Chapter 270 Do You Still Not Get It
The sheer, arrogant audacity of the dead man standing over his Luna violently snapped the last thread of Fennigan's restraint.
The indestructible Alpha King let out a guttural snarl and took a single, massive, earth-shattering step forward, his razor-sharp claws fully extended, preparing to cross the room in a blinding fraction of a second to rip Damon’s head completely off his shoulders.
"Ah. Please don't do that," Damon warned, his voice instantly dropping the playful tone, hardening into a sharp, lethal edge.
To emphasize his command, Damon’s gloved hand moved. It was a fraction of an inch—a subtle, terrifying twist of his wrist. The thick, heavy gauge of the steel needle physically shifted deep inside the delicate flesh of Leela's womb.
Instantly, the secondary medical monitor beside the table violently erupted.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
It wasn't Leela's slow, sedated, rhythmic pulse. It was the frantic, impossibly fast, terrified heartbeat of the tiny Alpha pup trapped inside. The sudden, shrill alarm violently shattered the steady jazz music, flooding the clinical room with the agonizing sound of an unborn child in absolute, physical distress.
Fennigan froze mid-stride. All the apocalyptic violence instantly drained from his face, replaced by a suffocating, blinding terror as he stared at the frantically spiking green line on the monitor.
Damon watched his son's absolute devastation with a sick, delighted fascination. "I'd hate to slip and accidentally hurt my dear grandson before I get what I need," Damon whispered, his thumb lightly stroking the heavy glass barrel of the syringe. "Funny thing, though... did you know that even though our sweet Leela is heavily under, our little Zephyr still feels absolutely everything?"
The sound of that name leaving Damon's twisted, corrupted mouth hit Fennigan like a hollow-point bullet to the chest.
It was a profound, sickening violation. That name was a sacred, fiercely guarded secret. It hadn't been picked out of a book; it had been given to them by the magic itself. Leela had felt the whisper of it in her soul the exact second she realized she was pregnant. And the very moment Fennigan had discovered he was having a boy, the ancient, elemental name had simply fallen from his lips as if the wind itself had planted it in his mind. Zephyr. They just knew.
It was their bond. Their son. And Damon using it now proved exactly how deeply, terrifyingly he had invaded their lives and their minds.
"She's numb," Damon smiled, his thumb resting terrifyingly back onto the heavy glass plunger, totally ignoring the murderous, heartbroken glare of his son. "But he is wide awake."
The absolute, suffocating terror of watching his unborn son's heart rate frantically spike on the monitor finally broke the indestructible King of the Blackwoods.
Fennigan’s massive, heavily muscled shoulders physically slumped. He let out a long, ragged, shuddering breath, the apocalyptic Alpha rage violently draining out of him, leaving nothing behind but a desperate, completely broken mate.
He slowly opened his blood-caked hands, showing Damon his empty palms, and dropped the fierce, lethal command from his voice.
"Please," Fennigan whispered, his liquid-mercury eyes entirely stripped of pride as he looked at the monster who had sired him. "Let them go. Take me instead. Strip my wolf. Drain my blood. Do whatever the hell you want to me, Damon. We saw your... projects. We know what you're doing. Just take me."
Damon paused. His dark, arrogant eyes dragged over Fennigan's massive, surrendered form, studying the broken Alpha King with a deeply unsettling, clinical fascination.
Then, with a sickening, wet shhhhhlk, Damon smoothly, casually pulled the massive glass extraction needle completely out of Leela's flesh.
Fennigan visibly violently swayed with absolute, dizzying relief. The shrill, frantic alarm of the secondary heart monitor instantly silenced, returning to a fast but steady, safe rhythm as tiny Zephyr settled back into the dark warmth of the womb.
Damon didn't set the needle down. He held the thick, terrifying glass barrel up to the harsh fluorescent lights, examining the gleaming, razor-sharp steel tip before turning his cold gaze back to his son.
"Fenn... do you honestly still not get it?" Damon asked, his smoky voice dropping into a tone of genuine, disappointed pity. He slowly shook his head. "I have absolutely no use for you. Neither you nor Jax carried a single drop of the elemental gene from your mother. I suppose my dominant Alpha blood mixed with her Alpha blood in the womb, completely suffocating the magic before it could even spark. You were both devastatingly ordinary."
Damon began to slowly pace around the head of the stainless-steel table, his boots clicking sharply against the floor. He reached out, his gloved fingers lightly, terrifyingly brushing a strand of dark hair away from Leela's pale, deeply unconscious face. Fennigan’s chest heaved, but he forced himself to stay perfectly, flawlessly still.
"But then..." Damon murmured, his dark eyes lighting up with a twisted, obsessive reverence. "The little girl you spent your entire life talking about finally drove up into our territory with you sitting in her passenger seat, stepping out of that pathetic, rusty little car. And my son instantly announcing he had found his mate."
Damon chuckled, a dark, breathless sound that echoed over the smooth jazz playing in the corner.
"I didn't know for certain what she was back then, but I felt something," Damon admitted, staring down at the breathtaking, multi-colored glow of the elemental stone embedded in her chest. "I mean, how else could you have possibly sustained such a staggering, impossible connection over that many miles? Across that many states? It defied all Lycan biology. It had to be ancient magic."
Damon stopped pacing. He looked up, locking his dark, obsessive eyes directly onto Fennigan. The casual arrogance completely vanished from his face, replaced by a haunting, terrifying fervor.
"And then... the truth finally came out. When she turned out to be the Divine Elemental," Damon breathed, his voice vibrating with absolute, unadulterated awe. "When the Moon Goddess herself actually bypassed the heavens, possessed her body, and spoke directly through her... and I was just standing right there in the room. A mere mortal in the presence of absolute, untethered divinity."
Damon gripped the edge of the freezing steel table, his knuckles turning white through his surgical gloves.
"Do you have any idea how that felt, Fennigan?" Damon whispered, his voice cracking with a terrifying, greedy desperation. "To stand in the shadow of a God, knowing that the ultimate, world-altering power was wrapped up in the fragile, breakable flesh of your son's little mate?"