Chapter 37

Carter stalked over to his son, the wolf howling inside him. He reveled in that feeling. The sense of losing himself. The sense of letting the beast take over. That old, addictive feeling of being powerful. Of being dangerous. Of being the thing all others feared. He felt his muscles swell as he did, his body transforming again. It twisted and warped as he walked, his claws getting longer and deadlier. The fangs in his mouth grew several inches too. His vision getting sharper. To become one with the beast inside meant becoming power itself.

And he soaked in all those feelings as he prepared himself to kill Russel.

He no longer saw a son when he looked at the pathetic creature standing up to him now. All he saw was a thing to be removed. An obstacle threatening his crown and position. To sit back and do nothing would show weakness. To let the boy live after such open defiance would show weakness. To do anything but rip out Russel’s heart would show weakness. It was unfortunate, he supposed. But only in the manner that he would be losing a tool, not a child-his flesh and blood.

He had four others and those were much more malleable than Russel anyway. More easily controlled.

“Look, you other four. Make sure you are paying attention!” Carter screamed. His voice had changed from its deep, menacing tone to something rougher. More bestial. He flung out a contemptuous hand at Russel, who was wobbling a bit on his feet. “This is what happens when you cross me! Let your brother be a lesson to you.”

He lunged at Russel and he was too weak and in too much pain to avoid it. Carter grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

“Don’t.”

Carter yelled this out as he punctuated the word with a punch to Russel’s face.

“Ever.”

He smashed another fist into Russel’s face. He heard the pleasant and extremely satisfying sound of the human girl screaming at him and crying.

“Think.”

Another punch.

“You.”

Punch.

“Can.”

Punch.

“Beat.”

Punch.

“Me.”

He slammed one last fist into Russel’s face and his body went limp. Actually, he realized it had gone limp several punches ago. He just didn’t want to stop hitting his son in the face. The absolute rage he felt at being challenged was an insult he wouldn't stand for. Especially not from his weakest son. His most pathetically human one.

Squeezing the hand holding Russel, he watched with a pleased smile on his brutish, canine face as a pathetic gurgling sound spilled out of him. Bubbles of blood frothed from his mouth and his eyes looked about to roll up into the back of his head.

More screams from the girl echoed through the throne room and Carter swung Russel’s limp body around and held it out. He presented him like he was some kind of trophy or an animal he just killed in a hunt.

Lola saw Russel’s limp body and broke down. Tears streaked her face and her cheeks were flushed a bright red. She struggled against Zeo and Enok but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t break free. Their hands were like manacles clamped onto her and there was nothing she could do to break their grip.

She didn’t give up though.

Seeing Russel just hanging there, hanging there and in pain and on the verge of death, felt like a blow directly to her heart. To Lola, it was like she could feel every bit of pain he felt. Every bit of his misery and suffering. Even the despair he must have been feeling at losing to his father.

'Need to do something! Help him! He can’t die. He can’t die here. Act now!'

The words slammed through her mind over and over but what could she do? He was clearly on the verge of death. Seconds away from it by the look. How could she make a difference now?

She felt so much shame and guilt in those horrible moments when nothing came to her. No plans. No ideas. She had no way of helping him or making sure he didn’t die. Her mind went blank no matter how hard she forced it to give her a solution.

This is it. This is our end.

And then something happened. All the energy drained out of her, all at once. It was like her body had become so fatigued, she couldn’t even hold herself up anymore. She slumped and as she did, Zeo and Enok were forced to adjust so she didn’t completely fall to the ground. Neither one was prepared for her slack weight so it took them a second or two before they got her under control again. As they did, both turned and looked questioningly at the other, neither one saying a word.

But there was a look that passed between them. One that they both easily read because they both felt the same thing even though that was impossible.

For a tiny, fraction of a second, it was like they had latched on to nobody at all. In that timeframe, a bit of time that went by so quickly both of them pushed it off as just their imagination, all they held was air.

At the exact same time, everyone in the room saw Carter flinch slightly and then a hand went up to the back of his neck. He looked around, confused for a moment.

“What the hell was that?” he snarled but no one had an answer for him. He jerked around, looking at everyone. “Who did that?”

Russel was being yanked back and forth as the king tried to determine what the hell just stung the back of his neck. It was barely noticeable true, but he still felt it nonetheless. A tiny, insignificant, bit of sensation that was akin to the bite of an insect or getting stung by a bee. His eyes narrowed as he looked at his sons first. Not one of them looked as if they knew anything. Not only that but all four had slack-jawed looks of complete stupidity on their faces. Carter moved on from them. They didn’t do it. They didn’t have the balls.

The girl then?

He turned toward the human girl, Lola Tarnvol, the royal pain in his ass. She was still being restrained by Zeo and Enok and had become so emotional, she could barely even stand up now. Her tear-filled eyes were focused on him though, full of grief for what he’d done to Russel. Grief and rage he saw.

“Don’t worry,” Carter said with a cocky smile. He walked over to her, carrying Russel along. He was starting to struggle again, he noticed. The boy’s regenerative capabilities were still working hard to heal him and had, at least for now, given him back a little bit of mobility. “As soon as I take Russel’s heart, yours will be next. Then you two can spend eternity together in the next life or drift in oblivion. Whatever comes next.”

He laughed raucously.

“You both will be finding out the answer to that question rea…”

His voice suddenly faltered and died out. His eyes widened with confusion.

What the hell?

Parts of his body stopped working completely. The arm holding Russel suddenly went limp and his son fell to the ground. Then, his left leg seemed to lose all power and he tipped forward. He tried to stop his fall but the rest of his body stopped responding to him as well and he realized with horror he couldn’t move anything. Not a muscle. Not a finger. Not even an eyelid.

He was paralyzed.

Lola’s crying and harsh sobs tapered and died down. The other brothers all shot to their feet, and stared at their father, wondering what the hell just happened to him. They looked about to rush to him.

“St-stop!” Russel said, pulling in ragged breaths as he struggled to his feet. He was clutching his side and most of the wolfish features to him were gone now. He was simply too weak to keep up the change. “This is st-still the challenge. N-not one of you…b-be-better…i-interfere!”

He took a couple of painful steps toward Carter, who was still on the floor, unable to move. His eyes worked though. They glared at his son.

Russel limped over to the fallen King of Oclan, not sure what the hell was going on either. His father shouldn’t be on the ground now, unable to move. Nothing should have been able to do that to him. Nothing at all. And if he didn’t know any better, he would have thought his father had been felled by ghoul poison. The symptoms were almost identical to the ones he’d suffered after his fight with the ghouls the first time.

But how?

He didn’t know and if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t really care. This was his one and only chance and he didn’t give a fuck that he technically had nothing to do with it. Or that he had no idea how it happened.

He was still going to take it.

He reached down, grabbed his father’s head by the hair, and yanked it up, baring his throat.

“This is for my mom,” he whispered, his voice so low only the two of them could hear. “And for Lola, you son of a bitch.”

Carter’s eyes glared up at his son with intense hatred but he couldn’t say a word thanks to the paralytic effects of whatever the hell happened to him. Looking into Russel’s eyes, he knew his son would show no weakness now.

He was going to kill him.

Russel brought up his free hand, the claws lengthening into deadly and wicked instruments of death. Then, in one decisive move, he slashed downward. He felt claws rip across his father’s throat. Blood immediately splashed out in a torrent as the king’s opened throat poured out his lifeblood onto the stones of the throne room.

Russel knew, however, that wouldn’t kill him. He let go of his head and watched with immense satisfaction when he toppled over onto his back, unable to even bring his hands up to stop the bleeding from his throat.

Russel stood over him, a foot on either side of his body. Then he looked at Lola, who had stopped crying now and looked intensely relieved to see he was still alive.

And then, with no hesitation, Russel promptly slammed a hand straight into his father’s chest and ripped out his heart.