Chapter 73 FORGET ALL ABOUT THE RULES
Ragnar’s POV
The pain in my chest is not what bothers me at all, it's the waiting that unravels me.
For a moment, I forget all about the council and its whiny elders who have nothing better to do than to gang up against Omegas.
I forget all about the threats from my ‘friendly’ and rival Alphas, and I also forget about the challenge looming like an executioner’s blade hanging over my head.
It’s the waiting that kills me.
The runner should have returned by now, the pain I'm feeling from the bond should have steadied and settled by now.
But it hasn’t.
It keeps flickering inside my chest like a dying flame fighting strongly against wind.
Every pulse of it scrapes along my nerves down to my spine.
Everything feels wrong.
“Alpha–” someone begins behind me, with concern in their voice.
I don’t turn.
I can’t.
Because if I open my mouth right now, I will not speak to that person, I will snarl.
I would probably lash out at some poor wolf who was just interested in my wellbeing.
The bond spasms again and this time it isn’t fear that I feel, it’s violence.
It slams through me so hard that my vision fractures at the edges.
I'm an Alpha.
I'm probably one of the strongest or amongst the strongest in the realms.
I am the Alpha of Alphas.
And yet, the level of violence I'm feeling from Sebastian, scares even me a little bit.
My hand flies to my sternum as though I can physically hold it in place.
Sebastian, what is going on with you?
Are you under any attack?
But it's not possible, he should be in the pack grounds, training and all of my wolves know it's practically a death sentence to even touch Sebastian.
As long as he's in the pack grounds, he should be safe. So why all this violence and red I'm seeing?
There’s… blood in the bond.
It's not literal, but as I feel a taste of something metallic at the back of my throat, I deduce the reason why.
Why is there blood in Sebastian's mouth?
And how has the bond progressed so much between us even without actual sexual intercourse? I thought we needed to go all the way for the bond to reach this level?
Yurik surges forward with a feral growl that rattles through my skull like a speaker
“He is in danger.”
“I know.”
My voice, on the other hand, sounds like it has been scraped raw.
The guards lining the corridor are all trying to pretend like they're not staring at me.
I'm sure I look crazy clutching my head and snarling orders at people.
The mad Alpha of Alphas is what they'll call me from now.
But even they can feel it too.
That something is definitely wrong.
I should wait for information.
I should always try to retain control over myself and maintain control.
I am an Alpha for heaven's sake!
But control feels like cowardice from me especially when the bond is trembling like this.
It jerks again inside of me sharply,
And then–
Nothing.
It just… stops.
It doesn't stop and like fizzle out because he's safe or anything but it stops like it never happened in the first place.
Like a taut bowstring that finally snapped.
That is when something inside me finally snaps.
“I’m done,” I murmur.
Yurik doesn’t hesitate either.
“Let me out Ragnar. Four legs are better than two.”
There is no more debate from me.
It doesn't matter that all wolves were banned from shifting in hallowed council grounds.
I released him.
The first thing to go is my spine.
It isn't anything pretty.
It bends backward so violently before I even hit the ground.
I hear a sickening crack tearing from my back as my vertebrae shifts out of alignment.
Even for the Alpha of Alphas, I drop to my knees with a grunt as my palms slams against really old stones.
My bones are pushing and moving beneath my skin and I can feel it stretching.
After stretching till there's no room, my flesh splits wide open.
My ribs expand next, not gently and definitely not smoothly.
They fracture outward with wet popping sounds that resemble the sound of popcorn as they reshape and lengthen in size.
The pressure is unbearable for a split second before the feeling shifts and it becomes something else
It is a relief and I am high on how powerful I feel.
The more powerful you are, the more gruesome and brutal your shifts become.
My hands contort in front of me as my fingers grow out of proportions and elongate in a grotesque manner.
I feel my joints snap and realign as my fingernails thicken into dark curved claws.
Skin in my hand tears along my knuckles and wrists as dark fur punches through to the surface.
My heightened hearing picks out sounds as someone behind me gasps and I hear another stumble back in fear.
My wolf form is just as if not taller than my seven foot human form.
Good.
Let them see what I am and what I can be when I stop pretending to be civilized.
My jaw unhinges in my face with a violent wrench as my human teeth give way for Yurik's huge fangs that shove their way through my gums, longer and sharper.
Blood floods my mouth as this is happening and spills down my chin but I ignore it.
I collapse forward as my legs break and reform one at a time, reversing its structure from human to wolf as my muscles start tearing and knitting in a weird grotesque harmony.
My clothes are all gone at this point, the fabric falling uselessly away as my body expands and grows in size.
While all of this is happening, fur spreads down my spine and body like wildfire.
A howl rips from me mid-shift, when I'm in the middle, not fully wolf and not fully man. It shakes the corridor walls and silences every other sound in the pack grounds.
When the transformation finishes, there is no Ragnar kneeling on stone.
There is only Yurik.
Big, black and massive Yurik who's seeing red that someone touched his mate.