Chapter 35 Esmerelda
ESMERELDA
The battle shifts in an instant.
The vessel’s howl tears through the ballroom, the sound so vast it feels like the walls themselves might splinter under it.
The floor quakes, the air shudders, and suddenly the tide turns.
Enemy wolves scatter like frightened dogs, tails tucked, their frenzy dissolving into panic.
Bears stumble back, their thunderous roars breaking into pitiful whimpers as their bulk falters beneath the weight of her power.
Maximillian’s perfect mask fractures. Just a flicker, just a heartbeat, but I see the bravado slipping, the smug veneer cracking as he watches his army collapse before the silver blaze of a living legend.
The Blessed Wolf. Ours. Not his.
The Blessed Wolf burns in the firelight, silver fur blazing, every line of her body radiating power so raw it prickles across my skin. It’s origin, destiny, the kind of force that bends the world around it.
She is tearing the battle apart, rewriting it stroke by stroke, until every enemy in this room knows the truth: nothing they brought here matters. Not against her.
He realizes it. I catch it in the split-second fracture of his smirk, the twitch in his jaw he can’t quite bury. For the first time, Maximillian doesn’t look like a king holding court. He looks like prey—cornered, trembling beneath the shadow of the predator he never believed would come for him.
Watching him recognize it tastes sweeter than blood.
He knows he’s lost. I see it in the way his gaze flicks to the exits, in the fracture of his bravado.
And then—coward that he is—he runs.
“Coward,” I snarl, the word ripping from my throat as I lunge after him, rage propelling me forward. My legs burn, my blood sings, every instinct screaming to hunt him down and end this.
Marcus is at my side in an instant, a solid wall of steel and fury moving in step with me.
His presence steadies the fire roaring in my veins, fueling it.
Beside us, Victoria staggers but refuses to fall.
Blood streaks her skin, torn fabric hanging off her shoulders, but her spine is iron, her eyes blazing as she drags herself upright and falls in behind us.
Together, we’re a line he can’t outrun.
Together, we chase him through the shattered halls, the air still heavy with smoke and steel, every breath coated in the taste of war. Broken glass crunches beneath our boots.
And still, we run. Hearts hammering, fury burning, because this isn’t over. Not until he’s on the ground. Not until he falls.
Maximillian moves like a phantom. Too fast. Too fluid. One heartbeat he’s ahead of us, a streak of shadow tearing down the hall, and the next he’s behind, the air itself bending to his will.
His hand slams into my shoulder, iron-hard, the impact spinning me sideways. My back cracks against the wall, the blow rattling my bones all the way to my teeth. Breath explodes out of me in a shocked gasp, pain flaring bright and hot, stealing the air from my lungs before I can even snarl.
Marcus is a storm in motion, crashing into Maximillian with the fury of a tsunami. Steel flashes bright in the dim corridor, every strike brutal, merciless. Their blades collide, sparks spitting into the dark like fire trying to catch on stone.
But Maximillian is like an eel in shallow water. He twists, slips free as if the fight bends to him, and his laugh ricochets off the walls.
“Didn’t I say the cat-and-mouse game was over?” His voice slithers out of the darkness, slick and poisonous, curling through the corridor until it feels like it’s brushing against my skin. The shadows themselves seem to lean in to carry him.
He pauses, long enough for the dread to stretch tight and my pulse to trip over itself. Then his voice rings out. Softer, mocking, like a finger pressing on an open wound.
“And yet here you are… still the mice.”
The words crawl into me like ice water. My grip tightens on the dagger, knuckles aching white. He wants us cornered like prey, but I’ll carve his throat open before I let him make me a mouse.
My grip on the dagger tightens, knuckles bone-white, the leather biting into my palm. My chest heaves, but I force it to steady.
I refuse to be his prey.
He blindsides Victoria next, claws raking down her arm. Her scream nearly shatters my eardrums as blood splatters across the wall, the copper tang flooding the air so sharp it stings my throat.
Marcus yanks her back before the next blow can land, his body a shield, steel already flashing in answer. My pulse spikes hard, fury colliding with fear, because every drop of blood she spills is another reminder that he’s not just toying with us. He’s hunting us. One by one.
And fighting him is like chasing a ghost with claws. But we don’t stop. We can’t. We keep fighting.
Step by brutal step, strike by strike, we strip the arrogance from him, peel it back like flesh from bone until there’s nothing left but the raw edge of desperation.
His speed falters, his untouchable grace shattering into clumsy stumbles.
The perfect predator unraveling before our eyes, piece by piece.
There’s a savage kind of justice in watching him fall apart.
His swings grow sloppy and wild where they once carved with precision, reckless where they used to cut with calculation. The cracks are showing now, every misstep widening them. Every missed strike is proof he’s slipping. Every ragged breath is a victory.
And I drink it in.
Marcus drives him back with brutal precision, every strike a hammer blow ringing with finality, forcing Maximillian to retreat with every step. Each clash of steel reverberates through the hall like a death knell, merciless and unrelenting.
I cut him off every time he lunges, my dagger flashing like a promise he can’t ignore. There’s nowhere left to slither. Nowhere left to hide. The net is closing, and he knows it.
A bloodied Victoria, eyes blazing, hurls herself forward, fury giving her a feral strength.
Her boot connects square with his chest, the impact cracking through the corridor like thunder.
Maximillian’s body whips backward, slamming into the floor hard enough to rattle the beams overhead, dust sifting down like ash after an explosion.
For a heartbeat, the great Maximillian lies sprawled, not a king, not a phantom. Just a man brought down by the girl he thought he could break.
We fall on him together, a pack striking as one.
His body thrashes beneath us, but there’s no grace left in it, just desperation.
Marcus drives his knee into Maximillian’s chest, the force grinding bone against stone.
I seize his wrist, muscles straining as I force his claws flat against the floor, refusing to let him carve free.
Victoria takes the other arm, her grip iron, her snarl vibrating with the hatred of blood betrayed. Her eyes burn, her whole body shaking with the need to tear him apart herself.
“Go on,” Maximillian hisses, lips curling back to bare fangs still stained with blood.
His voice scrapes the air, venom clinging to every word.
“Kill me. It won’t matter. You’ll never have what you came for.
Your families will remain stone until time itself erodes them.
You may end me, but my victory will haunt you for the rest of your cursed lives. ”
His eyes burn, fever-bright, even pinned to the floor. “And someone else will rise in my place. They always do.”
The words slither under my skin, cold and poisonous, but I hear the desperation under the threat. He wants to infect us with his hopelessness, leave us bleeding long after he’s dust.
“Hold him,” Victoria snaps, already moving before either of us can answer. She swings a leg over and straddles his chest, pinning him beneath her weight.
Her eyes catch the light, no longer blazing with fury, but glinting with something colder, sharper. Focus. Dangerous and unyielding.
She leans down, her voice dropping to a low, commanding murmur that carries more weight than any shout ever could.
“Look at me, brother.”
The words strike like a blade, and even Maximillian stills.
He thrashes beneath us, muscles straining, but it’s useless. Her power is already wrapping around him like chains. I feel it before I even see it, pressing into the air, heavy and electric, raising goosebumps along my skin.
It’s not glamour, or smoke and mirrors, or pretty illusions. No, this is something older, rawer. Power ripped straight from blood and will. Brutal. Primal.
She was compelling him.
Maximillian resists, every vein in his body standing out as he thrashes against the invisible chains.
His spine bows, tendons straining so hard they look ready to snap.
His eyes blaze, red bleeding into the whites until they’re nothing but fury and rivers of blood.
Blood tears streak down his cheeks, sliding hot and dark over his temples.
His nose bursts, crimson running, and still he fights her.
Every ounce of his power, straining to shake her hold.
But Victoria doesn’t yield. Not an inch. Her voice is steady, her stare unflinching, her will a vice. Where he rages, she anchors. Where he bleeds, she binds tighter.
And for the first time, Maximillian looks like he’s breaking.
“Tell us,” she orders, her voice slicing through the air like a sword. No hesitation. No mercy. Just command.
Her gaze pins him, unrelenting, her words laced with power sharp enough to draw blood. “Who cast the spell? What was used? Every detail.”
The demand thrums in the air, heavy, electric. And even Maximillian, trembling and defiant, can’t pretend he doesn’t feel the weight of it.
His mouth trembles, lips peeling back as if against invisible hooks dragging them wide. Still, he fights it, every muscle rigid with refusal. But Victoria’s grip holds, merciless.
And then the words spill out. Names. Ingredients. Rites. Each syllable wrenched from him like flesh torn from bone, the truth ripping free with every ragged breath. His voice cracks, his defiance bleeding out with the secrets he swore to keep.
By the time the last of it leaves his mouth, his body buckles, spent and trembling. The predator, gutted by his own truth.
When it’s done, the silence is louder than the fight ever was. Maximillian sags beneath Victoria’s hold, a worn out body leaking blood and breath.
Marcus’s gaze finds mine. His voice is steady, cold as steel, but his eyes are stripped bare in a way no one else would ever notice.
“Do you want to end him?”
The question hangs between us. Not just an offer. A reckoning.
I stare down at the man who shattered everything.
Who tortured our families, who reveled in our grief and smiled while we bled.
For so long, I dreamed of this moment. Dreamed of ripping out his throat, of watching the life drain from those smug, mocking eyes.
I thought it would feel like victory. Like justice.
And yet… here he is. Pinned. Beaten. His body trembling, his arrogance stripped away. And instead of a monster, all I see is something small. Hollow. Empty.
My chest twists.
“I thought I would,” I say at last. My throat feels tight, my heart heavier with each syllable. “But he’s already defeated.”
I look at him, broken, hollow, nothing but a shadow of the terror he once was. The truth settles in my bones. “This revenge isn’t mine to take.”
The admission tastes strange, bitter and freeing all at once.
Victoria looks up at me, her face smeared with blood and ash, her expression cracking open. Gratitude glimmers in her eyes, fragile and fierce all at once, cutting through the ruin.
“Thank you,” she whispers, the words trembling but sure.
It pierces deeper than any blade because I know exactly what she’s thanking me for.
Then she turns back to her brother. “Death is too good for you,” she says, her voice low, steady, and final.
The words land heavier than any blade, and for the first time, Maximillian flinches. Not from pain, but from the truth of what waits for him.
She places her hands on either side of his face, fingers steady, unshaking, as if she’s done this a thousand times before. Maximillian’s eyes flare wide with fear.
Victoria leans in, so close her bloodstained lips nearly brush his ear, her voice dropping into a deadly murmur that makes my skin prickle.
“I’ll lock you inside your own mind,” she breathes, every word a papercut. “Let you rot in the pit of yourself.”
The horror that flashes across his face tells me he knows she can.
Then he screams. The sound rips through the hall, high and piercing, shredding the air until it feels like our eardrums might burst. His body convulses violently, thrashing beneath us, every muscle seizing as if trying to tear itself apart.
We hold him down, unflinching, as his own mind turns inward and devours him piece by piece.
The screams unravel into ragged whimpers, then thin into faint, pitiful noises that barely scrape past his lips. His eyes glaze, unfocused, hollow. His limbs jerk once, twice, and then fall closed.
And then silence. Heavy. Absolute.
I release his arm slowly, fingers stiff from the strain. My chest heaves, every breath ragged, raw, as if my body hasn’t yet realized the battle is done.
But it is. The fight is over.