Chapter 212 212. Dark magic

Chapter 212 212. Dark magic
Elliot

The air inside the hidden lab tastes like metal and fear.
I grind the last of the compound into solution, watching the chemical swirl in the glass cylinder. It glows faintly—iridescent silver against a storm-dark base. Fitting.
“Steady,” my Lycan murmurs inside me. His voice is low, controlled, but I feel the tension vibrating beneath it. “If you miscalculate the ratio, the backlash will tear the barrier—and everyone near it—apart.”
“I know,” I mutter under my breath, adjusting the heat.
The barrier outside pulses through the earth like a second heartbeat. Elira’s magic. Old. Corrupted. Alive.
A crack. That’s all we need.
Once she’s vulnerable again, her wolves will react exactly how we expect—rage, panic, a full offensive. That’s the opening. Keith will take her out. Clean. Decisive. And then we lock down the perimeter and make sure not a single SilverFang bastard escapes.
My fingers steady as I inject the final reagent.
The communicator on my belt crackles.
“Tao here. North barricade in position.”
“Jace and Thorne are set on the east,” another voice cuts in.
“Rhys has the west sealed,” comes next.
I exhale slowly.
“Silas?” I ask.
There’s a burst of static. Then heavy breathing.
“We’re moving,” Silas says. “Xavior, Tessa, and Jeb are flanking the south entry. Head-on team is ready for collision the moment that barrier drops.”
“Copy,” I say.
My Lycan shifts beneath my skin, claws pressing against muscle. “Too smooth,” he warns. “War is never this clean.”
Before I can respond, Silas’ voice returns—tight. Strained.
“You need to hear this.”
The background noise behind him is chaos—howls, screams, something wet and wrong.
“What’s happening?” I demand.
Silence.
Then he says it.
“Elira… she’s changed.”
A roar blasts through the communicator, so violent it distorts the signal.
“It’s not a Lycan,” Silas continues, his voice shaking now. “It’s not wolf. It’s not human. It’s—”
Another howl, but this one isn’t an animal. It’s layered like multiple throats screaming in one body.
Silas forces the words out.
“Her limbs are wrong, Elliot. It's like her body can’t change into one of the other so it started growing out. I’ve never seen anything like it. Her muscle and scar tissue are… knitting together mid-fight.”
My stomach turns.
Around the communicator channel, the others explode.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“Is that even possible?”
“Tell me that’s not her Lycan!”
“What is it?!”
I close my eyes for one dangerous second.
I know what it is.
Memories slam into me—labs hidden beneath the SilverFang compound. The smell of blood and burning herbs. Ancient runes etched into steel tables. Young wolves strapped down, their screams muffled by spells.
Elira’s grandfather had been obsessed.
Enhancement. Evolution. Surpassing the first generation.
Transmutation.
Dark magic stitched into living flesh.
And Elira… she was his masterpiece.
“Speak,” my Lycan growls inside me. “They need truth.”
Clara’s hand settles on my shoulder.
Warm. Solid. Real.
My mates move closer instantly, their presence anchoring me to the present instead of the past.
I swallow the bile in my throat and press the communicator.
“SilverFang has a history of using dark magic and transmutation to enhance their Lycan abilities,” I say, forcing my voice steady. “They wanted to be stronger than the first generation. They thought they could engineer superiority.”
Static hums.
“Elira’s Lycan is the result of her grandfather’s experiments,” I continue. “But the creature is unstable. The transmutation never fully integrates. It tears at the host.”
A scream echoes through the comms. Not Elira’s.
Tirianna.
“If she’s brought that form out,” I say grimly, “then we have less time than we anticipated.”
“Less time for what?” Jace snaps.
“For her body to start failing,” I answer. “And when it does, it won’t go quietly.”
My Lycan bares his teeth. “An implosion,” he says. “Magic consuming itself.”
Which means if the barrier is still intact when she destabilizes, the backlash could wipe out everyone trapped inside.
I check my tablet screen one last time. The chemical mixture stabilizes at the threshold I calculated.
Untested.
Unproven.
A hundred variables unaccounted for.
If I’m wrong, the reaction could strengthen the barrier instead of cracking it. Or it could shatter it in a magical shockwave.
But we don’t have time for perfect.
I key the communicator again.
“Status check. Confirm positions.”
One by one, they answer.
“Tao ready.”
“Jace in place.”
“Thorne set.”
“Rhys locked down.”
“Silas holding southern flank.”
“Xavior ready.”
“Tessa good.”
“Jeb steady.”
Every exit sealed.
No escape routes.
Good.
I seal the vial and stand.
Clara steps in front of me before I can take a single stride.
Her eyes—fierce and bright—search mine like she’s memorizing me.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
“I have to.”
She grips my shirt. “Promise me you’ll live.”
My Lycan surges forward at the tremor in her voice. “We do not break this one,” he says fiercely. “She is ours.”
Clara presses her forehead to mine. “I’ve already spent too much time without you.”
The memory of chains. Of separation. Of nearly losing her forever.
I cup her face.
“Nothing will stop me from coming back to you,” I tell her. And I mean it with every cell in my body.
She kisses me—fierce, desperate, claiming.
Energy sparks between us.
When she pulls back, she nods once.
“Go.”
I step out of the hidden base and into war.
The night air is electric.
The barrier towers ahead—an opaque dome of silver-black energy, crackling with ancient magic. Wolves surround it at a distance, tension so thick I swear I could push against it like a wall.
Inside the barrier, chaos reigns.
I see it immediately.
The creature.
Elira.
If that name even fits anymore.
Her spine arches unnaturally as she lunges at Tirianna’s Lycan. Limbs too long. Joints bending wrong. Three-clawed hands slicing through fur and flesh.
Tirianna roars defiance, but she’s losing ground.
Riven is at the barrier’s edge, fists slamming into it, his Lycan half-shifted in desperation.
“I’ll fucking kill you, you witch!” he roars. “Tirianna!”
The barrier flares, throwing him back.
My Lycan snarls inside me. Pathetic cage magic.
The creature’s head snaps sideways.
Even from here, I see the teeth—massive, jagged, protruding from a mouth that cannot fully close. Saliva drips thick and dark. One eye burns silver. The other pulses an angry red.
It isn’t a Lycan.
It’s a nightmare wearing one.
Another scream rips through the battlefield as the creature’s claws rake across Tirianna’s flank.
Riven goes feral, slamming himself against the barrier again.
“Enough,” I mutter.
I move forward.
Several wolves glance at me, their fear palpable.
“Elliot?” Tao calls.
I stop just short of the barrier’s surface. The magic hums against my skin, prickling like static before lightning strikes.
“Step back,” I order.
They hesitate.
“I’m taking it down.”
Shock ripples through the line.
“Are you sure that’s stable?” Rhys demands through the comm.
“No,” I answer honestly. “But I’m sure it will be enough to give you the opening you need. Everyone needs to get ready. Once this is down and shes vulnerable, her wolves will fight.”
Keith turns to Hope. “You need to go to safety.”
She sets her stance. “No. I will fight beside you.”
“Hope,” he says, frustration clear in his voice, “You’re carrying our child. If you won’t do this for me, do this for our pup.”
She looks at him, the emotion in her eyes makes me look away.
Finally, she says, “I won’t be far.”
“As long as you're safe, that’s all that matters,” he says.
I call out on the communicator. “We need someone to take Hope. I'm setting up the break.”
“Copy,” Tao says.
I pull the vial from my belt.
Inside, the liquid pulses faintly—responding to the barrier’s frequency.
I press my free hand against the dome.
The magic bites.
Pain sears up my arm as the barrier reacts to foreign contact.
Now, my Lycan urges. Push.
I inject the chemical directly into the energy field.
For one terrifying heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then—
The barrier shrieks.
Not metaphorically.
It screams.
It fights back.
I call my lycan forward, reaching my essence out toward the push back. My will locks with Elira’s. They grapple against each other, testing for advantage and weakness. But she is just a wielder of this parlor trick.
I am an inventor.
In every cast, there is DNA, and once I find the opening for the stand, I begin to unravel it.
Silver fractures spiderweb outward from the injection point, black veins tearing through the dome like cracks in glass. The barrier sparks and flashes in an attempt to regenerate the holes being created, but my decoding gets faster, more precise.
Inside, the creature pauses mid-strike.
“Move faster,” Riven shouts.
“Sure, because I’m not currently working against factors I have no time to de-analyze,” I reply.
My power reaches out feeling…feeling…
There. The core.
It pulses like a coiled snake ready to defend its very existence.
Its head turns slowly toward me.
Those mismatched eyes lock onto mine.
Recognition flickers.
And hatred.
The ground trembles.