The Wolf King

The two have sex. Callum wakes her twice more during the night to have sex. The next morning, Aurora wakes first and goes outside. Standing on the shore, she feels happy, safe, and free for the first time. Callum joins her. They have sex again, then he announces he will hunt for a proper breakfast.

While Aurora waits by the campfire, two of James’s men, including Duncan, spot her on the shore. She runs toward the forest where Callum went, screaming his name. She trips over a branch, and as she scrambles up, five men surround her. Blake grabs her from behind, presses a drugged cloth over her mouth, and whispers that she should have run faster before she loses consciousness.

Aurora wakes in a dungeon cell, overhearing Blake telling a guard that Callum is secured. The guard departs, and Blake taunts Aurora. She accuses him of betraying them to gain favor with the wolves. Blake refutes this by revealing he killed his wolf father and another wolf who bit him, showing her a jagged scar as proof. He confesses his true goal is not to belong to the wolves but to rule them. He warns Aurora that revealing his plan to James would endanger them all.

Blake leads her to a drawing room where James is waiting. He confirms Sebastian is coming and admits he does not care about the Heart of the Moon, a Goddess-blessed relic—he only wants to hurt Sebastian. James reveals that Sebastian captured and killed his and Callum’s mother years ago, sending her fur coat to their father as proof. James never told Callum the truth.

James presents Aurora with a choice: be traded to Sebastian and likely die in the ensuing battle, or marry James, become his queen, and humiliate Sebastian.

Aurora immediately refuses James’s proposal. James grows angry, questioning why she would refuse the position of queen. She tells him he is only king because Callum allowed it. Enraged, James backhands her across the face, but she refuses again.

James orders his men to return her to the dungeon until sundown to reconsider. He tells Blake to do whatever is necessary to make her choose correctly. Aurora is hung from the ceiling by handcuffs, her arms screaming in pain. She resolves to die on her own terms by escaping during the battle rather than marrying James.

Blake enters with a flask and tries to persuade her to accept James’s offer, arguing it is her only chance of survival. He claims the only lie he told her was pretending to recognize her from the palace when they first met, admitting he only guessed her identity. Aurora refuses the drink and struggles violently with Blake when he approaches. They end up with her legs wrapped around his waist, their faces inches apart. Aurora threatens to bite off his tongue if he kisses her. Blake, looking disgusted, drops her and leaves without another word.

At sundown, a guard collects her to bring her to the Wolf King.

A guard takes Aurora to a cold room and orders her to bathe and dress. She recognizes the white dress as the one she was meant to wear for her first meeting with the Wolf King. Outside, a hundred of James’s men prepare for battle.

On her way to meet James, she confronts Blake, telling him he will one day be his own undoing. He walks away without responding. She approaches James and maintains her refusal to marry him, attempting to propose another option, but he ignores her. He mounts a horse with her and delivers a battle speech rallying his men, vowing to kill Sebastian.

As they ride toward the meeting point, Aurora proposes a plan: give her a weapon, let her go with Sebastian, and she will kill him herself. Aurora confesses she loves Callum, which is why she cannot marry James. He halts and gives her a knife, telling her he is giving her a chance for his brother’s sake, but his men will still attack. They continue riding to a valley where Sebastian’s army awaits. James sends a scout to confirm Sebastian’s presence. He and 10 of his men ride down into the valley with Aurora.

Aurora and James’s party meet Sebastian and his 10 men in the valley. One of Sebastian’s men, a wolf, sniffs Aurora and lies that she is still a virgin, saving her from being killed. The exchange proceeds: Duncan receives a box containing a glowing white rock in return for Aurora, who is pushed to Sebastian’s side.

Sebastian provokes James by insulting him and implying what he did to their mother. As James lunges, one of Sebastian’s archers shoots him in the shoulder with an arrow, signaling the start of battle. James’s army charges down the hillside. The moon is temporarily blocked by clouds, plunging the valley into darkness.

The Heart of the Moon begins to glow in its box, and an ancient female voice sings on the wind, seemingly in answer to Aurora’s prayer to the Moon Goddess. The moon reappears, brighter than before, flooding the valley with blinding light. The light allows the wolves to shift even though it is not a full moon. James and his men transform into wolves, as does one of Sebastian’s men. The battle erupts with wolves tearing into the Borderlands army. Sebastian throws Aurora into a carriage, and they flee the battlefield.

In the speeding carriage, Sebastian taunts Aurora about her time with the wolves. He confirms that her father murdered her mother with an unnamed poison. Aurora pretends to be submissive and straddles Sebastian’s lap to get close to him. She draws her hidden knife, but he catches her wrist before she can strike.

He overpowers her, knocking the knife from her hand. He threatens her with assault, but something crashes into the carriage, sending it rolling down a hill. The carriage comes to rest on its side. Aurora sees the knife embedded in the wood near Sebastian, knees him in the groin, grabs the blade, and slits his throat. Sebastian dies cryptically warning that “Night” is spreading and will consume them all.

Aurora climbs from the wreckage and find James in wolf form stalking toward her. Ignoring her pleas, James attacks, sinking his teeth into her waist. As he prepares to deliver a killing blow, he is ripped away by another wolf, Callum. He fights, but James gains the upper hand and bites Callum’s neck.

As Aurora tries to help, a black wolf crashes into James. Blake and James shift back to human form, with Blake holding James by the throat. Blake yells at Callum to take Aurora and run. Callum, now human again, gathers the severely bleeding Aurora in his arms and flees.

Aurora has a vision of freeing a trapped, bleeding white wolf that then flees. She wakes briefly to find Callum begging her to live. Blake arrives and, to keep her conscious and fighting, taunts her with cruel, sexual insults meant to enrage her. His efforts fail as she continues to fade.

Blake reveals to Callum that Aurora is a half-wolf, like himself, and that James’s bite will either kill her or force her dormant wolf to emerge. Blake says he can try to save her by sharing his life force with her, a ritual he read about. Blake pushes Callum aside, presses his forehead to Aurora’s, and begins chanting in an unknown language.

As Aurora dies, she makes a silent vow to live differently if she survives—to love wholly and never be shackled again. She feels Blake’s life force and instinctively pulls it into herself. As she draws on his essence, she experiences flashes of his memories: shackles, blood, pain, a whip, poison, and darkness. She sees a vision of a ruined church with a snarling beast in a crypt.

Callum rips Blake away from her. Aurora’s fatal wound is gone. She is weak but alive. Blake, looking shaken, says they will go to his castle for safety.

Aurora wakes in Blake’s castle, overhearing Callum and Blake talking. Blake explains he only incapacitated James. Blake mentions Aurora’s scars are from a Southlands tradition of beating those with wolf genes to suppress their wolf nature.

Aurora fully wakes and recounts her capture to Callum. He vows to kill James and take the throne. Aurora feels an alien surge of triumph and laughs without understanding why. Blake confirms that sharing his life force created a magical bond between them, allowing them to feel each other’s emotions and pain. Enraged, Callum attacks Blake, but Aurora cries out in pain. Blake points out that, due to the bond, hurting or killing him will hurt or kill Aurora. He warns that if James captures him, any torture will also be inflicted on Aurora. Blake offers to help Callum recruit the outlying clans to challenge James.

Callum confirms what Sebastian told her about her father murdering her mother, adding Blake’s theory that her mother was a wolf, that the poison used was wolfsbane, and that James’s bite may have activated Aurora’s latent wolf gene. Aurora accepts the plan to take the throne, wanting revenge.

Later, Aurora wakes to find Blake bringing her tea for the pain he can also feel through their bond. She confronts him, having pieced together his scheme: He orchestrated everything to make Callum challenge and defeat James. The life bond ensures that once Callum is king, Blake can challenge him for the throne—a fight Callum cannot win without killing Blake and therefore Aurora, forcing him to forfeit. Blake will become the Wolf King. Blake smiles, raises his glass, and offers a toast to the king.