Chapter 36 Gideon
GIDEON
"Multiple breach points!" Cassian's voice cuts through the chaos from our command position. His tactical display shows red markers erupting across the territory map like a rash. "Eastern ridge, northern pass, and something big moving up the southern approach."
I bare my teeth, studying the pattern. Orion's no fool. He's hitting us from every angle, forcing us to spread thin or abandon sectors entirely.
"Coordinated strike," I growl, shouldering my rifle. "He wants us scattered."
"Well, he's about to get his wish." Cassian adjusts his comm headset as another blast shakes the ground beneath our boots. "Shadowmere Pack is holding the northern line, but they're taking heavy casualties. The warlocks are using some kind of barrier-breaking spell."
Through the bond, I feel Clara's magic spike. A brief flare of golden power that tastes like lightning and determination. She's practicing the ritual. Good. We'll need every advantage we can get.
"Tell Shadowmere to fall back to secondary positions," I order, checking my weapon's magazine. "Let the bastards think they're winning."
Cassian's mouth curves in a predatory smile. "And then?"
"Then we show them what happens when you threaten my mate."
The first wave of mercenaries crashes through the eastern treeline like a black tide.
Warlocks anchor their advance, hands crackling with destructive magic, while shifters in half-form sprint between the trees with inhuman speed.
Behind them, I catch the scent of something else.
Vampires, their cold presence a sharp contrast to the hot blood and sweat of battle.
My wolf howls for release.
I let it come.
The shift takes seconds. Bones elongating, muscles expanding, tactical gear shredding as my human form gives way to something far more dangerous. My wolf form stands seven feet at the shoulder, silver-gray fur marked with battle scars, steel-gray eyes now burning molten amber.
Around me, my pack follows suit. Twenty something wolves emerge from the underbrush, fangs gleaming, hackles raised. The sound of our combined growl rolls through the forest like thunder.
"Northern perimeter is buckling!" Cassian's voice crackles through my earpiece, the only piece of tech that survives the shift. "They need reinforcement now!"
I launch myself toward the heaviest fighting, paws eating up ground with supernatural speed. A warlock spots me coming and raises his hands, magic gathering in violet spirals around his fingers. I don't slow down.
His spell hits my shoulder. Burning cold that would drop a human in seconds. I barely feel it.
My jaws close around his throat before he can cast again.
Blood sprays across the pine needles as I tear sideways, the metallic taste flooding my mouth. His partner tries to flee, but Elias intercepts him. My gamma's russet wolf bringing the mercenary down in a tangle of claws and screaming.
"Gideon!" Cassian's voice cuts through the battle-fury. "Southern approach!"
I release the dead warlock and bound toward higher ground, scanning the southern ridge through the smoke and chaos. At first, I see nothing but trees and shadow. Then the forest moves.
Not trees. Constructs.
My blood runs cold. Clara's in that direction.
"Cass," I snarl into the comm. "I need the Shadowmere reinforcements redirected south. Now."
"Already moving," comes his reply, steady despite the explosions echoing in the background.
I sprint toward the southern approach, calling my fastest wolves to follow. The constructs are still a quarter-mile out, but at their current pace, they'll reach the central compound in minutes.
Where Clara waits.
Where my mate prepares to face down the most dangerous politician in the supernatural world with nothing but ancient magic and stubborn courage.
The thought sends fresh rage coursing through my veins.
The bond thrums with golden fire as Clara begins the ritual. Even through the chaos of battle, the screams of wounded, the crack of splintering wood, the wet sound of claws meeting flesh. I feel her magic rise like a second heartbeat in my chest.
She's in the clearing. Protected. Alive.
But for how long?
"Alpha!" Cassian's voice cuts through my comm as I tear the throat from another warlock. "Constructs are two hundred meters out and closing fast!"
I shift back to human form long enough to grab my rifle, checking the clip.
Standard ammunition won't scratch those stone bastards, but it'll slow down the mercenaries trailing behind them.
Around me, my wolves maintain their defensive line, but I can smell their exhaustion.
We've been fighting for twenty minutes, and Orion's forces keep coming in waves.
"Brielle," I bark into the comm, "status on the clearing?"
"Holding steady," comes her reply, steady as granite despite the chaos. "Clara's got the outer circle complete. She's starting the binding incantations."
Good. The ritual requires three phases. Marking, binding, and manifestation. If she can reach the final stage before—
A massive crash shakes the ground beneath my boots. Trees the width of telephone poles topple like matchsticks as the first construct breaks through our eastern perimeter. Fifteen feet of animated stone and dark magic, its eyes burning with violet fire, crushing everything in its path.
Including the direct route to Clara.
"All units, converge on the clearing," I snarl, already sprinting toward the sound of destruction. "Do not let those things reach the center."
But even as I run, I catch a scent that stops my blood cold.
Orion.
Not the distant presence I've been tracking through the chaos, but close.
Moving with purpose through the battlefield like he's taking a casual stroll through a garden.
The fighting parts around him. His own mercenaries clearing the path, enemy and ally alike falling back from whatever power he's radiating.
He's not here to command. He's here to finish this personally.
"Cass," I snap into the comm, "Orion's on the field. Heading straight for Clara."
"Copy that. I'm repositioning—"
"No." I change direction, angling to intercept. "Keep the constructs busy. This one's mine."
Through the smoke and chaos, I catch my first clear glimpse of him. Tall, silver-haired, moving through the battle as though he thinks he’s already won. His pale blue eyes scan the battlefield like he's reading a chess board, calculating moves three steps ahead.
A shifter, one of ours, lunges at him from behind a fallen tree.
Orion doesn't even turn around. He flicks his wrist, and the wolf drops mid-leap, hitting the ground hard enough to crack ribs. Not dead, but definitely out of the fight.
"Impressive," I call out, closing the distance between us. "Most council politicians would need bodyguards for that."
He stops walking and turns toward me with the sort of smile politicians reserve for cameras and enemies. "Alpha Frost. Still playing the hero, I see."
"Still playing the puppet master?" I shift my grip on the rifle, though we both know it's mostly for show. This fight won't be decided by bullets. "How's that working out for you?"
Orion brushes an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve. Around us, the battle continues to rage, but something about his presence creates a pocket of stillness. Like standing in the eye of a hurricane.
"Better than you might think," he says conversationally. "Your mate is quite talented, I'll give her that. The ritual she's attempting, very ambitious. Very dangerous."
The bond flares hot in my chest as Clara's magic spikes again. She's reached the second phase.
"Dangerous for you, maybe."
"Dangerous for everyone," Orion corrects, his tone never changing from polite conversation. "Do you have any idea what happens when that much power goes uncontrolled? When someone with no training attempts to bind forces they don't understand?"
I bare my teeth. "She understands plenty."
"She understands theory. Academic research. Pretty sigils in old journals." His pale eyes fix on mine with laser intensity. "She doesn't understand what it feels like to have that power tear her apart from the inside."
Behind him, one of the stone constructs smashes through another section of our defensive line. The sound of splintering wood and screaming wolves echoes across the battlefield, but Orion doesn't flinch.
"You're scared," I realize, studying his too-calm expression. "All this planning, all these mercenaries, and you're still scared of one human woman with a book."
For the first time, his politician's mask slips. Just for a second, but long enough for me to see the cold fury underneath.
"I'm practical," he says quietly. "Which is why I'm going to stop her before she destroys everything we've built."
He takes a step toward the clearing.
I move to block his path.
"You'll have to go through me first."
We collide like freight trains meeting head-on.
Orion moves faster than his refined politician's exterior suggests, but I've been expecting that.
Power like his doesn't come from boardroom negotiations.
It comes from decades of surviving challenges to his authority.
His first strike comes wrapped in crackling energy that would fry a normal shifter's nervous system.
I'm not normal.
The magic hits my shoulder and disperses like water off steel. My wolf's natural resistance to supernatural manipulation, honed through years of fighting warlocks and vampires, turns his attack into nothing more than an unpleasant tingle.
"Interesting," he murmurs, sidestepping my return swing with fluid grace. "Most Alphas would be convulsing by now."
"Most Alphas haven't spent the last decade cleaning up your messes."
I press forward, forcing him to give ground. Each step I take toward him is a step he can't take toward Clara. Behind us, I hear the ritual building. Her voice rising in the ancient incantations, power crackling through the air like approaching lightning.
Orion's pale eyes flick toward the sound, and I catch the moment of calculation. He's measuring distances, timing, weighing his chances of breaking past me.
"You can't protect her forever," he says, deflecting another strike. "Even if she completes the ritual, do you think the council will simply accept—"
I drive my fist toward his ribs, cutting off the political speech. He blocks, but the impact sends him sliding backward across the forest floor.
"The council can accept whatever they like," I growl, advancing again. "After we're done here, there won't be much choice in the matter."
Around us, the battle continues to rage. Cassian's voice crackles through my earpiece, coordinating defensive positions. Brielle shouts orders to the younger wolves. The stone constructs crash through another section of trees, their violet eyes burning with malevolent purpose.
But here, in this pocket of forest between two ancient enemies, the war narrows to something simpler. I don't need to defeat Orion. I just need to keep him from reaching Clara long enough for her to finish what she started.
"You're making a mistake," Orion says, his composure finally showing cracks as I force him back another step. "That ritual, it's not just binding. It's stripping. Do you understand the difference?"
"Enlighten me."
His smile turns predatory. "Binding restrains power. Stripping removes it entirely. Permanently."
The words hit like ice water in my veins, but I don't let it show on my face. "Good."
"Is it?" He circles left, testing my defenses. "Because once that power is gone, it doesn't just disappear. It has to go somewhere. And your mate, untrained, unprepared? She'll be the vessel!"
Behind us, Clara's voice rises to a crescendo. The golden light blazing from the clearing intensifies, washing over the battlefield like sunrise. Every supernatural present. Wolf, warlock, vampire turns toward the source.
Including Orion.
"Too late," he breathes, and for the first time, I hear something like fear in his voice.
The ritual reaches its final sequence. Clara's incantation shifts from ancient words to something deeper.
A resonance that seems to come from the earth itself.
The sigils carved into the clearing burst upward like pillars of molten gold, no longer the flickering, unstable magic she's been practicing.
This is complete. Controlled. Absolute.
The binding strikes Orion mid-step.
He staggers, pale eyes going wide with shock as the power that's defined him for decades simply... vanishes. The supernatural authority that made other council members defer, that bent lesser creatures to his will, that allowed him to command armies and manipulate politics. Gone.
"Impossible," he whispers.
But the evidence surrounds us. His mercenaries, no longer held by whatever compulsion kept them loyal, begin to hesitate. The stone constructs, powered by his magic, slow their advance and finally stop entirely.
Orion remains standing, but he's just a man now. Dangerous, cunning, experienced, but mortal. Touchable.
Beatable.
"Turns out," I say, closing the distance between us, "she understood more than you thought."