The Wolf (Everdark Tales #2)

19.

King

T he stench of fear hits me first. Sharp. Bitter. Human.

The lights of the military base flicker in the distance. Humans believe they are safe behind the walls with all their top security measures in place. They always do.

Until we remind them who the more advanced species are. And once invaded, it’ll be nothing but their fucking casket.

But they are panicking inside, already knowing we’re closing in, and the backup is on its way. This highly remote area has the finest surveillance, after all. And, of course, the witches fried all of their tech gadgets—no drones, no turrets, no more toys to hide behind. It is just us and them now.

They didn’t expect a hit in the daytime, which is why we chose that—it limits their vampires to underground action. My friends lived long enough not to be affected by the sun. Only a few are a bit younger and not at full potential, but they are still here ready to fight.

I bare my teeth, tasting the desert air as I crouch by the fence. My team of werewolves is ready in the shadows—muscles coiled, claws digging into the dry sand. There’s a dozen of us, and we are at the forefront of the attack.

Then Farah does her thing, far from the mountaintop, where Satan’s also waiting for his cue. Her power lifts like an invisible mist, and the electricity is cut off. It will take a second before the backup generator kicks in. But a second is enough—we are the strongest and fastest beings on earth.

I raise my hand in a silent signal and we leap forward, barely a whisper of fur and muscle, but I can hear their hearts pounding. It’s not from fright. No, we are born for this. The humans inside that base will soon know it, too.

It’s the excitement .

The perimeter fence crackles with the last surge of electric charge before it dies. Not that it would do us much harm. But we don’t want to raise the alarm yet. We move as one—over the fence, through the first line of defense—and are inside before the guards even register the breach.

A shout. Gunfire. Too slow.

I am already on the first soldier, my claws slicing through his throat before he can pull the trigger. Blood sprays into the air, and his body crumples to the ground, limp. His weapon falls from his hands, useless. Another guard screams. I snarl and dart toward him, my vision narrowing as adrenaline surges through my veins. Right after, I rip through another soldier’s armor with a single swipe, his body collapsing under me.

The military has numbers, but we’ve got something they don’t—animal rage. Pure, wild, and untamed.

Behind me, the others move like lightning, tearing through the soldiers that rush out of the barracks. A barrage of bullets lights up their way, but they barely graze us. Their eyesight can’t even keep up with our movements. They don’t stand a chance.

I howl—a guttural sound that sends a ripple through my people—and we surge forward toward the entrance, Edwin right by my side, ripping apart the incoming humans better than any machine they could ever make.

It's time for the vampires and other witches. Penny leads them to scatter the surroundings and attack any incoming backup once we storm the inside of the main base.

As we break through, the thick steel doors buckle like paper under my claws. I feel the vibrations of the impact reverberate up my arms. Inside, the cool, metallic odor mixes with chemicals, gunpowder, and the unmistakable scent of trapped lives.

The government-made weapons. I can smell them in the air. They aren’t like us—born naturally with our power and abilities. No, the humans twisted them into something worse. Tools for war. Slaves. Beings that should’ve never existed. Creatures locked away, tortured, and forced to fight for the ones who made them and imprisoned them.

But they don’t have to fight for the humans. Not after tonight.

We tear down the last door. From there, we take the staircase to the underground level, entering the long, white-tiled hallway holding a row of cells. The sterile white lights flicker harshly above as the electricity kicks back in. We don’t need it with our night vision. And somehow, it makes the place grow colder, more eerie.

Before I can reach the first cell, I hear footsteps approaching—heavy, armored. Human soldiers round the opposite end of the hallway. But they aren’t alone. A vampire and werewolf mix leads them, bigger than my kind, his eyes glowing red under the harsh lights. The same type of hybrid that we fought back in Michigan.

He growls, hunching, ready to attack. I meet his gaze, and for a split second, I see something there. He isn’t like the humans. He has tasted power, but he doesn’t know freedom. Not yet.

We charge.

He leaps toward me, claws in defense. I meet him mid-air, slamming into his side with a force that shakes the space. We hit the ground hard, rolling in a blur of fur and fangs. He is strong. Stronger than I remember, but I’m not affected by silver this time. I know I can end him. His claws dig into my arm, yet I twist away and lash out with my own, ripping through his chest.

He snarls in pain, but it only seems to drive him further. We circle each other, breath ragged, muscles coiled. Then, he lunges again, aiming for my throat. I duck under his attack, ramming my shoulder into his midsection. He gasps as the air is knocked from his lungs, and I slam him against the wall, crushing the tiles under the impact. My claws are at his throat now, his heartbeat pounding against my hand.

“You don’t have to fight for them,” I growl, my voice low. “Look at yourself. You’re not one of them.”

I wish I could see the conflict in his eyes, the confusion, any apprehension. But there’s none of that. And when his human handler shouts, “Take him down!” I see the switch flip in the hybrid’s mind. They have him conditioned. Trained.

He’s too far gone. Edwin’s voice rings in my ears. You’re wasting time.

He’s right. I know what I have to do. There’s no mercy left to give.

Without another second of hesitation, my grip tightens, the pressure against his throat increasing as my claws pierce deeper. The hybrid’s struggles intensify, but they’re futile. In one swift, savage motion, I twist his head to the side. There’s a loud crack, and I feel the resistance snap under my grip. His body jerks, limp and lifeless, as the life drains from him.

For a heartbeat, I hold him there, my claws still embedded in his throat, just feeling the finality of it. Then, with a sharp motion, I rip his head clean off, the flesh tearing with an unpleasant wet sound. What’s left of his body slumps to the ground, the severed head dangling from my hand—the eyes are completely empty, gone, but perhaps, he is running free at last.

I drop it with a thud and turn toward the soldiers with a snarl, blood dripping from my claws.

They open fire and the chaos erupts as the whole space lights up with muzzle flashes and deafening bursts of gunfire. It’s just regular bullets—won’t do anything to us. But they try—I give it to them.

Meanwhile, Maddox— of course —leaps ahead and crashes into the line of soldiers, claws flashing through the air. The first man drops, throat torn open before he can even scream. Tristan follows right after his younger brother. Blood paints the walls in a visceral mural of violence as they work in tandem. The soldiers fall one by one, their attempts to retaliate in vain against the speed and brutality of my nephews.

Then, I smell a group of vampires nearing in—not our friends.

Now we’re talking.

“Hold the line!” I shout, bracing for the impact.

A split second later, the hallway explodes into a maelstrom as they pour out from the tunnels deeper underground like shadows, together with a couple more white wolves.

The fight is brutal and fast. There’s double of them than us, but they aren’t quite a match for my kind. The hybrids, however, are much more vicious, better skilled than the one I just killed.

Edwin strikes first, moving so fast that the vampire soldiers barely register his claws before they’re torn apart. The rest of my team joins him momentarily, slaughtering the formation and overpowering one of the wolves. The other one is left for me.

I charge forward and leap at the hybrid, landing on his chest. His ribcage collapses under the force with a satisfying crunch, a gurgled scream dying in his throat as my claws rake across his muzzle. Pain flares as his claws sink deep into my sides, drawing blood, but I manage to roll free, wrestling out of his grasp. With a powerful kick of my back paws, I hurl him into the reinforced glass of one of the cells, which shatters on impact.

And there, I see a creature—similar to me… yet not. Part man, part tiger, who seems forever stuck in that form. He growls low, stirring around the cell, as his eyes meet mine.

“Go ahead. You’re free,” I say, trying to keep my voice non-threatening.

He hesitates, sniffing the air, his long whiskers working with the pink nose. Then he stumbles out, muscles rippling under his black-striped, orange fur, tail curling behind. But his movements are sluggish, almost uncoordinated, as though they’re carrying a weight I can’t see.

Then I notice the collar—thick, metallic, and glowing faintly red with some sort of built-in suppressor. I catch a whiff of magic and tech fused together in a way that makes my fur bristle.

I move to the next cell and find a towering reptilian figure. His emerald scales shimmer under the light, and a forked tongue flicks out nervously every few seconds. My eyes drop to his wide neck, and sure enough—he’s wearing the same kind of collar.

These poor things aren’t just prisoners. They’ve been muzzled too. Whatever powers they have are locked down.

From the other side, more soldiers arrive, blocking our way back out. These men are much better armed—riot shields, grenade launchers, flamethrowers. And silver rounds. Always the damned silver.

“Penny, status!” I growl, knowing she can easily catch that from the distance.

“The jets are in the air, and they’ve got reinforcements moving in fast. You have to get out of there now.”

“We’ve got complications. I need Farah in here!”

She appears on top of the stairs behind the formation in barely a moment, her eyes glowing with a deadly intensity. With a flick of her wrist, a wave of dark energy blasts through the hallway, hurling soldiers into the walls like chess pawns, making a way for her. She then pulls out her hand flat in front, and with a blast of energy, all the door locks open with a loud click. The mutants stumble out of their cells like babies, blinking against the harsh lights.

Once Farah is by my side, I gesture to the collars. “Can you deal with those?”

She kneels beside one of the lab-created mutants, a reptilian creature hunched low, his blue eyes darting between us and the chaos still raging in the hallway. Her hands hover over the collar, and her expression darkens.

“This isn’t just technology,” she mutters. “It’s blood-bound magic. Woven into their very essence. Undoing it will take time.”

“We don’t have time,” I rumble, glancing over my shoulder.

“Then keep them off me,” Farah grits out, her fingers glowing as she starts working on the first collar.

I nod to Edwin, and we move to intercept the soldiers. But they’re prepared now, advancing in tight formations, their shields forming an impenetrable wall. A flamethrower spits fire, and I’m forced to leap back. Avoiding getting hit by silver bullets from every side is already challenging enough.

“Help me push them back!” Edwin shouts, ramming into the nearest shield with enough force to send the soldier staggering. Tristan follows, his claws hooking over the top of another shield and yanking it down. But for every soldier we take out, another steps forward to take their place.

Farah curses behind me. “It’s not perfect, but it’s off!”

The reptilian’s collar falls to the floor with a dull clang, and for a moment, the creature just stares at her, bewildered.

“Go!” Farah urges, but the mutant doesn’t move.

It takes me a second to understand why. They’re not used to freedom. Not used to making choices.

I grab him by the shoulder, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Fight or flee, but do something ,” I snarl. “We’re not your enemies. You’re free.”

His serpentine gaze flickers with uncertainty, then with a low hiss, he bolts—not toward the soldiers, but down the hallway.

“Damn it,” I mutter.

Suddenly, the grenade detonates with a sharp, bone-rattling explosion. The blast is deafening, and the shockwave slams me into the wall, knocking the wind from my lungs. There’s static in my ears, and for a moment, everything is a blur—flashes of light, heavy smoke, the copper tang of blood in the air, and the acrid sting of silver irritating my nose.

Through the haze, I spot one of my kind—a loyal friend—lying crumpled on the floor. His chest rises and falls shallowly, his fur singed and matted with blood. The grenade has torn through him, and I can see the telltale burns where the silver has seared his flesh.

“Diego!” I call out, coughing. I push myself to my feet, shaking off the disorientation, and rush to his side, ignoring the burn of a stray silver fragment lodged in my arm.

I drop to my knees beside him in the pooling blood, my claws digging into the floor. His breathing is a visible struggle, his body isn’t healing, the glow in his eyes fading fast.

“Tabatha…” his barely audible voice falters.

Before he can say anything more, his chest falls one last time.

And doesn’t rise again.

The battle around me fades into an eerie stillness as I allow myself a heartbeat to grieve. My claws press deeper into the ground as I wrestle with the helplessness threatening to choke me. He deserved better than this… they deserved better. He and his mate, who stayed back home with their newborn and a toddler. Tabatha, who is now gone too—in a split second, just like him. And their children, who now have no one.

“FUCK!” I bellow, the anguish tearing out of me. Around me, I hear a low, mournful howling as the others realize he’s gone.

Julia…

Alex? Are you okay? Her voice sounds in my head, making the world disappear and my heart full again for the tiniest moment. Something is happening with one of the witches. We’re on our way to check it out in the village.

I love you. It’s all I can manage, the words are a fragile whisper in my mind.

I love you, too. Please be careful.

I glance over to check on Farah. The next collar comes off, but the result is the same. A tiger mutant takes a single look at the battle scene, murmurs an apology, and escapes, shoving past her to vanish into the shadows.

“They’re running,” Edwin growls as he dodges another burst of flame.

“They’ve been broken,” I say more to myself, ducking down from another barrage of bullets.

Farah is sweating now, her magic faltering as she works on a centaur. Oh, yes, the government somehow got their hands on a centaur, though they’ve been extinct for centuries.

“This is slowing me down,” she grits out. “They used a mix of silver and iron to mold these collars.”

“Penny!” I growl to my sister again. “We need more witches down here. And bring some vampires inside, now!”

“A little busy up here, brother!” Her voice reaches me, sharp and focused.

“Let Satan handle the rest.”

“He can’t start nuking this place down yet. The tunnels will collapse on you. You need to abort!”

Before I can reply, one of the soldiers shouts, “Deploy the drones!”

A high-pitched whine fills the air, and I look up to see a swarm of small, metallic devices descending from a ceiling vent. They’re armed with silver-tipped tranquilizer darts. One dives toward me, and I barely manage to swat it aside before it fires.

The centaur’s collar falls away just as one of the drones zips toward Farah. He rears up, hooves striking the air, and slams down on the drone with a resounding crunch.

“About time,” Edwin mutters, baring his teeth in a grim smile.

The centaur exhales sharply, its muscular frame shivering as it glances around, torn between charging the soldiers or running. Finally, it picks up one of the fallen shields and gallops forward, crashing into the human line like a battering ram.

But things aren’t shifting as rapidly as needed. The soldiers are holding their ground, and the creatures we’ve freed are still outnumbered and disoriented. Silver rounds ricochet off the walls, and flames from the flamethrowers sear the air, leaving scorched streaks along the white tiles. The sharp tang of blood mingles with the acrid scent of silver and burning fur.

I lunge at a soldier with the grenade launcher, claws flashing. His shield blocks my first strike, but I turn in the air, slamming my weight against him. The shield buckles under the force, and he’s sent sprawling. My teeth sink into his throat before he can recover, his gurgling scream cut short. I don’t get a chance to savor the small victory—two more soldiers charge at me, their rifles aimed at my head.

“Alex, down!” Edwin’s voice bellows.

I duck instinctively as Edwin barrels into the soldiers, ripping one’s arm clean off with a brutal swipe of his claws. The other soldier stabs at him with a silver-tipped bayonet. Edwin twists, but not fast enough. The blade pierces his side, and he roars in pain, blood pouring from the wound.

“Edwin!” I snarl, cutting down the soldier with a single blow before dragging him to cover.

“I’m okay,” he growls through gritted teeth, clutching his side. But the blood soaking his fur tells me otherwise.

Seeing his father like this, Maddox gets emotional and leaps onto a soldier wielding a flamethrower, his claws shredding the man’s protective gear. The soldier screams as flames engulf him, but Maddox doesn’t escape unscathed. He takes a blast to the chest and stumbles back, patting out the flames with a pained snarl, his fur smoking.

Edwin lets out a howl of rage. “Why is it always your stupid ass?!” he scolds his boy.

“I’m fine!”

He is as fine as his father, but I stay quiet, knowing those are not life-threatening injuries—thankfully.

“You won’t be when your mother learns about this,” Edwin retorts.

And his other boy fares no better. A drone zips past Tristan, firing a burst of tranquilizer darts. One lodges in his shoulder, and his movements falter. He manages to crush the drone with a desperate swing of his claws before another soldier drives a blade into his leg. Tristan collapses, snarling and bleeding, but still trying to crawl back into the fight.

This is helpless.

I look at Farah, who’s working on another collar around the bear mutant’s neck, and then at the approaching reinforcements —more vampire soldiers and wolf hybrids close in on us as we’re being surrounded.

“Farah, we need another way out,” I call as the idea of a good outcome drifts farther and farther away each second.

“I can’t break the collars and make a door appear at the same time!” she snaps back. I can feel the weight of the pressure lying on her shoulders. While she’s also trying her hardest not to pay attention to us and have her maternal love for us get the best of her with worry.

“Then stop the collars,” I say quietly. “We’ll hold them off as long as we can.”

Her hesitation is brief but telling. She abandons the creature she’s working on and turns her focus to the far wall, her hands glowing brighter as she begins carving out an escape route.

Finally, a group of vampires rushes in—our allies—Penny at their lead, and a couple of witches by her side. They move in tandem, speedily ripping through the soldiers as blood sprays across the walls. Katia’s ferocity is especially unmatched as she strikes with surgical precision, dismantling the soldiers before they can reload. But their team takes hits too—one of the vampires is incinerated by a flamethrower, his wail echoing in the tunnels, and the other loses his head.

The chaos intensifies as more mutants are released. Some are hesitant, their instincts dulled by years of captivity and torture. Others leap into action immediately, joining the fray against their captors. The hallway becomes a blood-soaked battlefield, nothing like the pristine space it used to be, the cries of soldiers drowned out by roars and howls.

Then I hear it—a deep, resonating sound, almost a growl but far more menacing. A double-locked, windowless cell is at the end of the hallway. One of the witches managed to open the first lock, and now the cell door shudders as the creature inside slams its body against it, the reinforced steel warping with each impact.

I approach cautiously, signaling for the others to stay back. One final slam, and the door bursts open, revealing the creature in all its terrifying glory. The minotaur—massive and muscular, with matted reddish-brown fur—towers over everyone present, myself included. His bull’s head lowers, steam snorting from his wide nostrils into my face. Eyes like raging infernos bore into me, and for a moment, it’s unclear whether he will attack.

“We’re here to free you,” I say calmly, meeting his gaze. “Not to fight.”

He exhales sharply, straightening to his full height. Then, with surprising grace, he steps past me, his hooves clattering on the floor as he surveys the carnage, the ground shakes with his steps.

A soldier fires at him—a grave mistake. The minotaur’s eyes light with even more fury. No, he isn’t afraid. He’s ready to kill. He charges, skewering the man on its horns and tossing him aside like a rag doll.

“Looks like he’s on our side,” Edwin says, a smirk in his voice as he rejoins me after Penny tries to heal his bleeding side—it’s still bleeding, but the flow has lessened.

And just when I start to believe the tide has turned, one of the wolf hybrids jumps Katia from behind. He has a clear shot. None of us can even react, though the time seems to slow down as we watch how his jaws close around her neck before he spits out her head and it rolls a few feet down the hallway. My ears are ringing but Penny’s gut-wrenching scream is even louder.