80. Chapter 80
Chapter 80
T he dark clouds completely covered the sun. Jax stood at his lookout rock and looked over the forest. Even the witch was closing in from that direction when it was supposed to be their safest. He could sense her magic filling up in it even though he couldn’t sense any individual wolves. It was like when she’d sent the rogues who had hidden in the shadows right under their noses.
His warriors wouldn’t sense them until it was too late.
‘The women and children are in the packhouse,’ Dylan said in the mind link.
He didn’t know if that would make a difference. The strength he could sense in the magic around him was something he had never experienced from the witch before. He could feel it in the clouds above him, in the air they were all breathing. He could feel it rippling over his skin, yet they had not reached their boundary.
Cain was silent in his head, already in hunting mode. But he couldn’t hunt everywhere at once. They were surrounded by armies bigger than any that had ever attacked the pack. No matter how he looked at it, his people would die.
‘Tell anyone else who would rather not fight to head to the packhouse, too. I won’t force anyone to do it.’
He had brought this terror to their home by himself. He couldn’t ask them to die for him.
He let out a breath and rolled his shoulder to try to work out some of the tension in his body. For the first time in his life, he was terrified. He was the cause of the witch’s anger, and her obvious targets would be the people he loved. Even if Layla and Hope stayed in the packhouse, the sheer force of magic heading in their direction was enough to decimate all the wards that Diedre had put up.
He jumped off the rock and shifted. Cain immediately began running through the woods behind him, heading for the main gate. There was silence all around him. All the animals had already hunkered down or escaped. The sense of impending doom was pressing down on him as his paws thundered on the forest floor.
If he hadn’t marked Layla, he would have handed himself over to the witch for her to do whatever she wanted to him until her anger abated.
At the gates, Micah stood with Dylan and the warriors, looking down the road. They trained to fight in battles like these, but even they were uneasy. Alpha Brax stood with them, his fists clenching and unclenching as he waited.
‘That goes for you guys, too. I won't force you to fight my battle. You can go to the packhouse and hope that Fate spares your life. That won't make you any less of a warrior.'
"You aren't fighting alone, Jax," Dylan said out loud. "You're our Alpha, but we are still brothers."
"She wants me. She may succeed today. If that happens, Hope will be left alone. You have to—"
"We are your brothers, Jackson," Micah said firmly.
He looked back at the man who had always had his back, even when his father had been king. He had never called him by name, not even when he was a boy.
He looked at all the others, the men he had fought countless battles with. Though they were nervous, they stood their ground.
“I have a score to settle with her. I’ll stay,” Brax growled.
And then he heard it. The heavy footsteps sounded like thunder as they sped toward his gates. The vibrations rose from the ground as hundreds of men and wolves ran through the darkness. Trees and shrubs rustled as they came closer.
‘May the Goddess be with all of us,’ Micah said in the pack link.
Jax walked closer to the gate, his attention on the top of the dirt road. And seconds later, he saw them. Men running at speed toward them. He focused his eyes to see them properly and had to take a step back when he saw the faces of the men leading the army.
“It’s Chase. And Ryker.”
The witch had taken his ally and his greatest enemy.
Chase had a snarl on his face, and his eyes were blank like the first man he had encountered who’d been taken over by the witch. His chest tightened. Chase was annoying, but he was an honourable man. Otherwise, he would never have gone to him to make a blood oath.
Ryker’s face looked the same. A snarl and his black eyes dead. He should have ended that pack when they had taken him. The silent enemies approaching from the back had to be Night Walkers. No one else was that skilled at blending in with the shadows. They were deadly on a good day, but with the witch controlling them, they would be unstoppable.
All around him, he felt his pack begin to shift, ready to fight for their lives. Brax, Micah and Dylan remained at his side, their hearts racing as they felt the strength of the men they had to fight.
When they were a few metres from the gates, they stopped. They were not breathless, and they were devoid of any emotion. No fear, no anxiousness, no empathy. No recognition whatsoever. Like machines, ready to do their master’s bidding.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and the men in front of them parted, revealing a young, blonde woman. For the first time since all the shit started, he was face-to-face with his biggest enemy.
She had a smile on her pale face as she slowly walked to the front of the men. Unlike anyone else going to battle, she wore a dress and heels, and her hair looked like it had been professionally done.
“I don’t know why you thought you could beat me,” the witch said, “but it has been fun to watch you try.”
Her blue eyes twinkled, flashing briefly in the darkness. The men behind her started to shift until only Ryker and Chase stood in their human forms. He didn’t care what happened to Ryker, but he didn’t want to have to fight Chase. He had become part of the family when they had mixed their blood.
“Tell me what you want, and let's finish this. You can’t keep pulling innocent people into a fight that has nothing to do with them.”
“I don’t want you to hand anything to me. I’ll take it myself. I'll destroy your people and your home the way you destroyed mine, and as I did, you will watch all of it,” the witch snarled.
“What’s your name?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” the woman answered.
“You’ve hidden behind everyone else for months; I had to find out for myself who you are. I can’t keep calling you the Wicked Witch.”
“Oh, so I’m the villain in the story?” the witch laughed. “When you tell it, do you tell them how you ripped out that woman’s throat and left her to bleed out while you went for her children? Do you tell them what you did to the ones who tried to escape you? What about the children you found hiding in the basement—”
“I know what I did. Maybe you were too young to understand, but your pack was not innocent. You must have known that.”
Still, those images had haunted him ever since. They were the reason he had stopped hoping for redemption.
“There were many innocent people in my pack, and you murdered them all,” the woman snarled. “I’ll tell you my name so you remember who avenged all of them. It’s Hailey.”
“I’m sorry for what I had to do, Hailey. I’m sorry I killed your mother,” he whispered. “You can take me so you don’t become a monster like me.”
“It’s too late for that, Mr King.”
Her eyes flashed again. The lightning started again, flashing continuously across the black clouds. Chase and Ryker stepped around her and walked to the gates. Then they pulled them, breaking their locks as they opened them wide. There was a shift in the air, and just like that, he knew Diedre’s wards were useless.
The wolves behind the witch lowered their heads and bared their teeth as they came closer.
He called on all his strength and growled, "Shift!"
The command rippled through the wolves in front of him, just like it had done when he'd fought Brad's pack. But unlike that time, nothing happened.
"That won't work this time," Hailey laughed, and her eyes started to glow.
The time for talking was over. It was time to fight for their lives.
He shifted, Cain taking the lead, ripping into the first wolf that came through the gates. Two more replaced it, and he got them, too. But Hailey's wolves pushed through until all he could hear were the sounds of fighting.
He pushed forward, fighting his way through to get to Hailey. If he could get her, then everything would stop.
But there were too many wolves. They pushed through the gates and scrambled over the walls. He could sense them breaching his boundaries all around them.
A sharp pain ripped through him, breaking his heart in the process. A bond had been broken. A brother or sister had fallen.
A breeze started blowing, and in it, he heard the whispered chants, the whispered curses.
'No!' he mentally screamed as he abandoned his mission to get Hailey and turned to his warriors.
One by one, they stopped. He felt the moment his hold on them was severed. And they became just like Chase.
Two warriors growled and faced each other. And then they started to fight like they were enemies.
A bond broke. And then another.
He raced back towards his brothers, desperate to do anything to stop them.
But when the next bond broke, it brought him to his knees.
Micah.
Micah lay on the ground, soaking it with his blood.
Lifeless.