Chapter 42 Tyler's Death (Jax POV)
Pain in my leg where the silver bullet burns. Ignore it. Can't stop. Students huddled behind overturned tables. Three humans, two young vampires weakened by suppression. My pack to protect.
Mercenary approaching from the left. Can smell the gun oil, the silver bullets, the intent to kill. Low growl warning him away. He doesn't listen. They never listen.
Launch before he can fire. Jaws close on gun arm. Bone breaks. Weapon falls. He screams. End him quickly. Not cruel. Just efficient.
More students behind me now. Seven total. Crying, terrified, looking to me for protection. I'm just a wolf. Can't speak, can't reassure. Can only stand between them and the threats.
Ashley's scent nearby. She's fighting too, protecting her own group. Marcus somewhere across the ballroom doing the same. We're pack. Spread thin but united in purpose.
Keep the students alive. Whatever it costs.
New scent approaching. Old. Powerful. Wrong in the way ancient predators are wrong. Every instinct screams danger, flee, run.
Can't run. Students behind me. My pack.
Damien Corvus steps into view, and even in wolf form I recognize what he is. Six hundred years of accumulated power wrapped in human shape. Smiling like this is entertainment instead of combat.
"A young werewolf playing hero," he says, voice carrying casual amusement. "How predictable."
Position myself between him and the students. Low growl, teeth bared, making myself the obvious threat. Look at me, not them. Come at me.
He laughs. Actually laughs.
"Brave. Foolish. But brave." He moves faster than I can track despite the suppression spell affecting him. One moment he's ten feet away. Next moment he's past me, hand closing around a human student's throat.
The girl. Maybe fifteen. Wearing a torn formal dress. Eyes wide with terror.
I spin, launching at Damien, but I'm too slow. He lifts the girl effortlessly, examining her like she's an interesting specimen.
"Humans are so fragile," he observes. Then he snaps her neck with casual efficiency, letting the body drop.
Rage floods through me, pure and absolute. Not tactical thinking anymore. Just grief and fury that he killed her like it meant nothing.
Another student screams. Young vampire boy, maybe turned a decade ago. Damien's already moving toward him.
I get there first, placing myself between them. No more deaths. Not while I'm still standing.
"Persistent," Damien acknowledges. "I respect that. But puppy, you're outmatched."
He moves again, impossible speed, and his hand closes around my throat. Lifts me off the ground like I weigh nothing. I'm a full-grown wolf, two hundred pounds of muscle and fury, and he's holding me one-handed.
Can't breathe. Claws scrambling uselessly against his arm. Silver bullet wound reopening with the strain, blood loss making me weak.
"You fight well," Damien says, almost respectfully. "But six hundred years beats three decades. Remember that in whatever afterlife werewolves believe in."
He's going to kill me. Going to snap my neck the same way he killed that girl. The students will die next. Then he'll find Zara. The mate bond screams at me to survive, to protect her, but I can't move, can't fight, can't do anything except struggle uselessly.
Then Tyler's scent hits me, coming fast from the left side.
Tyler. Former beta. The wolf who challenged me and left. The one who called me compromised and weak.
He launches at Damien from behind, full wolf form, jaws going for the vampire's throat.
Damien drops me to deal with the new threat, turning with that impossible speed. But Tyler's fast too, young and angry and committed to the attack.
They collide in a tangle of fangs and fury. Tyler's fighting like he has nothing to lose, reckless and brutal and focused entirely on Damien.
"Another puppy," Damien observes, dodging Tyler's strikes with contemptuous ease. "This is getting tedious."
I'm back on my feet, silver wound screaming protest but adrenaline overriding pain. Position with Tyler, flanking Damien from two sides. Pack tactics. Together we're more dangerous than separately.
Tyler glances at me. Just a moment of eye contact, but in wolf form that's communication. Acknowledgment. Understanding.
We're pack. Despite the challenge. Despite him leaving. Despite everything.
We're pack, and we fight together.
We attack simultaneously, coordinated assault on Damien from both sides. Tyler goes high for the throat. I go low for the legs. Classic werewolf flanking maneuver.
Damien laughs.
He catches Tyler mid-leap, impossibly fast hands closing around the wolf's neck. Spins him in mid-air, using Tyler's momentum against him.
The sound of Tyler's neck breaking echoes through the ballroom. Sharp crack. Final. Irrevocable.
No.
Tyler's body goes limp instantly. Damien holds him for a moment longer, making sure we all see the kill, then tosses the body aside like garbage. Like Tyler was nothing. Like pack means nothing.
My brother. My beta. The wolf who challenged me and left but came back to fight alongside me anyway.
Dead.
The howl that tears out of me is grief made sound. Loss and rage and absolute devastation that Tyler died protecting students, died fighting beside me, died because Damien wanted to prove a point about ancient vampires being superior.
The howl echoes through the building, raw and primal. Every werewolf in the vicinity hears it. Knows what it means.
Pack member down. Pack member dead.
Ashley's answering howl comes from across the ballroom. Grief harmonizing with mine. Marcus joins, three werewolves mourning together.
But Damien just smiles.
"Touching. Now, where were we?" He turns his attention back to me, clearly planning to finish what he started.
I'll die fighting. That's acceptable. But I'll take this vampire with me if I can. For Tyler. For the students he killed. For everyone Damien's hurt in his six hundred years of casual cruelty.
I'm gathering myself for a suicidal final attack when I feel it through the mate bond.
Zara. Coming fast. Magic blazing with grief and rage that mirrors my own.
She felt Tyler's death through our connection. Felt my pain. And she's responding.
The suppression spell that's been dulling vampire abilities suddenly wavers in a small radius around me. Zara's wild magic is burning through it, creating a brief pocket where supernatural power works properly.
I feel strength flood back into my limbs. Speed returning. Healing accelerating.
It's temporary. Maybe five seconds before the suppression reasserts. But five seconds is enough.
I move faster than Damien expects, the sudden return of full werewolf speed catching him off guard. My jaws close on his throat, not quite getting through vampire skin but definitely doing damage.
He shouts, actually surprised, grabbing me and throwing with enough force to send me crashing into the wall ten feet away.
But I got the hit. Drew blood. Marked him.
For Tyler.
The suppression spell crashes back down, stealing my enhanced abilities again. I'm back to being just a large wolf with a silver bullet wound, no longer the supernatural predator I was for those five seconds.
But it was enough. Damien's bleeding. Retreating. Hand pressed to his throat where I tore it open, expression flickering between rage and respect.
"Impressive," he says. Then he's gone, moving deeper into the building to wherever his forces are gathering.
I limp to Tyler's body. Human students are crying, vampires are reorganizing.
But I'm standing over my beta, my brother, the wolf who challenged me and died defending pack anyway.
Zara reaches me, hands glowing with healing magic. She touches my injured leg, power flowing into the silver wound, burning out the poison and knitting tissue back together.
Can't speak to thank her. Can't shift back to human form. Can only press against her, letting the mate bond carry what words can't.
She understands. Wraps her arms around my wolf neck, holding me while I grieve.
Tyler's dead. Damien killed him. And I can't even howl properly anymore because if I do, I'll lose the focus keeping me standing.
So I just stand there, Zara holding me, Tyler's body cooling at my feet.
Pack member down.
Pack member gone.
Forever.