Chapter 43
Konstantine
Minutes prior
Apollo and I ran away from one tumult toward another in search of our mate. His fur was drenched. Thick droplets swept in the wind, spraying the dust that flew around us with the blood of those whose lives had been claimed.
I barely remembered fighting. The rattle of the bond was blocking everything else from my mind. Only when Menhyt called for me to run did I see the wasteland that the once-peaceful valley had become. Bodies littered the earth, carrion for the crows until they could be burned.
The delta wolf had not known the reason for my command, but in learning the truth of what Cyrus had said, she sought vengeance of her own design.
Unlike Typhon, reveling in the passion of a kill was not to her taste.
Menhyt’s virtue lay in bringing swift justice and balance where there was none.
Her strategy was methodical but no less savage than the gamma wolf, who viewed every death as a prize.
Justice, however, was messy no matter how accurate or precise. It was written in our code. And no one believed in this code more than Menhyt. Not even me.
Together, she and Tyr led the warriors in the onslaught that had finally broken the line. They’d attacked on three fronts, from the inside, then out, splitting it open and parting the sea through which I had been the first to pass.
As the wolves dispersed, carnage reigned free. Menhyt allowed the warriors their fill of revenge.
And called them back when the deed was done.
The castle grounds stirred, the commotion spilling into the main road, and I set my sights there.
Soldiers, human or in their human forms, hindered my view. They dropped from the treetops, flattening the hedges, and in their hands…
Guns, Apollo growled.
In Cyrus’s brief relay, I had learned my mother had been shot. To see guns in the hands of so many shifters was a disturbing discovery and not in our creed. We were first and foremost creatures of nature, born of the earth. We fought, we killed, we loved, and we died by our claws and our teeth.
There were those who still hunted us to this day. Yet on these lands, their weapons were no better than malfunctioning trinkets, courtesy of the Fire. That was until today, my mother being the cautionary tale.
Apollo warned the pack to proceed with care, but his legs maintained their speed. The gaps between soldiers fluttered open and closed, and through them, a shock of long, indigo hair was seen.
Apollo! We need to shift!
We’re stronger this way, Konstantine, he replied.
She needs to know it’s me, I answered. At the mention of Arax, my wolf understood and let go. My feet pummeled into the dirt, and the earth quaked.
I didn’t need the bond to clue me in to Arax’s fear, not when my own was driving my legs faster, beating the ground into submission. I was getting closer with my pack on my heels, echoing the tracks I’d left in my haste.
The images in front of me were unfolding slowly, but I was still too far away to change its course.
A break in their formation revealed a standoff between two men, one of them holding my mate.
A spark of recognition ignited. The picture I’d seen in his dossier was of a time long past; he looked much older than his twenty-seven years—hazel eyes and a straight nose, refined angular features just like his sister.
I stared in horror at Andranik, the risen brother who grabbed his twin and held her close, slowly turning them in place with two guns drawn.
The other man had his back toward me. His aura was not of an alpha nor a beta. The squared shoulders and his stance, the easy command over his soldiers… these were the marks of a gamma. I had not sensed the presence of an alpha. They were either in hiding or had cowardly chosen to stay away.
That’s the bastard in charge. Apollo seared at the observation.
Andy spun them, and the man halted his battalion, though he himself still approached.
I saw him turn and glance toward my pack as he walked.
Andy tensed, warding him off, and whispered to Arax, then his lips moved, sneering at the man.
His expression was morose, pained… a mix of fear and anger, disillusionment and disappointment, and loss.
He swerved his head straight in the direction of my path, his eyes going to his sister, then focusing on me.
Even at a distance, the message was received.
Stall, Andranik, I thought to him. Keep stalling, boy. I’m almost there.
But that fucking gamma had other plans. Knowing his time was nearly up, he made his move and dove.
And all hell broke loose.
Recovering quickly, the gamma gave out an order, and the soldiers turned toward us, executioner style. Bullets whizzed passed me, one grazing my side. The hot sting of silver branded itself onto my flesh. Another narrowly missed my cheek.
Our front line did not stray. In the seconds I had slowed, sharing Arax’s pain, they overtook me, bearing the brunt of the firing squad, risking their lives for my officers and me. Looking around, I was flanked by Menhyt and Tyr to my left, and Typhon to my right.
I kept my eyes ahead. The wayward gamma took the butt of his gun and jammed Andranik twice in the face, the second blow knocking him out cold.
He knelt before Arax and dug his hands into her leg.
When he stood, they were dripping, streaked with her blood, and he belted out a roar, the sound of a frustrated man whose mission had gone down in flames.
He took Andranik and dragged his limp body by the legs, darting between his men, using them as cover to make his getaway.
“Do not lose him, Damiano!” I shouted into the link. “I want bodies in the watchtowers. Monitor his every move, but do not engage!”
I couldn’t afford to gamble with Andranik’s life.
“Guards, seal the gates!” I commanded further. “Menhyt, spare anyone you can. Get them off the field and to the north and eastern borders. No one escapes this place.”
Both responded in the affirmative.
I diverted my attention back to my mate, shouting at Typhon and the deltas to clear a circle around her.
I didn’t see what I was doing, instead it was just the crack of bones and agonized grunts I caused in creating a path to her.
The image I had seen in the few moments before the chaos would forever be burned into my soul.
The fire inside of her had languished to a smolder.
I’d always likened her to a rose, beautiful and bright but deadly, blooming with wild thorns.
Dropping next to her on my knees, I saw the thorns had been clipped, the petals drooping.
This day had beaten her, reduced her to a bruised, wilted flower.
The earth soaked up the wetness that oozed from her wound.
Blood sputtered, timed and in sync with the failing beats of her broken heart.
Arax’s gaze met mine, and the frost of her stare made it hard for me to breathe.
So much resentment tarnished those silver-grey eyes.
Through the clouded red mist of my fury, I summoned Drake.
He appeared beside me, and seeing what I saw, his wolf took over, Typhon’s anger equal to my own.
“Hospital, now,” I ordered.
“Why me?” He snarled, his bloodlust volcanic, but rose with Arax cradled to his chest. Seeing his protest go unanswered, he turned and took off.
“Take out anyone who gets in your way,” I said to him as the last of my coherent thoughts left me and my wrath slowly took their place.
“Tyr, keep a few alive for questioning,” I said just as I felt my body start its shift.
“And slaughter the rest,” Apollo said, finishing the decree before he howled our grief to the sky, grabbed the closest soldier, and tore him apart limb from limb.
In every corner of the grounds, the reckoning continued. Blood was sure to saturate the foliage until the landscape was brushed in a solid shade of scarlet.
Screams were cut off at their head.
Tyr and his unit wrangled with those whom they had designated to live, but as they were about to be taken, they turned their weapons on themselves or each other, choosing death over capture, their secrets dying with them.
Menhyt tackled one from behind and tossed his weapon aside.
The man coughed, and his body convulsed.
She flipped him on his back with her snout and instantly retreated.
Foam erupted from his mouth, and from where I stood, his throat was collapsing, the flesh melting right off.
The poison he’d ingested had dissolved even the bone, and he lay there unmoving, a marked space severing head from body.
Amid it all, their gamma was nowhere to be seen.
Goddess, he left his men here to die! Menhyt cried, her tone contemptuous of a leader who’d broken the laws of engagement by abandoning his people and leaving them for slaughter.
“Alpha, Deltas, we’ve tracked him north.”
She stiffened, hearing Damiano.
“I’m coming with you,” she declared. “Tyr will take over the situation here.”
The guards were doing the last of their sweeps in and out of the castle, trying to hunt for any who may have survived.
Yet somehow, I knew there were none.
“Someone locate the beta!” I bellowed and looked at Menhyt. “That gamma has her brother.”
“I understand, Alpha,” she replied, and we veered off, Menhyt to the mountains and me to the catacombs housed beneath the castle.
Built to appear unassuming, they were a place to honor our ancestors.
However, for those who knew, the tunnels served a greater purpose as a shortcut through the rock, leading to the borders.
As I ran, I linked the doctor.
“Your mother will be fine. The silver was diluted and extracted before it reached her heart. I just got word the beta has been found. He’s alive and is being transported here now.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, but my respite was short. The doctor continued.
“But, Arax… She’s hemorrhaging, Alpha,” he stated bluntly. “I promise you we’re doing all that we can.”