Chapter 278 I Love You to Sparky
The Alpha King didn't just attack; he completely unleashed the apocalyptic, world-ending beast that had been violently thrashing against his ribs. Fennigan hit his father like a freight train of pure, unadulterated murder. They crashed hard to the concrete floor, but Fennigan didn't stop. He was a blur of razor-sharp claws, bared fangs, and guttural, demonic snarls. He didn't just kill the monster who had tortured his mate—he systematically, violently tore him to pieces, ensuring there was absolutely nothing left for whatever dark magic he had tapped into to ever resurrect again.
While the King unleashed hell on the floor, Jax was already moving.
The towering Beta threw his smoking weapon aside and lunged for the stainless-steel table. With desperate, precise speed, Jax violently ripped the toxic, silver-filled needle completely out of Leela's stomach. He aggressively tore the IV lines from her arms and ripped the screaming fetal monitor sensors off her skin. As the machines sparked and died, the agonizing, shrill alarm finally ceased, leaving only the wet, visceral sounds of Fennigan's brutal execution echoing off the concrete walls.
It took several long, terrifying minutes before the feral tearing finally stopped.
Fennigan slowly rose to his feet. He was heavily drenched in synthetic blood and gore, his massive chest heaving with ragged, subsonic breaths. The Alpha King turned his liquid-mercury eyes toward the table.
Jax was just finishing unhooking the last of the restraints. Without a single word, Fennigan stepped forward and aggressively shoved his brother out of the way.
It wasn't a push born of meanness or anger toward his Beta. It was pure, unadulterated, feral possession. The absolute, primordial need to touch his mate, to claim her, to physically shield her from the horrors of the world completely overrode his cognitive mind.
Fennigan leaned down and gently, almost reverently, scooped Leela’s cold, fragile body off the freezing steel table and into his massive, blood-soaked arms. She looked impossibly small and broken against his heavily muscled chest.
"Fenn," Jax rasped, his golden eyes filled with deep, brotherly sorrow as he reached a heavy hand out toward his King. "Let me help you."
Fennigan slowly turned his head.
The look in the Alpha King's eyes made Jax physically freeze. It was completely feral. The silver irises were blown wide, consumed by a wild, hunted, apocalyptic darkness that possessed absolutely no human reason. It was the terrifying, untethered gaze of a monster who had lost everything and was currently holding his only remaining reason to breathe.
Jax understood immediately. He slowly lowered his hand and took a deliberate step backward, giving the feral beast the space he demanded.
Fennigan turned away. He didn't say a word. He just tightened his protective grip on his heavily pregnant mate and began the long, agonizing walk out of the subterranean bunker.
He carried her up through the pitch-black, suffocating tunnels. When he finally breached the threshold and stepped out into the freezing mountain wind, he didn't stop. He didn't look up at Marcus, who instantly dropped to a knee at the sight of his blood-soaked King. He didn't even acknowledge the terrified Weaver still huddled in the mud.
Behind him, Jax emerged from the dark, his deep voice calling out into the freezing night. "Fenn!"
Fennigan completely ignored him. He just kept walking, his heavy combat boots crunching methodically through the frozen forest floor.
The massive, indestructible wolf man was completely hollowed out. He was once again having to carry his mate back from the absolute brink of death. He was the one person in the entire universe who was supposed to protect her. He had sworn a sacred vow to be her ultimate safe haven. Yet, he had brought her directly to the Blackwood territory thinking it was a sanctuary, only to realize he had literally carried her straight into the jaws of hell without even knowing it.
The absolute, crushing weight of that failure was suffocating him. As he held her freezing, unconscious body against his chest, feeling the faint, terrifyingly slow pulse of his unborn son, the indestructible King of the Blackwoods was silently dying inside.
The trees blurred into a dark smear around them as he walked, the wind howling through the pines like a chorus of mourning ghosts. Somewhere deep beneath his ribs, the beast was still raging—not with violence, but with a grief so vast it threatened to drown him. His claws dug into her hospital gown, not to claim, but to anchor himself before he shattered completely.
The pack house loomed ahead, its windows glowing like dim embers in the storm. He took the stairs one at a time, each step heavier than the last, as if the weight of his failure was pressing him deeper into the earth.
Her eyelids twitched. A whisper-thin exhale escaped her cracked lips. "Fenn?" The word was slurred, fragile—barely audible over the wind clawing at the roof.
Fennigan's entire body locked. His claws flexed involuntarily against her ribs, not piercing, just trembling. When she didn't speak again, he forced his legs to move, ascending the final stairs in a nightmare daze. The bedroom door groaned under his shoulder as he shouldered it open, the scent of their mingled pheromones stale from days of absence.
He laid her down on the tangled sheets with excruciating care, his bloodied fingers leaving rust-brown streaks on the pale linen. The nickname—Sparky—clawed up his throat like broken glass.
Her eyelids fluttered again. He watched the vein in her temple pulse once, twice, agonizingly slow. The rasp of her breath filled the hollow spaces between his ribs. When she didn’t speak, he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing in the fading antiseptic scent clinging to her skin.
His boot hit the floor with a thud that shook the bed frame. The second followed, kicked carelessly into the shadows. He dragged a ruined blanket over his blood-caked forearms, the fabric tearing under his claws. The stains remained—streaks of rust and regret.
Fennigan lowered himself beside her, his body curving around hers like a fortress of ruined muscle and half-healed scars. He didn’t dare breathe until her chest rose again, shallow but certain. Her eyelashes trembled, catching the dim light like fractured spiderwebs. "Sparky?" The name was gravel in his throat, the first word he’d ever called her—back when she’d been all wildfire and defiance.
Her lips parted. A soundless exhale. Then, barely there—"I love you, Fenn." It wasn’t a whisper. It was a crack in the universe, the last thread tethering him to sanity. His claws flexed against her ribs, pressing just enough to feel the flutter of their pup beneath. "I love you too, Sparky." The confession was raw, a promise carved into his bones.