Chapter 35 ‘Til Death
☽ Bastian ☽
Not again!
The rage episodes were recurring faster than usual, corroding his sanity with every episode.
Alpha Mordane, my uncle, was as stubborn as he was powerful—a dangerous combination for himself and all around him.
Following the harsh scent of a Lycan Alpha’s rage, I burst into the war room, ducking just in time to dodge a body hurtling out the doorway. The unlucky soldier hit the corridor wall with a wet splat.
The tangy, metallic scent of blood and fear clogged the air.
Commander Leif’s voice echoed, “Restrain him!”
I swung my gaze in that direction. Alpha Mordane was advancing on Leif, his wolf fully at the helm. His beast wavered at the edges with rage, stark crimson eyes bright and vicious.
No wolf in Ironwolf could restrain the Alpha in this condition.
Except me.
“Do not shift!” I thundered.
“I know goddammit! Do something!” Leif sounded brave despite having his leg bent in a strange angle beneath him. Bone jutted through weeping flesh.
Shifting into their wolf forms would signal a challenge to the Alpha’s beast, and they were no match for his feral state.
I summoned my wolf—
Rise, beast!
Running to intercept Mordane, I sank back, giving my wolf reign.
Muscles swelling, fangs sharpening, my beast drove our shoulder into Mordane's midsection, sending him into the wall.
Large blocks of stone rained down around us as the stone groaned from the impact.
I tried to reach him, past his raging beast through the mindlink.
‘Regain control, Alpha! You’re within allies, reign your beast!’
But even I knew it was useless.
He raked razor sharp claws up my arm, shredding flesh down to the bone. I couldn’t let him get loose or the entire pack was doomed.
Dodging a vicious bite aimed at my neck, I vaulted onto his large form, locking his corded forearms with my legs. I wrapped his neck and snarling head in a crushing choke hold.
We crashed to the ground.
At that moment, all the wolves in the room shifted swiftly, each clamping down on Mordane’s legs and sides with sharp teeth.
Straining against his thrashing beast, I commanded, ‘To the ironhold!’
Ashar’s tawny wolf form bounded into the war room, he immediately joined in dragging the alpha.
Without my lycan strength restraining the alpha, every man in the war room would’ve been torn apart.
I gritted my teeth, grunting as the wolves dragged me and the alpha down the stone hallways to his containment cell.
‘Almost there!’ Ashar snarled through the link. ‘Faster!’
Even he knew how precarious it would be for Mordane to escape my chokehold. Already losing my grip, I tried to reach his mind once more.
‘Alpha! You’re better than this, seize control now!’
His struggle intensified, his mind fracturing.
Mere paces from the open cell, Mordane bucked, slamming my head to the stone floor. In the seconds before I reached back for his deadly, claw-tipped arms, he’d lunged at Ashar.
‘Noooo!’
I charged.
Ramming my entire weight into his form, Mordane and I crashed into the cell. The thick iron bars, mystically fortified, slammed shut behind us.
Trapped with the beast. This was going to hurt.
☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽
My throat had regenerated enough for two words—
“Leave us.” I croaked.
Ashar had stayed throughout the bout with the alpha, watching me get pummeled through the bars within an inch of my life and being unable to help.
He hesitated a few seconds, then left.
The stone was cold beneath me, the darkness absolute. But in the far corner of the cell, I could see Mordane's seated figure as clear as day.
Bloodied and still, he stared at me with a deep blue gaze heavy with worry. He wasn’t one to show emotions, so he said nothing. We would both heal, though I was healing slower than normal because of his venom.
Almost mindless from pain, I turned my mind to a sweet distraction—my mate. I wondered if she’d worry in my absence. Or would she take the opportunity to steal away to her leech lover?
A growl vibrated my chest, my fists clenching.
I’d be a fool to believe her lies, her well structured seductive wiles. But what I couldn’t understand was her endgame.
Granted I’d been… less than ideal with her, knowing nothing but her names and the fact she had a mother that was missing—
No.
There was no excuse. I could’ve gotten past the fact she’d fraternized with vampires for survival as a rogue, in time. What I couldn’t forgive was that she maintained that behavior.
She’d claimed me, after traipsing with a damned leech!
A burst of blood wetted my tongue. I’d pierced my lip in my simmering anger.
I was denying my most innate instinct to mark her, just because I had to end the leech in her life first.
My wolf grumbled within, pacing, boiling. What would it take for her to choose me?
Dammit.
What a fall from grace. I’d gone from being the most eligible wolf to pining for a fucking rogue. A silver haired rogue with territorial instincts so deep she awakened her wolf just to attack a lover she’d caught me with.
All efforts to ignore my attraction to her had failed. My curiosity about her only grew, her fire drawing me in like a moth.
I caught myself grinning.
My gaze absentmindedly slid to the alpha in the corner.
He was watching me intently.
“I miss the days when I’d grin with such abandon.” His gravelly voice echoed in the stone cell.
His eyes were blue once more, his face relaxed with an empty stillness.
“With due respect, Uncle, let’s not sugarcoat this.” I gave a pointed gaze to the amulet. “It’s time to take it off.”
His eyes flashed immediately, menace bleeding through every pore.
I didn’t care, I’d brave his crimson beast to the death if it meant telling him the truth.
“You’re destroying yourself, putting the pack at risk. You killed three good men, and injured one more!” I yelled.
My chest ached, the regeneration incomplete. Flesh knitted over the gouges his claws made, but the bones inside were still fragile husks.
His face softened. “I can’t let her go. Not yet.”
“Can’t you see?” I dragged myself forward until we were face to face. “You must. She wouldn’t want you to be this way, suffering from the very thing she died of. I don’t want to see you this way.” My throat bobbed with emotion.
I’d lost both my lycan parents in the Crimson War. After that, Sorin, my father’s closest friend and Alpha Mordane’s beta, had raised me.
I’d lost him too, when Mordane banished him out of Ironwolf for interfering with the amulet. Just as I was now.
Sorin had forbidden me from seeking him out, entrusting me to protect IronWolf from Mordane as the only other Lycan who could match him in strength.
Today had proved him right. If I’d been anywhere else…
“Cherish your mate, and be glad you don’t have to make such sacrifices as I have.”
“Sacrifices?” I barely controlled my anger. “You call that sacrifice? That was a massacre! No wolf is a match for you in combat…”
“I warned them!” He barked. “But they wouldn’t stop trying to give me false hope!”
I sat back heavily on my haunches.
During the war, his mate had died with their unborn child still in her. All efforts to find the body and the child proved elusive.
Both had vanished into thin air. No one knew if the child lived or not.
“And her family doesn’t care, all they care about is that blasted throne!” He squeezed his eyes shut.
I was the only one Mordane was ever this open with, and moments like this were rare, giving me more insight on his mental state.
That amulet gave him the false hope, but he couldn’t see it. It was magically infused with lifelike memories of happy times with his mate.
Time and time again he’d gotten lost in its spells, living in a dream while wide awake, his eyes going vacant as he hallucinated a life with a long dead mate.
The amulet also lent him the power of a crimson vampire. That, combined with his innate Lycan beast, made him extremely powerful.
The downside? It was infecting his beast, pulling him deeper and deeper into madness.
The amulet had to go.
But nothing and no one could take it off his neck without a brutal fight that would leave one or both dead.
I swallowed, “How long do you intend to keep it?”
Gaze unwavering, he grinned, fangs flashing, “‘Til death.”
Silence filled the cell, our breathing echoing in rasps in the cold space.
He knew what I was thinking, he also knew I wouldn’t dare.
“I want those blood caches. You will undertake a mission to retrieve them.”
To amass more power?
“You don’t need more crimson energy…”
His voice hardened. “No, but I want them. That’s an order.”
“And who will protect you?” I pressed.
“I know what you really mean. ‘Who will protect the pack.’” He sighed, turning his gaze to the ceiling. “You know I always lock myself up here when I feel the change coming. It was just a loss of temper, and I’m sure Leif won’t make the mistake of goading me again.”
Torn between an order from Sorin, and an order from my alpha.
My fists trembled, my mind reeling.
Right before my eyes, Mordane's gaze dulled.
His features slackened.
And the amulet glowed.