Chapter 26 #2
“You will go no further,” the other adds. “The seer is being prepared. The ceremony approaches.”
Cold fury washes through me at their words.
“Step aside,” I order, my voice eerily calm despite the rage building within, “or die where you stand.”
Their response is to extend wickedly curved claws that gleam with silver inlay—weapons that are part of them, impossible to disarm or drop.
“We are the Chosen,” the first declares. “Blood-bound to the Grand Alpha himself. Your strength means nothing here.”
I don’t waste breath arguing. These aren’t ordinary guards to be intimidated or reasoned with. They’re fanatics.
I shift again, ignoring the silver wounds that slow the transformation. Their eyes widen slightly—they expected the silver to have weakened me more substantially, to have prevented another shift so soon. Their miscalculation will cost them everything.
They attack together, moving with unnerving synchronicity.
Silver-laced claws slice through the air where I stood a heartbeat before, missing as I launch upward, using the corridor’s height to my advantage.
My jaws close on the first guard’s shoulder, teeth piercing enhanced muscle and tendon to crush bone beneath.
He screams—a sound no natural wolf would make—as I use his body as leverage to avoid his partner’s attack. Silver claws rake the air inches from my flank as I tear the first guard’s throat out with a savage twist.
The second guard is faster, more cautious after seeing his partner fall. He circles, those unnatural eyes calculating as he assesses my wounds, my stance, my advantages and vulnerabilities.
“You bleed, shadow wolf,” he observes, indicating the silver injuries that continue to burn across my hide. “Soon you’ll weaken. Then you’ll die. All as the Grand Alpha has foreseen.”
I snarl in response, my patience exhausted. This creature’s life means nothing.
We clash again, my greater mass against his enhanced speed.
His claws find purchase, opening new wounds across my shoulder and back, silver burning into flesh with each strike.
But he’s fighting for duty, for a master who values him only as a tool.
I’m fighting for my mate, for the bond that defines my existence.
It’s no contest.
My jaws close around his throat despite the silver claws tearing at my sides. Blood fills my mouth as I crush his windpipe, maintaining my grip until his body finally stops its struggle.
I drop him, blood dripping from wounds that heal too slowly thanks to the silver contamination. I shift back to human form, approaching the doors with caution. The runes carved into them seem to pulse as I near, resonating with a magic that makes my skin crawl.
Kitara, my wolf growls. He too can smell her on the other side.
Her familiar sweet scent is tinged with sweat, blood and fear. They’re hurting her. Preparing her for whatever ceremony they’ve planned
I place my hands against the ancient wood, feeling the magic push back against my touch. It burns, not like silver but deeper, seeking to repel something fundamental in my blood.
But Thaddeus made one critical miscalculation. The wards were created to repel shadow blood, but they don’t account for a claiming bond that connects that blood to another. Through Kitara, I have an anchor. Just as I’m a tether for her when she scries, so too is she a tether for me.
I lean into the doors, and the wards flare, magic crackling visibly along inscribed lines as they resist. I push harder, dropping my shoulder to heave against it.
A crack appears—small at first, then widening as the protective magic fractures.
With a sound like breaking glass, the wards shatter and the massive doors swing open to reveal the chamber beyond.
Torches line the walls, casting dancing shadows across rune-inscribed floors. At the center of the circular room stands a raised dais where silver chains bind a familiar form to an altar of black stone.
Kitara.
Her eyes find mine across the distance, relief swimming in their depths.
“Ryker.” My name has never sounded so sweet.
Between us stand a dozen wolves—guards and what appear to be ritual practitioners in ceremonial robes. At their center, a woman with steel-gray hair holds what looks like a silver dagger.
“The shadow wolf breaches the Sacred Chamber,” she announces, sounding more surprised than alarmed. “The bond must be even stronger than we calculated.”
I step forward, naked and blood-covered but radiating enough lethal intent to make several guards step back instinctively.
“Release my mate,” I order, my voice carrying the full weight of alpha command, “or what follows will become legend for its brutality.”
The woman—clearly the leader of whatever ritual they’ve been preparing—studies. “The bond manifests physical effects even through silver suppression. Remarkable. We really must document this before severing it.”
“You know not what you meddle with,” I warn her, taking another step forward. The guards tense but don’t attack, clearly waiting for their command.
“On the contrary,” she replies, “I understand precisely what I’m dealing with. A claiming bond of exceptional strength, maintained across silver suppression, between an alpha with shadow blood and a seer who cannot shift. The scientific implications alone—”
“Ryker!” Kitara yells, struggling on the dais. “Lithia! They took her—”
The woman signals, and a guard strikes Kitara across the face, silencing her. The blow makes rage explode through me, vision narrowing to a crimson tunnel focused entirely on those who dare harm my mate.
“Touch her again,” I growl, “and I will ensure your death lasts days.”
My growl—or perhaps the blood dripping from my silver wounds onto the ancient stone—finally penetrates the woman’s scientific detachment. Fear flickers in her eyes for the first time.
“Guards,” she orders, backing toward Kitara with the ritual dagger still in hand, “kill the shadow wolf.”
They attack as one, silver weapons gleaming in torchlight. But these aren’t the enhanced monsters that guarded the doorway—these are ordinary wolves, skilled but unprepared for the fury they face.
I shift again, ignoring the burning agony of transformation with silver still in my system. My massive form fills the ceremonial space, claws scrabbling for purchase on smooth stone as I launch toward the first line of guards.
They try to form a defensive wall between me and the altar, but their formation breaks under the sheer momentum of my charge. Bodies fly, silver weapons clatter against stone, screams echo as I tear through flesh and bone with single-minded purpose.
A spear pierces my flank, silver burning into muscle. I snarl, turning to rip the wielder’s head from his shoulders before continuing forward. Another guard manages to bite my foreleg, but the wound only feeds my rage.
I fight with cold, calculated savagery—not the mindless berserker fury they clearly expected but the practiced lethality of a predator who has survived decades of warfare.
Each movement is economical, each kill efficient.
I don’t waste energy on displays of dominance or unnecessary violence—I simply eliminate obstacles between me and my mate.
Kitara is my only thought.
Their leader changes tact as I approach.
“Stay back,” she warns, pressing the ritual dagger to Kitara’s throat. “I’ll kill her right now if you come closer. She’ll be lost to you forever.”
I pause, blood dripping from my jaws, bodies of fallen guards littering the floor around me. The threat is real.
But Kitara meets my gaze across the distance, and I see no fear in her eyes—only fierce determination and absolute trust.
Do it, she mouths silently.
In the heartbeat between one moment and the next, I understand. She’s creating an opening, drawing the woman’s attention to the dagger at her throat rather than my approach. It’s a risk—a terrible one—but Kitara believes in me. In us.
I shift my weight slightly, muscles tensing in preparation. The woman misinterprets the movement as hesitation, a momentary victory that makes her smile.
“That’s right,” she says, confidence returning. “You understand what’s at stake. Now back away or—“
Kitara bites her, her teeth sinking deep into the woman’s arm.
The woman screams, whirling toward Kitara.
I strike—jaws closing around her throat.
Bones shatter beneath my teeth as I wrench, ripping her throat clean out.
The woman’s body falls to lie at my feet, her dagger clattering uselessly to the ground.
The wound will kill her, but not before she suffers for her crimes.
The few remaining guards break, running for the exit in blind panic as I tear through Kitara’s silver chains with claws and teeth, ignoring the burning pain as the metal touches my flesh.
When the last restraint falls away, I shift back to human form, gathering her into my arms with desperate gentleness.
“Kitara,” I breathe against her hair, her name a prayer and praise all at once.
Her arms wind around my neck, weak but determined, her body sagging into mine as the silver’s suppression fades and her strength begins to return. I feel her through the bond again—blazing back into me like the sun cresting the horizon after endless night.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispers, voice fierce despite its tremble. “Even when I couldn’t feel you—I knew.”
I crush her closer. Her presence floods my senses, her scent, her heartbeat, the way her breath stutters just before she speaks. Through our rejoined bond, I feel it all—relief, fury, exhaustion... and love. Gods, the love. It hits like lightning in a dry forest, consuming and unstoppable.
“I love you,” I say, my voice hoarse and ragged and truer than anything I’ve ever spoken. “I love you, Kitara. I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you.”
I kiss her forehead. Her cheeks. Her nose. I kiss every part of her face like I’m putting pieces back together. Like I’m branding myself into her skin.
She tilts her face up to mine, her eyes blazing despite the exhaustion, and cups my jaw. “I love you too,” she says, steady and sure. “I don’t know when it started, but it’s yours. All of me.”
The wolf in me howls, and I nearly give in to the urge to fuck her right here, right now. On a throne of blood and violence.
But her safety comes first, and we aren’t free of this place of horror just yet.
“Lithia,” she says aloud, pulling back to meet my gaze. “They separated us. Thaddeus has her somewhere else—I think they want to use her as additional leverage.”
“We know. Dane is searching for her,” I assure her. “He’ll find her.”
She slumps, clinging to me. “Thank the gods.”
Behind us, Dr. Reed makes a wet, gurgling sound—still alive despite her torn throat, but drowning in her own blood. Good.
I gather my mate in my arms, holding her close as I turn toward the exit.
Elias stands in the doorway with one of the guards, a knife pressed to the guard’s throat.
This isn’t over.
“Thaddeus?” I demand.
The guard squirms. “I don’t—”
Elias nicks his skin, a warning of what is to come.
“The northern complex.”
I nod once. “Elias?”
“I’m on it.”
He disposes of the guard and moves to leave just as I hear the faint sound of metal striking stone. I move to cover Kitara but I’m too late.
Kitara gasps, her hand flying to her neck. “Ryker!”
I crouch, frantically pulling her hands from her neck. A silver syringe is embedded in her throat, its contents already emptying into her bloodstream. I spin in time to see the dying woman’s arm fall limply to the stone floor, her final act of vengeance complete.
“No!” I roar, but it’s too late.
Kitara stares at me with growing horror, one hand clutching the injection site. “What did she—” Her eyes go wide with terror. “Ryker, I can’t—”
She bucks, writhing in pain. A howl escapes her—terrible and devastating, unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Then her body goes limp in my arms.
“Kitara!” I press my hands to her face, but her eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling. No breath. No heartbeat. No response.
Our claiming bond falls silent.
She’s gone.
I throw my head back and release a sound of pure anguish.
My mate is gone.