Chapter 16 Revenge

Chapter 16 Revenge
Nyssa POV

The words echoed like thunder through every wolf present. They were older than me. Older than Moonfang. Words of the Alpha Luna, spoken with the authority of the Goddess herself.

Cassian froze. His body shook, and then he collapsed into sobs of rage. Rowan and Ronan hauled him up like dead weight. Wolves parted to make a path.

As they dragged him away, Ronan lingered, his eyes blazing at me.

“Nyssa,” he murmured, stepping close, and brushing a thumb across my jaw where one of the attackers had grazed me. “Baby… are you hurt?”

“No,” I said softly. “But I’m angry.”

“Good,” he said, his voice low. “Use it.”

He squeezed my hand once, firm and grounding, before turning to bark orders at the wolves. I exhaled slowly as the adrenaline faded.

Vianna rumbled inside me. "More danger will come."

“I know.”

"More wolves will come too."

“I know.”

"We are ready, Nyssa. We are becoming what the Goddess needs."

I looked around the courtyard, at the wolves bowing their heads to me one by one. Not with fear. Not with desperation. With faith.

“We will protect them,” Vianna whispered.

“We will protect all of them,” I agreed.

By the time the three men were dragged away and the wolves dispersed, the night had gone quiet again, and a strange hush settled over Moonfang like the forest itself was exhaling. My heart was still pounding, adrenaline still hummed in my veins, but the danger had passed. The pack, my pack, had answered my call faster than breath.

Ronan stayed glued to my side the entire walk back to the packhouse.

He didn’t touch me at first. He kept his hands half-curled, his jaw was flexing, and his eyes flicked to every shadow along the trail as though he expected another attack to leap out of the dark.

His wolf lay thick inside the bond, growling low, protective, and furious.

When we reached the steps of the packhouse, he finally reached for me. His fingers brushed mine,
tentatively, like he was afraid that if he grabbed too hard I’d vanish. I intertwined our hands without hesitation. The moment our skin connected, his breath shuddered out.

“Nyssa,” he whispered, his voice rough. “Sweet hells… I was so afraid.”

My chest tightened. “I’m fine.”

“You almost weren’t.”

We walked through the hall, the last few wolves still awake bowing respectfully as we passed. Greta was near the kitchen doorway, but one look at Ronan’s face and she quietly lowered her head and slipped away, giving us space.

We climbed the stairs without speaking. Words weren’t needed; the bond throbbed between us, raw and shaken.

Inside my room, Ronan closed the door and immediately wrapped his arms around me from behind. He pressed his forehead to the back of my neck and breathed me in like he needed the scent to calm the storm inside him.

“Gods, Nyssa,” he murmured, his voice breaking at the edges. “If I had been even ten seconds later… if something had happened to you… I would have lost my damn mind.”

I turned in his arms and cupped his face. His eyes were blazing with rage, fear, and relief, all tangled into something feral.

“You didn’t lose me,” I said softly. “I’m right here, Ronan.”

He kissed my forehead, then my temple, then my cheek, each touch trembling.

“I will fight the fucking world for you,” he whispered, “you hear me? Every alpha, every enemy, every bastard who even looks at you wrong...I’ll take them apart.”

My heartbeat stuttered. Vianna purred approvingly.

Without another word, he scooped me up and carried me to the bed, setting me down with the gentlest care, a contrast to the wild fury he’d unleashed minutes earlier.

When he crawled in beside me, he didn’t reach for anything more. He just pulled me into his chest, tangling our legs, keeping me tucked under his chin with a grip that felt like both worship and desperation.

His breath warmed the top of my head as he whispered against my hair, “I thought I was ready for anything this place could throw at us… but the thought of losing you? Nyssa, it gutted me.”

I placed my hand over his heart. “You won’t.”

He exhaled shakily and held me even tighter.

“I’m not letting you go,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and vow and something dangerously close to love. “Not now. Not ever.”

The tension drained from him slowly, and his body softened around mine, his protectiveness settling instead of vibrating like a live wire.

As his breathing deepened and his arm tightened around my waist, he whispered one last thing, barely audible, but Vianna bristled with pleased shock.

“I’ll fight the whole damn world for you, Luna.”

His words sank into me like a promise.

He fell asleep holding me, with his chest rising against my back, and his hand splayed over my stomach, anchoring me to him. For the first time in years… I felt safe enough to sleep in someone’s arms.

And I let myself drift, with Ronan’s quiet heartbeat guiding me into the dark.
\~~~~~

Cassian POV

The dungeon stank of mildew, rusted chains, and my own humiliation.

Moonlight barely reached this far underground, filtering through a narrow crack in the stone ceiling. Every breath scraped like broken glass in my throat. Every heartbeat pulsed with rage.

Nyssa. That treacherous bitch. That glowing, self-righteous fraud of a Luna.

She waltzed back into my pack, my territory, and stripped me of everything. My title. My wolves. My power. My legacy. She turned them all against me with a single fucking look.

And Ronan, that rogue piece of shit, dared to stand in front of her like he was her protector. Her mate.

I yanked at my shackles, and the metal bit into my raw wrists. I could still feel the snap of the pack bond severing, and the hollow echo in my soul where command used to be.

It should have killed me. It didn’t. It just fed the hatred. A rat scurried across the floor. I kicked it, snorting when it squealed and fled. Even vermin had more freedom than me.

I stared at the dirt beneath my knees. I could sit here and rot. I could beg. I could do nothing.

Or…I could take back what was mine.

I dragged my thumbnail across the flesh of my palm until it split open. Blood dripped onto the stones...dark, thick, and angry.

“I call upon whatever hears me,” I growled, and my voice scraped out of my chest like something feral. “I want a bargain.”

Nothing answered. A cold laugh echoed in my head. Then a whisper slithered through the darkness.

“Do you now?”

The shadows in the corners began to move, not flicker, but actually move, and they crawled along the walls like liquid night. A figure emerged, long-limbed, with skin the color of moonless sky, and teeth like black diamond shards. Its eyes glowed red, like twin burning coals.

A shadow demon. One of the old ones. The forbidden kind. The temperature dropped so fast my breath fogged.

It tilted its head. “You bleed willingly. You hate deeply. You call loudly. Yes… I hear your desire.”

I kept my spine straight, refusing to kneel. “I want power. Enough to crush the entire Moonfang Pack. Enough to claim Nyssa Blackwell as mine. Enough to destroy anyone who stands between us.”

A low rumble rolled from the demon’s chest.

“You want what was never yours,” it purred. “Ambitious creature. Broken alpha. Small man.”

I lunged at it. The chains dragged me back.

The demon laughed.

“I offer you a bargain. Your soul for a new body. A new identity. You will become an invited alpha of the Mate Hunt. You must kill the other one. Take what you desire.”

I felt my blood turn molten. A new form. A chance to walk among them. To hunt Nyssa legally, and publicly. To claim her by force if I wanted. To tear her precious Ronan apart in front of her.

“What’s the catch?” I rasped.

“You will obey my whisper when I call for your service. You will kill who I tell you to kill, when I tell you to kill them. And your soul...” it inhaled deeply, “...will be mine for eternity.”

My soul had stopped mattering years ago.

“It’s yours.”

The demon’s smile stretched impossibly wide. “Then bleed.”

My body folded forward against my will, and my forehead slammed to the ground. I felt my spirit tear open. It wasn't pain, or pleasure, but something vast and consuming. The demon pulled something out of me, something essential, and devoured it with a pleased hiss.

Then everything went black. The shackles fell away with a metallic clang. My muscles tore and reformed.
My bones snapped, lengthened, and reshaped. My skin stretched across new mass. My face rearranged itself, and my skull fractured and re-formed in jagged flashes.

Power surged through me like wildfire, hot, sharp, and addictive. When I gasped, the air tasted different. Colder. Sweeter.

I stood....no, towered. My new reflection shimmered in the demon’s eyes. I was no longer Cassian Holt.

I was Aldric Thornvale, Alpha of Ironwood Ridge Pack....one of the alphas the Moon Goddess herself had supposedly marked as “worthy.” One of the five hundred invited to Moonfang for the mate hunt.

Tall, six foot six. Lean muscle carved like a weapon. Hair a dark brown. Eyes black with a ring of molten gold around the pupils. Skin smooth, unscarred, and perfect. Stronger than any wolf I’d ever known. Stronger than I had ever been.

The demon circled me like a proud artist admiring his sculpture.

“This body is feared. Respected. A killer. You will enter the hunt with all his rank and power. None will suspect. You must kill him before he checks in. He camps just south of this location."

I flexed my new hands. They were larger and stronger, and my veins pulsed with dark magic.

“And Nyssa?”

“Yours to claim… if you are strong enough.”

The implication that I might not be made me snarl. A swirling black portal formed behind the demon.

“Go.”

I stepped through. Cold wind hit my face. I stood in the forest just outside Moonfang territory, free, resurrected, and remade.

The demon’s voice echoed through the trees.

“Kill the Gamma first. Bring me his heart.”

Ronan. Of course. I smiled.

“I’ll kill them all,” I murmured. “Nyssa will watch as her new empire falls."

I moved through the trees like a shadow unbound, silent and sharp. Moonlight carved silver blades between the pines, glinting off my skin as if the forest itself were watching me breathe.

The demon had told me exactly where he’d be.

And there, right on schedule, walked Aldric Thornvale, Alpha of Thornvale Ridge. Tall, broad, and powerful. A man who carried himself like he owned every inch of earth he stepped on.

He paused at a fallen log, and his nostrils flared. He sensed danger. He didn’t sense it fast enough.

I launched forward, and my hand clamped over his mouth. I felt the moment his spine gave, the sharp, wet crack vibrated through my palm as he dropped like cut timber.

Pathetic. I flexed my fingers, wiping his blood on the grass as a familiar hiss slid behind me.

The demon emerged from the darkness like smoke made sentient, all ember threads and hunger.

“You did well,” it purred.

The smoke poured over Aldric’s corpse, sinking into his flesh like rot sped into fast-forward. The body shuddered violently, before collapsing into nothing but ash.

No bones. No scent. No evidence.

I stepped forward, letting the magic wrap around me, letting Aldric’s memories bleed into my mind like oil spreading under water.

A perfect replica. A perfect weapon.

I could already taste the moment Nyssa realized too late.

I wasn’t coming to win the mate hunt.

I was coming to end it.