The Warlord's Plus Size Luna

Artemis POV

The thick, muggy mid-summer heat pressed down on the eastern borderlands like a physical weight, drawing beads of sweat from the hundreds of warriors amassed in the high grass. Before the armies officially clashed, the leaders met at the center line for what was supposed to be a final demand for tribute.

I stood behind my father and brother, my heart pounding against my leather armor. Across the dividing line stood the BloodMoon leadership, led by the towering, silent presence of Alpha Daemon Thorne. But it was his second-in-command who stepped forward to break the tense silence.

Beta Kaelen stepped into the gap, his eyes flashing an icy grey-blue, his jaw tight with generations of unyielding pack hatred. He looked past my father, his gaze landing squarely on my brother with an arrogant, mocking sneer.

"You look beautiful in your polished silver armor, Apollo," Kaelen drawled, his gravelly voice dripping with venomous condescension. "But you should have stayed behind the high stone walls of your palace. You are a young pup playing a warrior's game, and you are in absolutely no position to stop the BloodMoon from taking what is ours. Run back to your nursery before we clip your wings."

Apollo’s jaw clenched, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened on the hilt of his broadsword. His silver-and-white plate armor practically vibrated with the sudden, violent surge of his inner wolf's fury.

"I am a prince of the MoonFang pack, Beta," Apollo hissed back, stepping directly into Kaelen's space, matching his height. "And this 'pup' will gladly feed your arrogance to the crows."

"Enough talk," Kaelen roared.

With a synchronized, terrifying crack of bones fracturing and reshaping, both Kaelen and Apollo shifted mid-air. Kaelen exploded into a massive, heavily scarred slate-grey wolf, his jaws snapping shut with lethal force. Apollo met him instantly, shifting into a powerful, silver-furred wolf that gleamed under the blazing mid-summer sun.

The two beasts slammed into each other in the center of the field, claws ripping and teeth tearing in a brutal explosion of dust and fur.

That single, savage collision was the spark that blew the powder keg wide open.

"Charge!" the commanders screamed from both sides.

Sitting astride his midnight-black war horse on the ridge above, Alpha Daemon Thorne watched the chaos unfold. His piercing amber eyes tracked the fight between Kaelen and Apollo. A low, dismissive rumble vibrated in his chest. Kaelen was fighting with raw, vengeful brutality, but the young MoonFang prince was holding his own with surprising speed, his silver fur flashing like a mirror through the clouds of dust.

Daemon didn’t care about the petty rivalry of second-in-commands. He cared about ending the war.

His gaze swept past the front lines, searching the field until his eyes locked onto the secondary MoonFang line. His inner wolf stirred, a strange, unexplainable prickle of awareness rippling along his spine, though he couldn't see my face beneath the shadows of the vanguard shields.

With a feral baring of his fangs, Daemon kicked his horse into a gallop, drawing his massive battleaxe as he plunged down the ridge to spearhead the main BloodMoon assault.

Down in the sweltering, dust-choked grass, the battle raged for what felt like hours under the baking sun. Apollo had shifted back into his human form to coordinate a defensive wedge, his silver-and-white armor splattered with dark blood, sweat dripping down his face as he cleared a path through the throngs of attacking wolves.

I watched from the secondary line, my chest heaving beneath my heavy leather armor, the suffocating summer heat pressing down on me. As a princess of MoonFang, I wasn't supposed to be in the thick of it, but I refused to cower behind castle walls while my pack bled in the sweltering sun.

Suddenly, a sharp thwip sliced through the chaotic roar of the battlefield.

An iron-tipped arrow, fired from a blind angle on the southern ridge, caught Apollo directly in the side. The force of the impact shattered his armor, throwing him violently into the sun-baked mud.

"Apollo!"

A terrifying panic seized me. I abandoned my guard and rushed headlong into the fray, ducking beneath swinging blades and snapping jaws until I fell to my knees in the dirt beside my brother.

"Artemis... get back..." Apollo choked out, his hand clutching the arrow shaft as blood leaked through his fingers, staining the vibrant green grass.

The sight of his blood made something snap deep within my chest. I didn't just feel panic; I felt the absolute fracturing of the lifelong restrictions my father had forced upon my soul. The thick, muggy summer air stagnated for a split second, drawing inward before my violet eyes flared with a brilliant, blinding violet light.

Instead of adding to the summer heat, a sharp, localized vacuum tore through the space between us. I ripped the arrow from his side, and before the blood could pool, I channeled my elemental powers. With a flick of my wrist, a condensed swirl of high-pressure wind gathered around my palms, pressing hard against the torn flesh. The heavy summer oxygen compressed tightly into the puncture, sealing the blood vessels and violently stitching the wound closed with invisible, crushing atmospheric pressure.

Apollo gasped as the cool, compressed air itself bound him together, but his eyes blew wide with sheer terror. He gripped my wrist with failing strength, his voice a frantic whisper. "STOP! Artemis, they'll see you! Stop!"

Across the blood-soaked field, our father, the MoonFang Alpha, caught the sudden, unnatural distortion of light and air amidst the shimmering heat waves. Spotting his two children stranded and vulnerable in the dead center of the charging lines, a desperate roar tore from his throat. He shifted instantly, his massive white wolf form throwing itself across the dust-choked field to shield us from the oncoming cavalry.

But the true nightmare was already closing in.

Sprinting to enter the fray was Alpha Daemon Thorne. He dismounted his massive black war horse in one fluid, lethal motion, his body twisting and expanding as he shifted mid-air into an enormous, midnight-black wolf with razor-sharp claws and teeth bared to tear our throats out. He was an unstoppable engine of destruction, kicking up clouds of dry summer dirt as he locked his sights directly onto my father's exposed flank.

I stood up, stepping out from behind my father’s massive form, and met the monster head-on. I looked the giant black wolf straight in the eyes, letting my burning violet gaze lock onto his piercing amber ones under the harsh glare of the summer sun.

The moment our eyes met, the chaotic roar of the battlefield seemed to vanish into absolute silence.

The massive black wolf abruptly slammed his paws into the baked earth, skidding to a violent, impossible halt just inches from my face, kicking up a spray of dust. The ferocity in his stance completely dissolved, replaced by a sudden, stunned paralysis. The dark amber of his irises bled into a deep, consuming black as his inner wolf overrode every predatory instinct in his body, echoing a single, devastating word through the fated bond that instantly locked our souls together:

MATE.

Artemis POV

The silence that followed the word MATE was louder than the entire battle that preceded it.

Dust motes danced in the sweltering mid-summer sun, hanging suspended between my face and the dripping fangs of the massive midnight-black wolf. Daemon’s chest heaved; his huge paws dug deep into the baked earth just inches from my boots. The primal fury that had radiated from him seconds ago had completely vanished, replaced by a sudden, consuming stillness. His amber eyes had turned completely black, locked onto my violet gaze as if he were trying to swallow my very soul.

Beneath my skin, the fated-mate bond snapped shut like a steel trap. A violent, intoxicating jolt of heat surged through my veins, making my breath hitch. My inner wolf threw her head back and roared, instantly recognizing her match, defying every rule of my MoonFang upbringing.

"Mate," Aura, my wolf, purred.

"Artemis..." Apol