wet, brutal thud of weapons echoing from the hallway made my heart hammer against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I couldn’t just sit here. I couldn’t just lie on that cot wrapped in furs while Noah and Adrein bled for me outside that door.

Every single instinct in my body—every thread of my newly awakened wolf—was screaming at me to run out there. I was going to lose him. I felt it in my chest, a cold, sickening panic that tightened around my throat until I could barely draw breath. Noah was out there facing Vincent’s men alone, exhausted, weakened by the very poison that had been flushed from my veins, and I was sitting in the dark doing nothing.

"Lady Maria, please! You must lie down!" Physician Thorne begged, stepping directly into my path with his hands raised, his eyes wide with fear. "Your blood is clean, but your body is far too fragile! Alpha Noah gave strict orders that you are to remain behind this door!"

"Out of my way, Thorne," I gasped, my voice trembling with a terrifying blend of panic and rage.

"I cannot allow you to step into that corridor!" Thorne insisted, stepping closer and reaching out to gently grab my shoulder. "It is suicide! There are dozens of Vincent’s elite guards right outside—"

"I am so sorry," I whispered.

Before he could process the words, I pulled back and drove the heavy wooden pestle off the side table straight into the side of his neck.

Thorne let out a faint, startled gasp, his eyes rolling back as his knees buckled. He collapsed onto the soft wool carpet with a dull thud. My hands trembled violently as I dropped the wooden tool to the floor, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it was almost deafening.

I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop to breathe. I grabbed the edge of the heavy oak door, unlatched the iron bolt, and yanked it open.

The moment I stepped across the threshold into the hallway, the world exploded into pure, unfiltered horror.

The air was thick with the copper stench of fresh blood and smoke. Dozens of dead guards were carpeted across the stone floorboards. And at the far end of the long corridor stood Prince Vincent, a heavy black iron war bow raised to his cheek, surrounded by thirty armored archers with their bowstrings pulled taut.

Right in the middle of the passage stood Noah.

He was bleeding, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his broadsword trembling in his grip as he leaned his weight against Adrein’s shoulder. He looked so pale, so utterly exhausted, standing directly in the crosshairs of thirty deadly black arrows.

I saw Vincent’s lips move. I saw the black bowstring snap forward.

’No.’

A strange, unnatural burst of speed surged through my limbs—a sudden, blinding rush of power from my restored wolf that defied every law of my frail, healing body. The hallway blurred around me. The distance between the infirmary door and Noah seemed to shrink into nothing.

"NO!"

The scream ripped straight from the depths of my lungs, shattering the air like glass.

I sprinted across the bloodied stone floor, threw my body straight into the space between Noah and the oncoming wall of flying steel, and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. I pressed my chest flush against his chest plate, burying my face in the crook of his shoulder, using every inch of my small frame to cover his heart, his chest, and his neck.

If Noah was going to die in this hallway, I was going to die right beside him. I was going to die in his stead.

I clenched my eyes shut, my teeth grinding together, my entire body bracing for the sickening, agonizing impact of thirty iron arrowheads driving into my bare, unguarded back.

I waited.

One second.

Two seconds.

The heavy, rushing wind of flying steel whistled past my ears, followed instantly by a series of brutal, sickening thuds—the sound of sharp iron punching straight through thick fabric, leather, and bone.

A sharp gasp of pure agony echoed right beside my ear, followed by a heavy, metallic rattle.

Concussive shockwaves of warm, metallic blood splashed across the back of my nightgown and the side of my neck. But I didn’t feel a single point of pain. My back wasn’t burning. My lungs weren’t collapsing.

I was completely untouched.

My jaw trembled violently as I slowly opened my eyes.

Noah was staring down at me, his emerald eyes wide with utter shock and terror, his broad hands gripping my shoulders tightly as if to make sure I was real. "Maria...?" he breathed out, his raspy voice shaking uncontrollably.

I slowly turned my head around, my eyes widening as my jaw dropped in total, paralyzing disbelief.

Adrein was standing right behind me.

He had stepped directly in front of my back at the very last microsecond. He had thrown his broad, unarmored chest right into the path of the incoming volley, acting as a human shield to cover both me and Noah.

Four black iron arrows were buried deep into his torso. One was driven straight through his right shoulder, another had punched clean into his ribs, and two more were lodged deep into his chest, blood pooling rapidly through his plain woolen tunic, turning the dark fabric into a heavy, crimson stain.

His broadsword slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the bloody stone floorboards.

Adrein stood there for a split second, his chest heaving with shallow, agonizing rattles. His purple Alpha eyes, usually so bright and full of wild energy, were staring down at me, dimming rapidly as the life drained out of his body.

He offered me a faint, trembling smirk—a tiny, bloody smile that barely cracked his lips.

"Told you..." Adrein rasped out, his voice a frail, wet whisper as blood bubbled over his lower lip. "Told you... I’d protect you..." He smiled slightly. "I love you Ma...."

His knees buckled under him, and he collapsed forward onto the cold, blood-stained stone floor.

"ADREIN!" I screamed.