LYCAN'S POINT OF VIEW.
I watched my so-called twin brother fall.
There was no glory in it as there was no epic last stand. Just the slow, crumbling collapse of a once-mighty Alpha brought down to his knees.
He gasped something…his final words.
"Jaden… you shouldn't have brought her back…"
The name hit me like a whisper across the wind. My brows furrowed. Jaden? Who the hell was Jaden?
I looked around quickly, eyes scanning the shadows, ready to fight again. Maybe someone was here or maybe this Jaden had arrived while I was busy cutting the soul from my brother's chest.
But the rest of the day was still and silent, and there were no footsteps and no heartbeats but my own.
Just the hiss of dying wind and the crackle of fading magic.
I scoffed, lips curling into a half-smile.
"Hallucinating," I muttered. "Should've known."
Still, the way he'd said it… like he believed it. Like he knew something I didn't as It gnawed at the edges of my mind, but I forced it down.
Because at that moment, something even more beautiful happened.
His body began to disintegrate.
Not just decay as It burned from the inside out, without flame or smoke. Ash crumbled from his arms first, then his chest, then his face.
All that strength, that pride, that cursed Alpha aura… was all gone, as it is now reduced to dust by death and dark magic.
Then something clinked softly onto the stone beside the ashes.
And it happens to be the heirloom.
The Alpha heirloom, woven into his hair since the day the Moon Goddess crowned him Alpha. A thin chain of black iron with a crescent pendant carved from white moonstone.
I bent to pick it up.
But before my fingers could touch it, it shimmered once and vanished…just like that. As though the Moon Goddess herself had reclaimed it.
"Coward," I whispered to the air. "Even in death, you hide behind her."
I stood up straight, I had no more business here.
My brother was gone.
His mate, my former sister-in-law, stood as nothing more than a stone sculpture…arms frozen mid-reach, mouth open in a silent scream. A perfect reminder of what happens to those who cross me.
I turned away, letting the shadows wrap around me.
Dark magic surged to life, rising like smoke from my skin. It curled around my limbs and pulled me upward. I hovered, then soared, trailing a cloud of thick, black mist behind me as I flew toward the pack house.
The sky darkened with my arrival, and it was the clouds that obeyed me now, so everyone around me must obey me now.
As I floated above the central courtyard of the pack house, I saw them.
The wolves, the pack members as they now stand like someone who has just lost their father, " oh I forgot, of course they just lost their father. They lost their Alpha." hahaha.
Hundreds of them, gathered in confusion and dread, surrounded by my soldiers…those loyal to me.
Some of them were…children, elders, warriors…had dried blood on their clothes. Not all had resisted and while some had surrendered, some had begged. Good for them all.
It meant they knew fear.
I hovered above them, my eyes burning black, and I raised my voice.
"I know I don't need to explain myself to any of you," I began, letting the wind carry my words to every corner of the courtyard. "You know me. You remember my story."
They stared in silence.
"You remember how I was banished." I laughed bitterly. "Cast out like trash by your so-called noble Alpha… my own twin brother."
A few eyes dropped. Some faces turned away in shame.
"I was left to rot in the shadows. I was denied my birthright. I was supposed to lead this pack."
I floated a little higher, letting the wind gust through my cloak of black mist.
"Well guess what?" I shouted. "I'm back now."
A few of them flinched, "And I didn't come alone."
I gestured to my army…figures cloaked in darkness, standing rigid with glowing eyes.
"I brought warriors from across the mountains. Beasts of shadow and exiled wolves like me. And together…we took back what's mine."
I paused, letting the silence thicken.
"Your Alpha… is dead."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
I saw the pain twist some of their faces as mothers, warriors, elders. Those who'd followed Dinero blindly until the end were disappointed, my smile got wider as Im enjoying the whole scenario.
"Your Luna?" I added casually. "She's a statue now. And I'll be using her to decorate my Alpha chamber. Perhaps above the throne."
More gasps, even a few cries could be heard and it sounded perfect to me because their fear and cry is my strength.
I folded my arms behind my back and continued. "So let me say it plainly…I am your Alpha now. You will bow, or you will break."
Fear spread like wildfire across their faces. They believed me. They should.
But I wasn't finished. "There is one last matter," I said slowly. "A small, delicate issue."
I tilted my head. "Where… is my niece?"
I scanned the crowd. "She's not in the pack house. She's not in the forest. So I'll ask again… where is little Diana?"
For a moment, no one moved, until a hand rose.
A single, trembling hand and it was a boy…young, maybe seventeen…pushed through the crowd, eyes burning with defiance.
I gestured lazily. "Speak."
He stepped forward, shaking, but his voice was steady. "You will never be our Alpha," he said loudly.
"Even if we knew where Diana was…we would never tell you."
The courtyard froze and his words echoed through the silence.
For a moment, I just stared.
Then… I snapped.
With a flick of my fingers, a burst of dark light slammed into him.
His body twisted…bones cracked, skin warped…and in the blink of an eye, he dropped to the ground as a tiny green frog, croaking in confusion.
Screams rang out, the crowd backed away in horror.
I slowly began to descend, the air trembling around me. My cloak of magic hissed and coiled like a living thing, and my feet touched the stone.
My eyes were black, pure black that the crowd dared not move and they dared not breathe.
I could taste their fear as I enjoyed every bit of it.
And I was just getting started and I will ask again for the last time " where is my niece?" As I didn't mind killing all of them if they didn't start talking.
I didn't waste much time to show them how angry I was as my red turned red immediately and a rolling dark energy formed in it, I was tasty for blood as I already steady myself to kill.