Chapter 256 Hold That Perimeter
The devastating admission hung in the cold night air, a horrifying, suffocating weight that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the courtyard.
For a split second, the world entirely stopped.
Seeing his unshakeable Alpha King—his fierce, indestructible brother—physically shattered and paralyzed by the agonizing severing of a mate bond, Jax didn't hesitate for a single heartbeat. The fiercely tactical warrior instantly stepped into the terrifying void Fennigan had left behind. Jax's chest expanded, drawing in the freezing air, and he let loose a booming, earth-shattering Beta roar that violently ripped through the last remnants of the party's music, chatter, and joy.
"Blackwood guards, lock down the estate!" Jax bellowed, his voice laced with the lethal, absolute command of a military general going to war. "Nobody in, nobody out! I want a full, lethal sweep of the outer borders right now! Find the Luna now!"
The sheer, terrifying discipline of the Blackwood pack was instantaneous. Hundreds of highly trained warriors, who had been laughing, drinking, and dancing just seconds before, seamlessly transitioned into a terrifying, unified army. The yard exploded into chaotic, coordinated motion. The sickening, wet crunch of bones shifting echoed through the night as massive wolves burst from their human skin. Steel shucked from leather sheaths as weapons were drawn, and a tide of lethal predators began tearing off into the darkness, fanning out toward the perimeter like a wave of pure vengeance.
Jax spun around, his glowing golden eyes locking onto the small cluster of terrified women standing near the bonfire.
"Sarah, Ginny, Mom!" Jax barked, his sharp gaze cutting straight to the fiercely protective females of his family. He locked eyes with his mother, Elana, who was sitting rigidly tense in her wheelchair. "Take the babies up to the Alpha wing immediately. Lock the heavy steel doors and do not let anyone inside. Go!"
Elana didn’t waste a single breath, and she absolutely refused to succumb to the panic. The former Luna's face hardened into absolute, terrifying stone. She gripped the metal rims of her wheelchair, her knuckles turning white, and smoothly spun herself around to lead the charge.
Ginny clutched little three-day-old Iggy tightly to her chest, her human heart hammering wildly against the baby's as she fell into step right behind the wheelchair. Sarah grabbed the heavy wooden handle of the twins' wagon, her eyes scanning the dark yard like a cornered predator, acting as their armed, lethal shield. Moving as a fiercely protective, impenetrable unit, the women rushed straight up the stone ramps and steps, disappearing into the heavily fortified packhouse to keep the heirs safe.
With his family secured, Jax turned his furious, glowing eyes onto the stunned crowd of visiting packs.
"Everyone falls back to your assigned quarters until we find our Luna," Jax commanded. His tone was razor-sharp, leaving absolutely zero room for negotiation, questions, or wounded Alpha pride. "Is that understood?"
A missing, heavily pregnant Luna was a catastrophic, sacred emergency in wolf culture—an act of war that demanded absolute compliance. Not a single one of the fifteen visiting Alphas dared to challenge the Blackwood Beta in his own territory. Maxon, Draven, and the others instantly gave sharp, deeply respectful nods. They began barking quiet, urgent orders to their own people, quickly and efficiently corralling their Lunas, teenagers, and heavily armed entourages toward the guest wings of the estate.
As the guards systematically cleared the sprawling lawns, Jax’s tactical mind raced at a million miles an hour, his eyes cataloging the faces in the firelight.
Every single visiting Alpha was physically standing in the yard. Every single one of their family members and entourage guards were completely accounted for as they were herded inside.
Nobody from the visiting packs was missing. It wasn't an inside job from their new alliance.
Which meant whoever had just snatched the Blackwood Matriarch and violently severed her mate bond had slipped right past their reinforced borders, past the elite stealth patrols, and right past the roaring party entirely undetected.
The yard was rapidly emptying, leaving only the dying embers of the bonfires. Jax slowly turned back to Fennigan.
The great Alpha King was still standing bare-chested in the freezing, ash-scented air. He wasn't moving. His massive chest heaved with shallow, jagged breaths, and his glowing silver eyes were wide, wild, and completely unseeing. Fennigan was trapped in a feral, world-ending panic, entirely consumed by the agonizing, deafening silence where Leela's soul was supposed to be.
The sprawling lawns were nearly empty, the joyful chaos of the bonfire entirely swallowed by the terrifying, military precision of the lockdown.
Jax stood a few feet from his brother, his tactical mind racing as he watched Fennigan drown in the deafening silence of the severed bond. The Alpha King was completely unresponsive, staring blankly into the dark. Jax took a breath, preparing to physically shove his brother to snap him out of it, when the frantic crunch of boots on the gravel pathway caught his sharp ears. Xander, the pack's second in command, sprinted across the emptying grass. The lethal warrior didn't bother with formalities, his face pale and tight with urgency as he shoved a crackling tactical radio directly into the Beta's hands.
"Beta Jax," Xander breathed heavily, stepping back to give them space. "It's Marcus on the outer sweep."
Jax immediately depressed the button on the side of the heavy black radio. "Report."
The radio crackled violently for a second before the deep, gritty voice of Marcus, the pack's head warrior, cut through the static. The seasoned fighter sounded dangerously breathless.
"Jax, sir," Marcus's voice echoed out of the small speaker, unnervingly loud in the quiet yard. "We found a shoe. Just inside the eastern tree line, about fifty yards out from the packhouse's secondary doors."
The single, concrete word—shoe—acted like a physical defibrillator to a dying heart.
Fennigan didn't just snap out of his trance; he violently shattered it. The agonizing, paralyzing void of the severed bond was instantly incinerated by a blinding, apocalyptic rage. The beast fully clawed its way to the surface, completely taking over the shattered man.
Fennigan's massive head snapped toward the radio. His silver eyes weren't just glowing anymore; they were burning like liquid mercury in the dark.
He moved with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his massive size. In a fraction of a second, Fennigan crossed the space between them and ripped the radio straight out of Jax's hands. He didn't press the button; his knuckles turned stark white as he crushed the heavy plastic casing in his grip.
"Hold that perimeter," Fennigan snarled into the mic, his voice dropping into a terrifying, demonic rasp that vibrated the very air around them. "Do not touch it. Do not disturb the scent."
Fennigan threw the radio back at Xander's chest and didn't wait for a confirmation. He spun on his heel and launched himself toward the eastern woods, his long, heavy strides tearing up the manicured grass as he sprinted blindly into the dark to hunt.
Jax didn't hesitate. He flashed his golden eyes at Xander. "Secure the guest wings. Nobody takes a single step outside."
With his final order given, the Beta took off after his King, sprinting into the pitch-black tree line to find exactly where their Matriarch had been taken.