Chapter 276: (Finale Of The Project X Diaries)

Fifteen years can turn grief into a blade.

Logan Frost did not spend those years sitting inside a palace, polishing a title that had been handed to him like a crown. He did not coast on the legend of Damien Frost, the Snow Alpha, the Original, the storm that once ruled the north. Logan made sure no one could ever reduce him to “the heir” with a lazy smile and a bow.

He bled for his name.

He earned it.

At twelve, he was a child with a secret lodged in his throat like a shard of ice. He watched his mother cry until her voice went hoarse, and he watched Lorne Corrigan walk away from the Snow Palace like a man shedding a skin. He said nothing because fear had taught him silence, and because grief had taught him how fragile people became when truth hit them too hard.

At fifteen, he learned how to hunt beyond training games. Not toy bows and bent twigs. He learned how to track the living heartbeat of something that did not want to be found. He learned to read the snow the way other boys read books. He learned the meaning of patrol routes, supply lines, and the way a rival pack moved when they believed the world belonged to them.

At seventeen, he killed his first enemy.

It was not a duel in a clean circle with witnesses and rules. It was a rogue wolf with a knife in the dark, the kind of man who smiled when he spoke of breaking cubs. Logan did not ask permission. He did not hesitate. He did not tremble when he drove steel into the man’s throat and watched the red stain widen against the white.

He went home that night with blood on his hands.

Brianna saw it, and her face went tight with fear, but she did not scold him.

She only said, “You look like your father when you are angry.”

Logan said nothing.

He did not know whether he wanted to be comforted by that or crushed by it.

At twenty, he stepped into the council hall and stopped asking.

By then the Snow Palace had shifted around him, slowly, as if the walls themselves understood that the cub was becoming an Alpha. Wolves who used to ruffle his hair now lowered their eyes. Elders who once spoke over him started pausing to hear his opinion. Hunters started asking him to lead them, not because his last name was Frost, but because when danger came, Logan moved first.

He had his father’s cold, and something else that no one could quite name.

Damien had been born with winter in his bones, ice in his veins, power that made the world listen. Logan’s gift was quieter, and more frightening. Damien’s cold came like a storm. Logan’s cold came like a decision.

He could pull heat from the air as if he were stealing it.

He could draw warmth from a living body until skin went numb and breath turned shallow. He could make a room feel like a tomb without raising his voice. He learned how to do it slowly. He learned how to do it fast. He learned how to do it without leaving a mark that anyone could explain.

The first time it happened by accident, he was sixteen, angry at a boy who had mocked Brianna, mocked Damien, mocked the Frost name like it was just a story to laugh at.

The air around the boy dropped in temperature so sharply that his teeth chattered mid-sentence.

The boy’s eyes went wide.

Logan had stared at him and felt something cold and steady settle in his chest.

He had taken the boy’s heat without touching him.

He stopped before the boy collapsed, because he still had rules then, and because Brianna’s voice lived in his head like a hand on his shoulder.

But the knowledge stayed.

Power could be quiet.

Power could be patient.

Power could be personal.

Logan’s enemies learned to fear him not because he bragged, but because he never needed to.

He showed up. He ended things. He walked away.

By twenty-four, the packs bordering the north stopped testing the Snow territory as often. The few that did, regretted it.

Logan never announced himself as “the Original’s heir.” He did not need that song.

He became a different story.

They called him the Cold King in whispered corners.

They called him Winter’s Son.

They called him Frostbite behind closed doors, like it was a joke, until they saw the way he fought.

He was not a symbol.

He was a consequence.

And through it all, the resentment remained, buried under victories and duty and a smile he wore like armor.

Because resentment does not die just because you learn how to function.

It waits.

It grows.

It sharpens.

Logan’s hatred did not burn hot.

It froze.

And it stayed aimed at one name.

Lorne Corrigan.

He never said the name out loud around Brianna. He never asked questions that would make her suspicious. He never pushed her to revisit that night, because he loved his mother, and because he knew grief could swallow a person whole if you poked it too hard.

But he did not forget.

He could still hear his father’s last whisper.

Run.

He could still see Lorne’s hand.

He could still smell the blood on stone.

Fifteen years later, he sat in a room that belonged to him.

Not just because he was an Alpha, but because the wolves in the Snow Palace had learned to obey him with the same instinct they once gave Damien. The war room table was larger now, the maps more detailed, the patrol routes thicker with ink. The fire in the hearth was strong, but Logan felt the cold inside him anyway, steady as bone.

Across from him sat Noel.

Noel was not Snow by birth. He had come from a fractured pack farther east, a man with sharp eyes and a mind built for strategy. Logan had taken him in after Noel proved himself on the border skirmishes, and after Logan realized that loyalty did not always come from bloodline. Sometimes it came from shared purpose.

Noel leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. A scar ran from his jaw to his collarbone, pale against dark skin. His gaze was watchful.

“What do we do next,” Noel asked.

Logan stared at the map. He did not look at Noel yet. He traced a line with his finger, slow and deliberate, the way a man traced a future he had already decided.

“I have an idea,” Logan said.

Noel’s brow lifted slightly. “That sounds dangerous.”

Logan’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Everything worth doing is.”

Noel leaned forward. “All right. Speak.”

Logan lifted his hand and pointed at the western edge of the territory marked in charcoal.

“The alphas in westside,” Logan said. “How about we get them.”

Noel’s face tightened. “I don’t see the point.”

Logan finally looked up.

His eyes were pale, not from weakness, but from cold. They had been lighter as a child, bright with innocence, but adulthood had changed them. Now they looked like ice over deep water.

“Trust me,” Logan said. “I do.”

Noel exhaled. “You’re talking about raiding a whole territory. That is not a small move.”

“It doesn’t have to be a massacre,” Logan said calmly. “It can be quick. It can be surgical.”

Noel’s gaze narrowed. “And what do we gain.”

Logan tapped the map again, eyes steady. “Leverage. Resources. A warning to any pack that thinks the Snow line is weak.”

Noel tilted his head. “This is about more than resources.”

Logan’s finger slid to a smaller marking, a residence symbol, a name written in an older hand.

“This place,” Logan said, and his tone did not change, but the air around him seemed to sharpen. “Especially here.”

Noel followed his finger, eyes scanning.

Then his expression changed.

He sat up straighter, as if the chair suddenly held spikes.

“This place is occupied by Alpha Lorne Corrigan,” Noel read, voice slow.

Logan watched him.

Noel’s eyes snapped up. “Wait Lorne!”

Logan’s face remained still.

Noel stared at him, and the realization widened in his gaze like a crack in ice.

“So this is about revenge.”

Logan leaned back slightly, clasping his hands together as if he had all the time in the world.

“It can be about several things at once,” Logan said.

Noel blew out a breath, shaking his head. “You could have said that at the start.”

Logan’s gaze did not soften. “Would it have changed your answer.”

Noel paused, then looked away, jaw tight. “No.”

Logan nodded once. “Then we move.”

Noel sat in silence for a moment, studying Logan like he was trying to measure the depth of the cold inside him.

“You’re sure,” Noel said finally.

Logan’s voice was quiet. “I have never been more sure of anything.”

Noel’s throat moved. “All right. If we’re doing this, we do it clean. We do it fast.”

Logan stood.

The fire in the hearth flickered, as if the room itself felt the shift in his power. Noel rose too, and the two of them moved like men stepping into a ritual that would end with blood.

Within hours, the Snow hunters were ready.

They traveled west under a sky heavy with clouds, the world painted in gray and white. The snow was thinner here, the trees darker, the air carrying different scents. Logan’s wolves moved in disciplined silence. They were not a pack of wild animals looking for a fight. They were soldiers. They had learned that from Damien’s legacy, and from Logan’s rule.

Logan rode at the front.

His mind was calm.

That was the strange part.

He had expected anger, shaking hands, adrenaline burning through him like wildfire. He had expected to feel like a boy again.

Instead, he felt like winter.

Steady. Unmoving. Inevitable.

When Westside’s outer sentries spotted them, it was already too late.

The first alarm howl rose into the air and died in a choking cut-off as Logan’s hunters hit the line like blades.

The fight erupted.

Westside wolves poured from buildings, some half-dressed, some with weapons, all with confusion in their eyes. They had not expected Snow to come this far south. They had not expected an Alpha who did not warn before he struck.

Logan moved through them with a cold precision that felt almost cruel.

He did not roar.

He did not posture.

He stepped forward, and the air around him dropped. Wolves stumbled as their breath turned thin. Their hands shook on their weapons as numbness crept into their fingers.

Some tried to plead.

Some tried to bargain.

Some tried to run.

A young wolf, barely older than a boy, fell to his knees in front of Logan’s hunters, hands raised, face streaked with tears.

"Please have mercy"

The words ripped out of him like desperation, and for a heartbeat, the chaos around them seemed to pause, like even the wind wanted to hear Logan’s answer.

Logan did not look at the boy for long.

He glanced once, expression unreadable, then shifted his gaze to the buildings beyond, to the heart of the territory.

He lifted his hand, and Noel’s hunters moved around the pleading wolf instead of through him. They shoved him aside, disarming him, binding his wrists, but they did not kill him.

Logan had not come for random blood.

He had come for one throat.

He pushed forward through the territory with Noel at his side, and behind them the Snow hunters controlled the fight, cutting down resistance with brutal efficiency.

Logan’s mind stayed fixed on one place.

The Lorne residence.

He recognized it the moment he saw it, even though he had never been here before. Something in him knew. A building with thicker walls, higher steps, guards positioned like a statement, flags that marked authority.

Logan’s feet crunched over snow as he approached. His breath came out pale. The air around him was colder than anywhere else in the territory, and even Noel noticed it, glancing at Logan like he could feel the temperature shift.

They hit the doors.

Westside guards tried to hold the entry, but they were already broken from the first assault. Logan’s hunters moved like a tide, forcing their way in.

Inside, the residence smelled of wolf and smoke and warm bread, the scent of domesticity clashing with the violence storming through its halls.

Logan moved through it like a ghost.

He found Lorne in a corridor near the back.

Lorne was older now.

Not ancient, not frail, but time had carved him. His hair had grayed at the temples. His face had sharper lines. His eyes, though, were the same as the night Damien died, watchful and calculating.

For a moment, Lorne froze when he saw Logan.

His gaze flicked over Logan’s hunters, over Noel, over the cold that seemed to crawl off Logan’s skin.

Then Lorne’s expression tightened.

He reached for his weapon, but his own wolves were already dead or scattered. The residence was compromised. The territory outside was burning with chaos.

Lorne backed up a step.

His nostrils flared, and Logan saw a flicker of recognition, not because Lorne knew Logan’s face, but because he knew the Frost scent in the air.

Logan walked forward slowly.

Each step felt like a countdown.

Lorne’s back hit the wall.

He glanced left and right, searching for an escape route that did not exist.

Logan stopped a few feet away.

He did not rush.

He did not swing first.

He wanted Lorne to understand.

He wanted him to feel what Damien had felt when he realized betrayal had a face.

Lorne lifted his chin, forcing authority into his posture. “Who are you.”

Logan’s eyes stayed on his.

He stepped closer.

Then, without warning, Logan lunged.

He slammed Lorne back against the wall, the impact rattling the frames on the stone. Logan’s hand closed around Lorne’s throat. Lorne fought, twisting, trying to drive a blade up, but Noel’s men yanked the weapon away.

Lorne snarled, struggling.

Logan shoved him down.

Lorne hit the floor, coughing.

Logan stepped forward, boots steady.

Then he planted his foot on Lorne’s neck.

Hard.

Lorne’s eyes bulged slightly as he clawed at Logan’s boot, breath choking.

Logan leaned down just enough for his voice to be heard over the chaos in the residence.

“Do you remember me?”

Lorne’s hands trembled. He tried to speak, but Logan’s weight cut his air.

Logan’s gaze did not waver.

Then he slowly started to pull out the heat from Lornes body.

It was not a dramatic blast, not a showy surge. It was intimate. Cruel. Logan felt the warmth leaving Lorne like water draining from a basin. He felt it in his own skin, the air growing colder, the frost creeping over stone.

Lorne’s mouth opened wide as his body reacted.

He screams and is in pain and begs for mercy

Logan looked down at him, face still.

“You killed my father,” Logan said, voice low enough that it felt like a sentence carved into ice. “God knows this is the least you deserve.”

Lorne’s body went rigid.

His breath turned shallow, then ragged, then thin.

Frost gathered at his lips.

His skin paled.

His eyes rolled slightly as panic tried to fight biology.

Logan kept pulling.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Noel watched from a few steps back, silent now, the meaning of revenge no longer theoretical.

Eventually lornes body freezes and he dies.

It happened with a final shudder and then stillness, as if the life in him simply gave up under the cold.

Logan lifted his foot from Lorne’s neck.

He stared down at the frozen body for one long breath, and he expected to feel relief.

He did not.

What he felt was empty.

Like killing Lorne had not filled the hole inside him. It had only proven the hole was real.

He straightened.

And then he sensed movement.

A small sound, soft footsteps in the corridor.

Logan looked up.

A young girl was coming toward him, frozen in place halfway down the hall when she realized what she was seeing. Her eyes were wide. Her hair was messy. She wore a plain dress that looked too thin for the cold Logan had filled the residence with.

Logan’s gaze sharpened.

He asked her name and she says Lilly.

The girl’s voice trembled but she forced it out. “Lilly.”

Logan stared at her for a beat.

Then his tone turned quiet, almost measured, as if he was forcing himself not to be the monster everyone would expect in this moment.

“Look at me Lilly. I am going to count till ten and when I'm done you're out of here and halfway out of westside.”

Lilly’s eyes widened further.

She swallowed hard. “You’re letting me go?”

Logan’s expression did not change. “I mean you couldn't be more than 13. I have no reason to kill you.”

Lilly’s breath came out shaky.

For a heartbeat she looked like she might run.

Then she froze again, eyes flicking toward a door up the stairs.

Her voice turned frantic, small hands clenched.

“My sister Drea. She’s in there.”

Logan’s gaze followed her line of sight.

His jaw tightened.

Logan asked lilly to run again so she does.

Lilly stumbled backward, then turned and sprinted, feet slapping the stone as she disappeared down the corridor, escaping into the chaos outside.

Logan watched her go for one second.

Then he turned toward the stairs.

He walked up slowly, boots heavy, each step echoing in the residence that now belonged to silence and frost.

The second floor was colder.

The air felt like it had teeth.

Logan reached the door Lilly had looked at.

His hand closed around the handle.

He paused.

He did not know why his pulse quickened. He did not know why the memory of his mother’s grief flashed in his mind, or why the palace firelight from fifteen years ago seemed to flicker behind his eyes.

Then he pushed the door open.

He then climbs up the stairs and opens the door. Then he sees her.

The room was dim, lit by a single lamp that trembled from the sounds of battle outside. The air smelled faintly of perfume and fear.

She looked utterly breathtaking with her black hair and gown.

Logan did not move for a heartbeat.

Something in his chest tightened.

Then he walked closer to her.

She was standing near the far wall, back straight, hands clenched in front of her like she was holding herself together by force.

Her eyes were down.

She was shivering, not only from fear, but from the cold that had invaded the house with Logan’s presence.

Logan stopped a few feet away.

His voice came out controlled, but it carried weight.

"Look at me"

The girl flinched, but she did not lift her eyes.

Logan’s jaw tightened.

"I said look at me"

Her breath hitched.

Slowly, as if every inch of movement cost her, she raised her gaze.

Her eyes were dark.

Alert.

Afraid.

But there was something else too, something that did not fit with the trembling. A quiet fire behind the fear, like she was trying not to let him see how much she was shaking.

Logan stared at her for a long moment.

Then he said, voice low and steady, “Do you know who I am?”

The girl swallowed.

Her lips parted.

"You're Logan Frost," she said.

The room felt colder still, and it was not only Logan’s doing. The air seemed to respond to the name like it carried weight.

Note the entire place turned cold and the girl was shivering.

She drew in a shaky breath, and her voice came out thin but clear.

"You're the Alpha of the Snow Pack."

Logan nodded and says good. There might just be hope for you yet.

author's note:

thank you all for reading so far.

Now the story will return to its original storyline. I hope you guys are ready to follow Drea Corrigan's misadventures again.