77 Chapter 77
Asher
I stalk through the banquet hall, my vision tinged with crimson rage. The Fiddleback wolves cower against the floor tiles, submission rippling through their bodies as my dominance rolls over them. But I don’t care about their fear.
I need answers.
“Merrick!” My roar shakes the crystal chandeliers. “Face me, you coward!”
Wolf–Eye’s voice cuts through the mess in my head. Hospital says there’s no patient registered
under Violet’s name. No blonde human female admitted in the last 48 hours. She’s gone.
The world stops.
Everything narrows to a pinpoint of blinding rage. My chest constricts. My skin burns.
Violet. My Violet. Gone.
Where is she?
“Merrick!”
Movement flickers at the edge of my vision. The wolves on the floor–supposedly flattened by my dominance–spring to their feet with impossible speed. Eyes gleam with malice, not fear.
Chaos erupts.
Bodies twist and contort. Bones snap and reform at unnatural speed–alpha speed, and yet too many. Their shifts should take longer. They don’t.
I barely dodge the first attack, and claws graze my shoulder. The wound burns like silver, hindering my natural healing.
As expected, something’s deeply wrong with this pack.
Fenris appears beside me, a colossus of midnight fur and crackling blue energy. This was a trap.
The blessings of the Lycan Throne are manifold; my tattoos allow Fenris a body of his own, but they also give me control of mine.
Lycan. Wolf and human. I can use either form at will.
Together, we are a force few can survive. Where Fenris is black, I am white. Where he glows blue, I glow red.
Favored by the gods. Marked to rule.
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77 Chapter 77
“I don’t care what it was.” I let the shift take me, welcome the split of bone, the stretch of sinew.
“I’ll kill them all.”
A dishwater–blond wolf lunges for my throat. I catch him midair, claws ripping through his ribs. Blood sprays across my muzzle as he drops, lifeless.
Three more charge and I dive low.
My claws tear through soft underbelly, disemboweling one. The others hit Fenris; he snaps a spine in his jaws and crushes another underfoot as he grows another foot in size.
If he keeps this up, he’ll burn out before we get through them all.
I have enough power to get through this, he growls. Now focus!
They keep coming. Ten. Twenty. Too many.
My dominance lashes out, a tidal wave of power capable of stopping a heart. It slides off them like mist.
Then they are not wolves, Fenris says, his voice eerily calm in the havoc. Only graves await those who oppose our throne.
A russet wolf sinks her teeth into my thigh. Pain lances up my leg. I grab her by the scruff and slam her into the marble floor. Her skull cracks, broken as easily as splintered wood. But there’s no time to finish her–two more have already taken her place.
I feel Wolf–Eye’s arrival as he tears through the back ranks, but there’s something more important for him to do.
Get to the hospital, I snap. Find Violet.
I can’t leave you-
FIND HER! I rarely touch him with dominance, but there’s no time for hesitation. Violet is in danger.
He hesitates, then vanishes in the chaos.
I’ll clear his path, Fenris snarls, leaping over the pack. He crushes wolves like ants under his paws, drawing attention as Wolf–Eye slips through the breach.
One wolf with strange markings circles me, too calm. I feint right, then drive forward. He pivots fast–but not fast enough. My jaws close around his throat. He drops.
More come.
I twist and crush the leg of one attacker in my jaws–bone splinters. But the wolf doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. His teeth stay buried in my hindquarters.
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77 Chapter 77
Do you feel it? I ask Fenris.
Indeed.
There are no yelps. No howls of pain. Only the mechanical rhythm of violence: bone cracking, flesh tearing, silence.
They don’t fight like wolves. They fight like machines. Like puppets with no souls.
I tear into another throat. Blood mats my white fur crimson. My wounds throb, but adrenaline overrides pain. How many left? I demand; he has a better view of the battlefield.
Less than half.
The weight of four wolves drags me down, their jaws locked deep. Blood slicks the floor.
I thrash. A russet she–wolf gnaws into my shoulder. Her teeth grind into my bones, and she refuses to let go.
A flash of blue light and Fenris towers above, a mountain of snarling fur with wolves clinging like ticks. He shakes. Bodies fly.
He barrels toward me.
With one sweep of his paw, he flings the wolves off me. One slams into a pillar. It cracks.
This is taking too long. My breath is ragged, coming in short, sharp pants.
It won’t be much longer, Fenris assures me.
Power shimmers around him. He grows, stretching until his back brushes the chandelier above. Another waste of his energy, but I can already feel him ignoring my opinion.
Stand clear.
I leap aside. No time to argue over his choices in battle.
His skull hits the chandelier and it crashes to the floor, crushing a wolf beneath it. Darkness swallows a quarter of the room.
The wolves hesitate, and that opening is all we need.
Fenris sweeps a massive paw, catching at least eight wolves. They crash into pillars, tables, walls -clearing a path.
I lunge through the opening. Two wolves react fast–one gets a claw across my flank. The other I tear apart mid–leap.
I scan the room. Bodies litter the floor, but too many still stand. Still fight. Still block my path to Violet.
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77 Chapter 77
A gray wolf lunges from behind a broken table. I sidestep. My teeth tear through his flank–no scream, no cry–just silence.
Even dying, they make no sound.
Blood drips from my muzzle. My legs ache. My side burns. But I feel nothing.
Only purpose.
A wolf leaps from behind–raking claws down my back. I whirl, bite down on its spine. One sharp twist–it drops.
Another charges.
I spear through it like a blade, jaw clamping around its head. Bone crunches. Still, no scream.
A flicker of movement to my left. I twist–too late. A wolf slams into me, teeth locking on my
ribs. I feel them crack.
Fenris is already there.
He crushes the wolf beneath a single forepaw.
And then, as if every one of them were little more than a marionette, they crumple to the floor. All at once, twitching and groaning, as if they’ve returned to their senses.
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