Chapter 93

{Ryanna’s POV}

He handed me a tonic just as the words left my lips.

“I know you don't plan to fight in that condition, right?”

I took it and gulped what I could. I wasn’t expecting much, knowing fully well the Cyclis Bloom was long exhausted, but every boost helped.

Clarity flowed through me like a welcomed guest.

The first thing I noticed was Casper's hair. Something I didn’t pay attention to because of how fast he came in… Heck, his arm even dangled weakly from its socket due to the impact. But he popped it back in effortlessly.

That said, his hair was… white. Not naturally, not from age. It was dyed. A crude job, but deliberate. Still damp at the ends from whatever tonic he’d used.

Casper stood with me on the field, silver-white locks like a mirror to mine.

A final rejection of Aurelius.

He didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t need to.

“Nice look,” I muttered. Almost stunned.

“Had some pretty good inspiration.” He said before transforming. That was all the time we had for pleasantries.

The next moment we were engaged in a deadly dance with Aurelius who had covered the distance almost as fast as he had been sent flying through it.

We faced Aurelius together. His breaths came ragged now, but his body still moved like the old beast he was. Impossibly fast for his size and full of malice.

Casper met my eyes briefly, as I ducked a wild slash from Aurelius’s claws.

We moved again.

He took the left. I took the right.

It was no longer a duel.

It was a dismantling of whatever was left in the great Aurelius.

Casper’s strength was unmatched, blunt, unforgiving.

He slammed into Aurelius like a hammer to stone, driving him back, blow after blow. They exchanged a blinding flurry of blows and claw strikes.

Each attack that landed cut deep into flesh and muscle. His fangs scraped bone. Every attack with the intent to kill.

I weaved through the gaps of their clashes with precision.

One mistake or miscalculation would have been the end of me. And the moment could come at any time… but until the moment came. I didn’t give up.

My role wasn’t brute force, but something far simpler, cutting between cracks, mounting the effects of Casper’s attacks, and breaking Aurelius’s momentum, striking where he least expected.

At some point, I blinked right into a stab meant for Casper, caught then twisted Aurelius’s wrist. Earning a pained shriek.

Together we were everything Aurelius wasn’t.

Speed and power. Precision and wrath.

Family.

He had single-handedly killed, orchestrated, or watched the deaths of everyone who would have truly stood by his side till the very end.

Which weren’t even many to begin with.

Now the consequences were clear. This was what it meant to fight for something real.

“How do you like being the one who's cornered?” I jeered as I tore into his thigh.

Aurelius lunged despite the gash.

Casper caught his other wrist mid-air and twisted.

Bone snapped and Aurelius bellowed, stumbled. I swept in and raked my claws across his back.

He spun, trying to retaliate. A magnificent miss.

Casper ducked low and tackled his legs, sending him crashing into the frozen soil.

The impact caused a crater that left me stunned at how that little action caused such a reaction.

We circled him like the wolves we were. No fear. No mercy. No hesitation.

He roared again, fury and desperation twisting into something feral. Then, with a guttural snarl, he reared back and surged toward me—

But Casper was faster.

Casper was always faster.

He met Aurelius in the air in what looked like slow motion. In a moment he drove him into a half-shattered tree. The bark cracked, then split under the force. Snow scattered. Wood splintered in their wake.

I was on him the next second, slashing across his muzzle, almost blinding his other eye — the one that wasn’t swollen shut.

Aurelius screamed, the sound carrying emotions I didn’t know a monster like him could possess.

But there was no strength in it anymore.

Casper grabbed his throat, lifting him off the earth.

The great Alpha. The King who sought out blood.

Now flailing like a broken animal.

Casper’s voice shook the clearing. “For every cub you killed.”

He threw him down.

I stepped in, another slash to his one good eye, completing what I started: “For every mate you tore from their bond.”

Casper came again, claws taking off an arm.

“For my father. The one I never had.”

Aurelius cried out, rolling, trying to stand, but I slammed a paw to his ribs.

Casper followed swiftly: “For my mother. For everything you did to her.”

And then—

It broke.

I had no idea what ‘it’ was. But everyone felt the sudden lack of presence in the atmosphere.

Suddenly, Aurelius fell weakly to the ground. Shards of stone biting into his form.

His fur dimmed. His claws retracted. His snarling mouth froze mid-growl.

He stopped shifting.

No, he didn’t stop.

He lost it.

If he had eyes, he would've blinked in confusion. If they were still in their sockets, I’m sure we would've seen the red in his eyes flicker.

His limbs trembled, not from pain, but what might have been described as defeat.

He tried to shift again.

Nothing.

No fur. No strength.

Just the hollow frame of a man whose beast had fled.

“What…?” he rasped, voice cracking. “What… did you…?”

Casper stared at him, almost confused. “It’s not us.”

He was right.

Aurelius’s wolf… had left him.

Not dead.

But simply too afraid to surface… he was no different from a wolf that couldn't shift… No, he was worse.

“By the moons. That's a first.” I coughed a mouthful of blood involuntarily.

The mighty tyrant lay there, trying to rise on two legs and failing. Crawling. Snarling nonsense.

I stood over him and peered at him.

For a moment, I understood how he felt when his ‘resources’ gave a disappointing display.

He was terrified.

He had ruled for decades by fear.

And now he was drowning in it.

“You said no one could kill you,” I whispered. “That you were above death.”

His blood pooled beneath him.

I leaned closer. “You forgot something.”

His jaw quivered. And I leaned in. “Beneath it all, you were just a man.”

Around us, the field had changed.

His wolves saw him now, crumpled, pathetic, no longer the beast they followed. Their confidence drained like water from a cracked bowl.

Some lost their shifts like him. Not exactly like him, but at the moment, it seemed like it.

Others turned and ran.

Many stood there… and simply fell to their knees.

His army shattered before our eyes.

Lestat and Nyra were the first to step forward. “Ryanna. What do we do?”

I looked at Aurelius again. “He’s done.”

“But the others—”

“No more blood.”

Casper nodded beside me.

But many didn’t share our restraint.

The Snow Pack howled. Some surged forward. They wanted vengeance.

I didn’t blame them.

But I stood between them and the fleeing wolves, voice carrying effortlessly throughout the blood-soaked battlefield.

“Stand down!”

Breath ragged. Eyes wild. Everyone froze.

I turned slowly. My voice softened. “The war is over. Let the last of your resentment die here.”