12:00 Wed, Feb 18 B
hapter 179
Chapter 179
HUNTER
The dark magic didn’t want to die.
It twisted through the forest, a mass of shadows and rot that scraped on my senses My knees no longer amblet de my beast’s strength had amplified, but the dark magic around was still terrifying. My pack will hut among the mess our their fear was cloying
When I lunged for the shadow, my claws ripped through smoke that burned like acid and in realed. Then it arged again. faster this time, avoiding my claws like it was smarter. It was searching. Hunting, Still looking for mother host.
The pack wasn’t safe.
Kitty hit it from the side before it could reach the outer line of cans. Her wolf was a flash of white and night moving wuf a speed that didn’t make sense even to me. When she tore through the cloud, the magic screamet an uneartily sound han rattled through my bones.
We could hurt it. That realisation warmed me as hope bloomed in my chest.
We circled it together, our wolves mirroring each other without thought. Every time I struck, she was already these cutting off its retreat. Every time it lashed at her, I felt it, felt the impact like it had hit me instead.
My steps faltered as I realised. My mark was gone, the bond was gone, but she was still mine Somehow Even though our hearts didn’t beat in sync, mirroring her was instinctive. And taking the pain for her meant one titing
Our ability, our power, wasn’t just synced. It was shared.
I drew on my strength and felt it answer from her side. The unfamiliar thread that had grown along with our bond sarted t hum beneath the magic that had found a home inside me. My strength multiplied. Kitty pulled from hers, and in poured straight back into me, heavier than before. Darker and sharper than before.
My strength was borrowed. Given. And returned. Together, we were much more than we should have been.
Even without the bond.
The magic must have sensed it, too. It recoiled violently, expanding outwards, splitting into writhing tendrils that shammed into the ground and rose again in shapes. Half-formed shadows with claws and teeth. Nightmare-inducing creatures faces twisted, echoing what Zachary had once commanded.
Except these weren’t his. They were Kitty’s.
She threw her head back and howled. The sound cracked through the forest like a command, and my pack answered instantly. Dozens of them surged forward, drawn to her voice, her power spreading through them like wildfire. Net to us. they looked like mere pups, but their fear was gone, and the courage that made us who we were was in its place.
The shadows multiplied. One became five, five became twenty, each tethered to a Lycan, each reinforcing the line, giving even the weakest fighters something to fight back with.
She wasn’t controlling my pack; she was using it. Just like that, we had an army capable of fighting the magic still swirling above us.
The magic faltered. For the first time since I felt it, since I knew how terrifying it was, I sensed it retreating. It stopped searching. Though dark magic surrounded us, none of it belonged to it anymore.
In one mind, we pressed our advantage brutally. I tore into its core while Kitty pinned its edges, the shadows around the Lycans anchoring it in place. The cloud shrank, folding in on itself, screaming as it became fragmented, its parts vanishing in the air like mist.
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12:00 Wed, Feb 18
Chapter 179
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Then there was silence. The magic collapsed, condensing into a pulsing mass of corrupted energy, barely holding together. Just a hazy, red ooze-a weak one. Something Jasper could have easily controlled at first, giving himself the confidence and arrogance to do what he had pulled.
Was this what had driven Elijah? Could I have saved him?
I pushed those thoughts aside as I shifted back with a snarl, exhaustion slamming into me all at once. My knees almost buckled, but I leaned against a tree trunk. Kitty shifted too and swayed slightly before catching herself.
We were both breathing hard when our gazes met across the clearing. We’d given it our all, but this darkness could easily find another host and begin the carnage all over again.
I turned my head towards Rivers, who’d stood in the shadows, and locked eyes with him. He already knew. I could see it in his face, the grim recognition, the weight of the bloodline he’d not acknowledged all his life.
Ironclaw blood.
His pack had sealed it away before when brute force hadn’t been enough.
“Do it,” I said hoarsely.
Rivers stepped forward, stopping into the circle we’d formed around the remaining red shadow. It tried to lash out, desperate for a body again, as if it could sense what was about to happen. Rivers didn’t hesitate. His canines descended, and he bit into his palm. Blood dripped from his hands as he pressed the shadow to the earth, chanting under his breath as ancient magic flared.
It was clean and merciless. The shadow screamed once, and then it was gone. It wasn’t destroyed. It was sealed away so tightly I couldn’t even feel an echo of it.
And then the sound returned. The forest came alive, as if we had been in a bubble. Slowly, one by one, my pack shifted, breathing hard. No one was injured. No one was dead.
Except for Jasper. His body lay twisted and still at the edge of the clearing, waiting to be reclaimed by the earth he’d tried corrupt. Damned if I would bury him with the rest of my family.
Quiet settled around us. I looked up at the full moon we’d feared for so long and breathed. Only its gentle tug remained, without the bloodthirsty urges.
I looked at Kitty. Relief surged through me so violently I had to steady myself again. My beast was solid inside me again. I was whole, powerful, and I could protect her again. We’d done it together.
We’d won.
I stepped towards her, already reaching for the place at her neck where my mark had faded. Already imagining restoring it, claiming her properly this time. I would anchor us together so completely that nothing would ever tear us apart again.
Kitty didn’t move. She met my gaze with that same coldness that had shattered my heart.
My hand stilled.
Her eyes flicked past me to Rivers.
“Nathan,” she said. “Take me home. Back to Lordswood Castle, where I belong.”
The word hit me harder than any blow I’d suffered that night. I stared at her, waiting for her to look at me, to feel the thing still binding us. To think of everything we’d just survived together, and everything we were. To give me a chance to explain. I wasn’t the monster she thought I was.
But she didn’t look at me again.
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