Chapter 104

After the prolonged fighting, the Silver Lake invasion force met little resistance as they marched towards the Castle. Most of the warriors or workers they encountered hiding between or inside the buildings around the pack immediately surrendered for fear that they might be killed by the Silver Lake warriors.

Their victory was now right before them as they got closer to the castle. They just had to take down the remaining warriors that had retreated into the stone structure.

As they approached the castle, they marched up the wide stone steps leading up to the large reinforced doors into the castle. When they arrived at the door to the castle, Jason walked up to the doors in his Lycan form and banged into it with his balled-up fist. He was struggling and failing to hold back his frustration that he hadn't found his mate yet.

It was obvious that the remaining Half Moon warriors had barricaded themselves inside the castle. He let out a rage-filled growl but walked back to his warriors without another word.

“Set the charges!” Patrick ordered.

At his words, Dennis and a few of his teammates immediately ran up to the doors and set explosive charges at the hinges of the massive doors into the castle. When they were done, they returned to their places behind their shield wall and awaited their next orders.

“Prepare for incoming fire!”, Jason called out to his warriors.

When their warriors had taken cover, Dennis flipped the switch and detonated the explosives. After the booming sound of the explosives, there was a loud creaking sound as the large doors slowly fell out of their place and to the floor in a cloud of smoke and dust.

The moment the doors hit the ground, there was a barrage of bullets flying at them from the warriors that were barricaded within the castle.

The warriors inside the building had set up barricades in front of the doors and on the upper-level balcony overlooking the entrance hall. They continued to fire hoping that the narrow entrance would help them funnel the invaders into their continuous gunfire.

When none of the invaders had entered the building, they seemed to relax thinking that they had succeeded in holding them back. But they soon realized how wrong they were when they saw a large black Lycan jump into the space from behind the smoke. He was immediately followed by a wave of Lycans and wolves that made short work of the warriors barricaded in front of the doors.

When the entrance to the castle was secured, they proceeded forward as they dispatched all the Half Moon warriors that had tried to attack them. It was now clear to the remaining Half Moon warriors that this battle was already lost.

As Jason stomped towards a barricade in his Lycan form, the warriors knew that this was to be their end. The moment Jason grabbed the barricade and tossed it aside, the warriors immediately tossed their weapons and fell to their knees. Jason stopped just before he attacked them when he saw that they were surrendering. This seemed to create a cascading effect as all the remaining Half Moon warriors copied their actions and threw their weapons away before surrendering.

The remaining Half Moon warriors realized that no promises of wealth and glory would be worth the sacrifice when faced with the overbearing force of a Lycan army led by the Silver Lake pack.

The battle had finally been won.

*****

The sound of gunfire was slowly getting closer to the castle as Michael and his teammates made their way to the labs with Hannah leading the way. And all the wolves within the castle seemed to recognize the coming doom for what it was.

As they ran down the corridors towards the lab, all the wolves they encountered either stayed out of their way or fell to their knees in surrender. When the group paid them no mind and continued on their way, the wolves immediately got up from the floor and resumed running in the opposite direction.

When they arrived at the lab, they walked in through the open double doors to see all the scientists scrambling to copy their files from their computers and rushing to gather all the samples and documents that they could carry. Looking around the room, Michael’s eyes came to rest on the operating table with leg rests and what looked like blood stains. The sight of Amelia’s blood on the operating table threw him into a blind rage at what they might have done to her.

“WHERE IS SHE?!” Michael growled at the scientists, finally drawing their attention to them.

Stomping into the lab, Michael grabbed one of the scientists by the collar and he slammed him into one of the shelves that he had been emptying.

“I will not ask again”, Michael said through gritted teeth.

“S…she went to confront the Alpha”, the scientist stammered out in fear.

“WHERE?!” Michael screamed.

“His office! Top floor!” the scientist said.

Still enraged, Michael tossed the scientist towards the middle of the room. He then looked around the room and noticed that the only thing they seemed to be studying was Amelia. All the charts pinned to the boards were full of her vitals and blood work results.

“Are you the ones who have been experimenting on our Luna?”, Michael asked with a scowl.

His question made the scientists jolt and look at each other nervously. And Michael wondered if they thought that no one would know what they had done to Amelia.

“We were only following orders…” one of the scientists said.

Turning around to leave the lab, Michael began walking out to join the rest of his group when another thought came to him. He had already been struggling to keep his rage in check when he saw the operating table, but if they answered his question positively he knew that it would throw him over the edge of reason. He paused at the doorway, unable to go further without knowing the truth.

“Were you the ones that experimented on her as a child?”, Michael asked with his back to them.

“….We were only following orders”, the same scientist said after a long pause.

Michael’s expression immediately darkened and his eyes blackened in rage. These were the people who caused her so much pain as a child, so there was no way he was going to allow them to walk out of this building alive.

Without another word, Michael pulled out his handgun from its holster and turned around to face the scientists before shooting them and killing all of them one at a time.

When he was done, he looked over the room again to make sure he didn’t miss any of them. He let out a sigh when he was sure that he had got all of them.

He had often had to carry out morally ambiguous actions like this in all the conflicts he participated in on behalf of his pack. Although he knew they were not the only ones to blame, he still could not overlook the abuse they had inflicted on their Luna and the woman he cared for as a sister. And a part of him was glad that Pete had not been there to see what he had to do.

He turned back to his team as he returned his handgun to its holster. Looking at each of their faces, he was surprised to see that none of them seemed shaken by what he had just done. The Lycans looked at the scientists like scum while Hannah looked at them as insignificant beings.

“Amelia doesn’t need to know about this”, Michael said as he looked at Hannah.

Hannah finally looked away from the lab and back at Michael with a determined expression on her face. He knew then that she understood what Amelia had gone through and would do what it took to protect her from the monsters from her past.

“No she doesn’t”, Hannah replied in understanding. “Come with me! I know where the Alpha’s office is located on the top floor.”

Turning and running down the corridor, Hannah continued to lead them toward the Alpha’s office on the upper level. When they arrived at the topmost floor of the castle, they heard a loud booming sound of an explosion ringing through the castle followed by the sound of gunfire. The sound made them pause where they were as they tried to discern what the explosion meant to them.

“They’re in the castle”, Michael said as he glanced in the direction of the explosion. “We need to hurry! The fighting is going to come this way and we need to get Amelia out!”

“This way!” Hannah exclaimed as she led them down another corridor.

They couldn’t risk their Luna getting caught in the crossfire of the fighting. So they needed to hurry and get to her before the Half Moon warriors attacked her out of desperation.

When they were almost at Thornbury’s office, they heard a Lycan’s roar before they saw the flash of something flying out of the office and into the wall opposite.

As they got closer, they recognized their Luna’s silver Lycan bracing herself against the wall with a piece of wood sticking through her shoulder.