Chapter 18 Silver Beast
SILVER BEAST
The ravine narrowed into jagged walls that pressed like the ribs of a long-dead god. I moved ahead of Axad and Cruuvex, nostrils flaring, tracking scents laced with rot and oil. The wind shifted—and I caught it.
Blood. Not fresh. Not old. Staged.
My claws scraped the rock as I stopped. Below the beast’s snarl, Zirc stirred—a tremor of grief, of guilt. Roqs. The name scraped against bone. I didn’t know if I wanted to mourn him or tear his throat out for the betrayal.
He chose another.
“Zirc?” Cruuvex’s voice cracked with unease. “You smell that?”
I didn’t answer. My eyes scanned the canyon ridge above. Shadows moved.
“It’s a lure,” Axad muttered. “We need to backtrack. Now.”
I shook my mane, fur bristling. “No. They. Want me. Let them come.”
He opened his mouth—then closed it. Good.
I pressed forward, stepping over rusted chains and crystal-scorched stones. War relics from a battle no one remembered. That should’ve been enough warning. But I wanted blood. Wanted purpose. And when purpose is hunger, every scent becomes a meal.
The ground trembled.
An engine.
Several.
"Multiple engines," Cruuvex whispered, dropping into a defensive crouch. "Northeast quadrant."
My nostrils flared. There was something else there too, something that made my hackles rise. My chest rumbled with displeasure making both Cruuvex and Axad flinch.
Shadows materialized along the ridgeline - fifteen, their forms silhouetted against the crimson sky. More came. The scent of unfamiliar manasties grew stronger, mingling with the acrid tang of modified weapons.
A female figure stepped forward, her sleek black fur gleaming with decorative metal plates.
Nialla. Kilo's lieutenant.
The canyon mouth flared open—and Nialla greeted me with a smile that would’ve made bone crawl.
“Miss me, Silver Beast?” Her voice was velvet dipped in venom. I growled. This bitch had wanted Zirc since we first fought on a battlefield. She despised me, the Silver Beast.
Gang armor clanked behind her—half a dozen brutes fanning out, weapons glinting. Her hand rested casually on a slung obsidian rifle, but her eyes stayed on me. Always on me.
A manasty stood beside her, expecting Kilo.
No.
Scarface.
My claws extended involuntarily, scraping against stone.
"Zirc," Axad called softly. "I need to tell you something else."
I didn't slow my pace. Whatever he had to say, I didn't want to hear it.
"That is Trill," he persisted. "There's more you should—"
Trill moved with deadly grace. I didn’t flinch. Neither did he. His gaze flicked over my body like he was cataloging damage.
Coward. Traitor. Assassin.
“Cruuvex, left,” I growled. “Axad, right.”
They scattered. But Nialla didn’t blink. Her troops knew their role. Stone detonations slammed behind us, sealing exits. Precision.
The first wave of attackers descended, wielding modified crystal staffs that hummed with dangerous energy. My claws extended fully, slashing through armor and flesh with equal ease.
Blood sprayed across stone. Bodies fell. But more replaced them.
Three attackers fell beneath my claws. A fourth lost his throat to my fangs. I, the Silver Beast, howled in savage delight, reveling in the carnage.
Trill moved first. I blocked his strike with my shoulder and slammed him into the canyon wall. He flipped mid-air, landing soft, crouched, unreadable.
“You’re fighting blind,” he said, as if he cared.
“I’m fighting you.”
I lunged. Caught one of Nialla’s brutes mid-charge, crushed his windpipe with a backhand, spun into another, and tore his gut open with my claws.
Pain meant nothing. Purpose burned. Find Brynn. Find Roqs. Protect the pack.
Then something shifted. A sound—a low hum.
The air curdled.
The weapon she drew wasn’t a rifle.
It was a shard of nightmare.
Long, jagged, wrapped in bone and obsidian metal that throbbed with pulse-like energy. I smelled its birth: death and crystal.
Shura.
“Nialla,” Axad shouted, “don’t—”
Too late.
She lifted the weapon and it screamed. A beam of distortion lanced toward me—blinding, soundless, alive.
"Hold him still," Nialla roared, adjusting the weapon's settings.
The air around the device warped, reality itself seeming to bend and twist. A high-pitched hum filled my ears, vibrating through bone and tissue.
I lunged toward her, my vision narrowed to destroy the weapon before it fully activated.
Pain exploded through my body. Not burning. Freezing. It hit me in the chest, and I dropped. Legs refused to move. My arms—stone. I roared, but it came out strangled, like my throat calcified mid-breath.
“ZIRC!” Cruuvex charged her flank. She pivoted, and the Shura flared again. He crumpled.
Axad reached her—tried to tackle her weapon arm—Trill was faster. A blade flashed. Axad fell.
My breath wheezed through numbing lungs. Vision fractured into kaleidoscopic shards. I could feel parts of myself—skin, fur, bone—turning to crystal.
Zirc
The Silver Beast screamed in my mind.
Let me fight, my beast roared.
I tried. I fucking tried. But even rage needs blood to move muscle.
Nialla laughed. “It works. Beautifully.”
I summoned everything I had left. One arm, still flesh. One leg, half-dead. I launched forward, dragging the stone weight of my body. My claws caught her shoulder, dug in, and she shrieked.
I ripped the Shura free and threw it—far. It landed with a hollow clang.
Then Trill was on me.
He struck clean. Blunt edge to the side of my skull. I dropped.
The world tilted. Tunnels of light and darkness danced.
Above me, Nialla clutched her wounded arm. Trill stood over me, his breathing hard.
“Bind him,” she said.
He hesitated. Just a blink. Just enough.
“You smell like him,” I rasped, low enough only he could hear me.
Roqs.
This manasty—this enemy—carried Roqs' scent on him. It was faint, but Roqs and I have known each other since we first could speak.
Confusion crashed through my rage. The Silver Beast faltered, momentarily bewildered. This was the stranger Roqs chose to mate with?
Trill's eyes widened slightly, suggesting he'd noticed my reaction. But he said nothing, completing his task with methodical precision.
His jaw clenched. Then he stepped forward and snapped cold cuffs around my wrists.
Chains again.
"Remarkable resistance," Nialla observed, stepping closer. She adjusted the Shura, its crystal core pulsing with malevolent energy. "Most would be fully petrified by now."
I snarled, struggling to move as my body betrayed me. The Silver Beast thrashed within our shared consciousness, howling in impotent fury.
Axad was gone. Dragged off by someone I hadn’t seen. Cruuvex lay twitching. His limbs jerked involuntarily—whatever the Shura had done to him wasn’t clean.
They’d planned this. Every beat. Every blow.
The ground welcomed me like a grave.
I couldn’t move.
Not because of the chains. Because the Shura had twisted something deep. I could still feel the beast inside—but it was trapped beneath a crust of crystal. This was new. We haven't heard of the Shura trapping our beast.
Then I saw in my peripheral vision, Cruuvex, battered but still fighting, hurled a crystal charge toward Nialla. It fizzled harmlessly against an energy barrier surrounding her.
"Run!" I roared at him, forcing the words through a throat half-frozen with calcification. "Find them!"
Cruuvex hesitated, torn between loyalty and survival. Then, with a final anguished look, he turned and fled, disappearing into a narrow crevice as Kilo's forces fired after him.
"A pest," Nialla dismissed Cruuvex and approached, the deactivated Shura hanging from her belt. "Kilo will be pleased," she repeated, surveying me with cold satisfaction. "The great Silver Beast, brought low at last. This time, you would not escape me."
I tried to speak, to demand answers about Roqs, but my voice had abandoned me. The Shura's residue clung to my bones, leaving half my body numb and unresponsive.
The world narrowed to scent and pain.
Trill’s gloves stank of iron and smoke. Nialla reeked of arousal—battle-lust, sharp and sick.
I wanted to rip her throat out.
But all I could do was twitch.
The last sound I heard was her laugh. Gleeful. Triumphant.
Then I was lifted. Carried like meat. My muscles screamed silently.
Kilo had me.
And if I didn’t find a way to break this curse—Brynn, Roqs, Coone—my family—would be next.
The Silver Beast retreated deep within our shared mind, wounded but unbroken.
But I swore this with my last lucid thought:
I would make them pay.
I will find all of my mates. And when I do, nothing in this world will tear us apart again.