Chapter 127

Simon's POV The night smelled of steel and blood. We came back from the border with our armor cracked, our wolves battered but standing. Every step from the field to the neutral hospital was a weight that settled into my bones, yet I would not show weakness. Not while my men limped beside me, their eyes searching for assurance that all of this suffering meant something. The battle had been brutal. Brayden and the vampire lord fought like creatures with nothing left to lose, reckless and vicious. But tonight, for the first time since Aisha was taken, we had pushed them back. The Silver Lake territory that had been soaked with blood for weeks now held our banners once again. As the tall glass doors of the neutral hospital opened, warm light spilled across the courtyard, chasing away the stink of war. Inside, the air changed. The antiseptic scent mingled with wolf musk and human exhaustion, but there was life here. Life I swore to protect. Emma met me first. She rushed through the crowd o