Chapter 59

Chapter 59
Jasper POV

‘Jarek?’

Silence. For the past few days, I was answered by the most deafening and heartbreaking silence. I’ve had my wolf for so long that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be by myself. Although I knew I wasn’t really alone. It was faint, not a presence as a whole, more like a side, another version of me. The heavy scent of copper, ozone, and damp stone hung thick in the air. I could smell it with every agonizing breath I took, deep beneath the Elder Council’s stronghold. This room was a chilling testament to forbidden science and ancient cruelty, lit only by flickering neon strip lights that cast harsh, clinical shadows over the rusted iron grates beneath my feet.

And right in the center of it all, chained like a rabid animal, was me.

I was stripped to the waist, my chest slick with a mixture of sweat and my own dark, sluggish blood. Thick chains forged from pure, refined silver wound around my torso, my forearms, and my neck, biting deeper into my flesh every time I tried to move. The metal hissed against my skin. I watched tendrils of acrid white smoke rise from my arms as the silver actively suppressed my healing, sending a constant, searing heat through my veins that threatened to tear my mind apart. Yet, I refused to bow my head. I clenched my jaw, fixing my piercing grey eyes with lethal intent on the figure pacing slowly before me.

Elder Kodard looked completely out of place in this grim laboratory. Clad in pristine, embroidered ceremonial robes that brushed against the blood-stained concrete floor, the old bastard moved with a calculated, chilling serenity. In his gloved hand, he held a long, silver-tipped prod. It hummed with an artificial electrical current, and I knew exactly what it was for—it was designed to agitate the wolf within the man.

"You are stubborn, Jasper. Extraordinarily so," Kodard murmured, his voice smooth, entirely devoid of any empathy. He stopped his pacing, tapping the silver prod rhythmically against his palm. "Most Alphas would have broken hours ago. Their human minds would have shattered under the weight of this much silver, forcing their beasts to the surface just to survive the toxicity."

I spat blood onto the floor, deliberately aiming near his polished boots. A grim, mocking smirk tugged at the corner of my lips despite the agony.

"You don't know anything about my beast, old man," I rasped. My voice sounded like a gravelly ruin after hours of silent endurance. "You want It? Come and pull him out yourself. Stop hiding behind your toys."

Kodard sighed, a sound of profound disappointment, and gestured to the masked Omega monitoring the screens along the damp wall. "Increase the silver-nitrate drip. Let us see how much more his pride can swallow."

One of the attendants turned a valve on a glass cylinder. Instantly, a burning, liquid fire surged through the IV line hooked into my forearm. My entire body locked tight. A guttural, animalistic roar tore from my throat before I could stop it. I watched the veins along my neck and chest turn a sickening, bruised black as the liquid silver flooded my bloodstream, warring directly with my Alpha spark.

"Why resist the inevitable?" Kodard asked, stepping closer. His eyes gleamed with a fanatical, dangerous light. "I am not doing this out of cruelty, Jasper. I am doing this for the future of our entire race. Do you have any idea how many lives I have had to discard to reach this point? How many weaklings I have put down?"

My chest heaved, my breathing shallow and frantic as I fought to keep my consciousness from slipping into the dark. "You’re a monster," I growled.

"I am a visionary," Kodard corrected sharply, his calm demeanor briefly cracking to reveal a terrifying, megalomaniacal arrogance. "I have killed many in my life. Too many to count. Soldiers, rogue Alphas, elders who lacked the stomach for greatness. And I will not stop. I will never stop until total, absolute power belongs to me. The werewolf hierarchy is broken, rotting from the inside out because of leaders who preach peace. True peace only comes through absolute dominion."

He leaned in, his breath hot against my face, his voice dropping to a harsh, venomous whisper. "But all of my sacrifices, all of the blood I have spilled, means nothing without the final piece of the puzzle. I need the ultimate authority to legitimize my reign. And I will have her. I will have the Moon Goddess Heiress for myself."

The moment he mentioned the Heiress, something shifted violently inside me. He confirmed every doubt I was holding on secretly in a corner of my mind for all the time I passed looking at the ceiling. The air in the room grew perceptibly colder.

"Keep her name out of your filthy mouth," I snarled. The grey hue of my eyes flared with a dangerous, luminescent fire. I strained against the silver chains, roaring as they rattled against the floor. The flesh of my wrists tore open as I tried to claw my way toward him.

"Sarabella," Kodard purred, intentionally using her name to twist the knife in my chest. He chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "Ah, yes. Your precious mate. Do you really think a biological bond means anything to me? I owned her, Jasper. For months, she was right here, in this very facility. My finest achievement. I brainwashed her so perfectly, molded her mind until she didn't even remember the sound of your voice or the scent of you. She was a blank slate, a perfect, divine weapon waiting for my command."

Kodard turned his back to me, walking toward a steel table covered in surgical instruments. "Regrettably, a weapon must be tested in the wild. I released her a few weeks ago—or was it months? Time blurs when perfection is so close. I set her loose back into the world, watching from the shadows, waiting for the mark to settle permanently into her flesh, poisoning her so she would return to me willingly, completely subservient, ready to hand over the divine power of the Moon Goddess. With the head of that little healer and the heart of her sister on a plate."

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The thought of Sarabella—my beautiful, fierce mate—being manipulated, her mind violated by the monster standing before me, lit a raging bonfire of pure hatred in my chest. I didn't care about the silver anymore. I didn't care about the pain.

"I am going to rip your throat out with my bare teeth," I promised him, my voice deadly quiet, vibrating with a resonance that shook the loose dust from the laboratory ceiling.

Kodard turned back around, but the triumphant, arrogant smirk was entirely gone from his face. Instead, his features were twisted into a mask of pure, unbridled fury. His eyes were wide, veins bulging against his temples as he tightly gripped his silver prod.

"You think you will save her? You think you will have your happy ending, Alpha?" he shouted, his professional composure utterly shattering into raw, venomous rage. He stepped up to me, slamming the silver-tipped prod directly into my wounded chest.

I screamed as the electricity and silver burned simultaneously into my flesh, but Kodard kept pressing it down, his face inches from mine.

"She is gone, you fool!" Kodard roared angrily, his voice echoing off the damp concrete walls. "Two nights ago, the transport taking her back here lost control! Sarabella was in a massive car crash on the northern highway! The vehicle was in an explosion, and before my operatives could secure the wreckage, someone else took her! She was taken somewhere entirely outside of our grid! We lost her!"

The words echoed in my mind, striking me harder than any physical blow ever could.

Car crash.

He lost her.

She's gone.

For a fraction of a second, my heart stopped. The world went completely silent. The agonizing burn of the silver nitrate in my veins, the blistering heat of the prod against my chest, the humming of the laboratory lights—all of it vanished, swallowed by a void of pure, unadulterated terror for my mate. Sarabella was hurt. Sarabella was missing.

Then, the terror crystallized into something else. Something ancient. Something catastrophic.

Deep within the subconscious prison where the silver had locked it away, a monstrous presence awoke. It didn't care about the silver. It didn't care about the chains. Our mate was in danger, and the universe itself would burn before we let her go.

A sound began to build in the dark room. It wasn't a growl, and it wasn't a roar. It was a deep, sub-audible vibration originating from my chest that rattled the glass cylinders on the desks and caused the masked technicians to instantly drop to their knees, clutching their ears in agony.

"What... what is that?" one of the technicians screamed, blood beginning to trickle from his nose.

Kodard stumbled backward, his anger instantly evaporating into sheer panic as he looked at me.

The silver chains wound around my body were suddenly glowing red-hot—not from fire, but from the sheer, overwhelming pressure of the aura exploding from my flesh. The black, poisoned veins on my chest suddenly flared with a bright, ethereal silver light, consuming the toxin and turning it into pure energy.

My spine snapped backward with a sickening crack as my body began to expand, my muscles tearing and reforming at an impossible speed. Thick, midnight-black fur erupted along my shoulders and arms. My fingers elongated into razor-sharp, obsidian talons that sliced through the air.

When I raised my head, my human self was gone.

I looked through two glowing, blood-red eyes, staring out from a massive, terrifying Lycan visage. The pure silver collar around my neck groaned under the pressure, the metal cracking like cheap glass. With a deafening, apocalyptic roar that shattered every lightbulb in the room, plunging the laboratory into terrifying darkness, I broke my first restraint.