His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 221

Chapter 221

Chapter 221

Claire’s POV

The Northman was not a man; he was a monument to old-world violence.

Standing nearly seven feet tall, his skin was a topographical map of silver scars and ritualistic brandings that marked him as a mercenary of the high tundras.

When he stepped into the white sand of the circle, the air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

He didn’t look at the Council, and he didn’t look at the crowd.

He looked at Elijah’s throat with the clinical hunger of a starving predator.

Mason Reed stood on the periphery, a jagged, triumphant smirk cutting across his face.

He leaned against the stone pillar, his eyes flickering toward me with a look that said he had already won.

To the Reeds, this wasn’t just a Trial; it was a public execution.

“Yield now, Hale,” the Northman’s voice rumbled, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. “And I will make it quick.”

Elijah didn’t even blink. He stood in the center of the sand, his muscles taut, his eyes already bleeding into that terrifying, molten gold.

He had discarded his shirt, revealing the bruises from Silas’s training and the fresh, jagged lines of his own resolve.

He looked leaner than the giant, more compact, but there was a vibration coming off him-a frequency of pure, unadulterated power that made the stone floor hum under my feet.

“Less talking,” Elijah rasped. “More dying.”

The Lead Elder raised his hand, the signet ring on his finger glowing in the torchlight. “Let the Trial begin.”

The Northman didn’t lunge; he surged.

He moved with a speed that defied his massive bulk, his first strike a horizontal haymaker that would have decapitated a human.

Elijah dropped low, the wind of the blow whistling over his head, and countered with a lightning-fast strike to the giant’s ribs.

It was a hit that would have shattered a normal man’s ribcage, but the Northman only grunted, spinning with a back-fist that caught Elijah square in the chest.

Elijah was sent skidding back across the sand, his heels digging furrows into the white grit. He hit the edge of the circle, coughing up a spray of crimson that dappled the sand like macabre art.

“Elijah!” I screamed, my hand flying to my chest.

My heart gave a violent, jagged leap, and the monitor on my wrist began a frantic, high-pitched chirp. 135 bpm.

“Stay back, Claire!” Ethan’s voice was a sharp command from the sidelines, but his eyes were fixed on his son, his jaw set so tight I thought his teeth might crack.

The Northman didn’t give Elijah a chance to breathe.

He was on him in a heartbeat, grabbing Elijah by the throat and slamming him upward against the cold stone wall of the chamber.

The sound of the impact was sickening-the dull thud of meat and bone hitting granite.

The giant’s fingers dug into Elijah’s windpipe, hoisting him off the ground until his feet kicked uselessly in the air.

“This is the ‘future’ of the Red Pine?” the Northman mocked, his yellow eyes boring into Elijah’s fading blue ones. “A boy who bleeds for a broken mate?”

Elijah’s face was turning a dangerous shade of purple, but he didn’t panic.

He reached up, his hands locking onto the giant’s wrists like iron manacles. Using the wall as leverage, he drove his knees into the Northman’s chest-once, twice, three times-with the rhythmic precision of a piston.

On the third strike, there was a distinctive crack.

The giant let out a roar of pain and released his

He drove his shoulder into the Northman’s mid.

Chish hit the palun erouch, gasping for air, but he didn’t wait. Successfully unlocked!

o, laboho mom with the full weight of a varsity captain.

They went down in a tangle of limbs, rolling through the sand as the crowd erupted into a deafening roar.

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Chapter 221

“Shift!” Mason Reed screamed from the sidelines, his composure finally breaking. “Kill him! Shift and end it!

The Northman didn’t need the encouragement. With a sound like a forest snapping in a gale, his body exploded.

It wasn’t the graceful shift I was used to; it was a violent, gore-slicked eruption of fur and bone.

Within seconds, a massive, silver-white wolf stood in the circle.

He was a beast of the old sagas, his claws like obsidian daggers, his breath a foul mist in the cold air.

He let out a howl that vibrated in my very marrow, a sound of pure, ancient dominance.

Elijah stood up slowly, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

He looked at me across the circle. In that split second, the world narrowed down to just the two of us. I felt the bond flare- a white-hot cord of light connecting my stuttering heart to his iron will.

I wasn’t just watching him; I was with him. I felt his adrenaline, his pain, and his absolute, soul-deep refusal to let me go.

“Do it, Elijah,” I whispered, the words lost in the roar of the crowd. “Take what’s yours.”

Elijah let out a low, guttural growl that started in his toes and ended in a bone-shattering transformation.

He didn’t just shift; he became the shadow. The charcoal wolf that landed in the sand was smaller than the Northman, but he radiated a dark, concentrated heat.

His fur was the color of a thunderstorm, and his eyes were twin suns of molten gold.

The two wolves collided in the center of the circle.

It was a symphony of teeth and claws.

They tore across the sand, a whirlwind of gray and white.

Every time the Northman tried to use his superior weight to pin Elijah, the charcoal wolf would slip through his grip like smoke, striking at the joints, the hamstrings, the soft underbelly.

This was Silas’s training in action-the athlete’s mind meeting the monster’s instinct.

But the Northman was a veteran of a thousand kills. He caught Elijah mid-leap, his jaws locking onto Elijah’s injured shoulder.

The sound of teeth grinding against bone made me lightheaded.

Elijah let out a sharp, pained yelp, and the silver wolf began to shake him like a ragdoll, intent on snapping his neck.

“NO!” I lunged toward the circle, but Felix caught me, his arms like bands of steel around my waist.

“Wait, Claire! Look!” Felix shouted.

Elijah didn’t pull away. He did the unthinkable. He leaned into the bite, forcing the Northman to take more of his weight. As the giant wolf struggled to maintain his balance, Elijah reached up with his hind legs, his claws raking a deep, jagged path across the silver wolf’s throat.

The Northman let out a gurgling wheeze, his grip loosening as blood began to coat the white sand.

Elijah twisted free, blood dripping from his shredded shoulder, but he didn’t hesitate.

He pivoted on his front paws and lunged one final time, his jaws snapping shut on the Northman’s windpipe. He didn’t bite down to kill-not yet.

He held the giant pinned to the sand, his growl a low, vibrating warning that shook the very air.

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