The forest was a suffocating labyrinth of ancient oaks and twisting thorns. The torrential rain turned the ground into a treacherous slick of mud and rot, devouring the sound of my footsteps.
I wasn't running aimlessly. I was hunting.
My chest still throbbed with the dull, hollow ache of the severed bond, a phantom limb that refused to stop bleeding. But the adrenaline was a potent anesthetic.
I slid behind the massive trunk of a fallen redwood, pressing my back against the rough bark. I slowed my breathing, matching it to the chaotic rhythm of the storm. One... two... three...
Through the sheets of rain, a massive brown wolf crept into the clearing. It kept its snout low to the mud, tracking the drops of blood I had purposely left on the fern leaves. It was one of Chloe's personal guards. Big, brutal, and utterly lacking in finesse.
He thought he was tracking a broken, weeping Omega. He had no idea he was walking into a slaughterhouse.
Above, Nyx whispered in my mind, her predatory instincts bleeding into my human consciousness.
I didn't hesitate. I climbed the slick, moss-covered roots of the fallen tree, moving with a silent, unnatural agility that no normal human or un-shifted Omega should possess. I crouched on the overhang, directly above the tracking wolf.
He paused, sniffing the air, confusion rippling through his bulky frame. He had lost the trail.
I dropped.
I didn't scream. I didn't make a sound. I landed squarely on his broad back, the impact driving the air from his lungs with a wet oomph. Before he could even register the ambush, I drove the silver-coated hunting knife deep into the soft hollow behind his right ear—straight into the brain stem.
The wolf convulsed violently, a gargled spray of blood erupting from his snout. The silver sizzled as it hit his bloodstream, burning his insides to ash. I twisted the blade sharply to ensure the kill, then violently kicked myself off his back as his massive body collapsed into the mud, dead.
I hit the ground rolling, pulling my knife free in one fluid motion.
"One," I whispered, panting, the rain instantly washing the hot blood from my face.
But I didn't have time to celebrate. A ferocious, blood-curdling howl tore through the storm. The other two assassins had heard the commotion. They burst through the underbrush, their eyes glowing with unnatural malice when they saw their fallen comrade.
They didn't hesitate. They lunged at me simultaneously from opposite sides.
I dodged the first set of snapping jaws, slashing my silver blade across the grey wolf's snout. It yelped, stumbling back. But the second one—a massive black brute—slammed its heavy shoulder into my chest.
Ribs cracked. The force sent me flying backward through the air. I crashed through a patch of thorny briars and slammed hard against a rock face.
Pain exploded in my vision. My knife slipped from my numb fingers, lost in the dark mud. I gasped, tasting copper again. My left arm hung uselessly at my side, dislocated at the shoulder.
The two wolves circled me, their lips pulled back in grotesque sneers. They were going to take their time now. They were going to tear me apart piece by piece.
I pressed my back against the cold stone, my breathing ragged. I had miscalculated. I was too weak from the rejection.
Let me out, Elena! Nyx roared, thrashing against her mental cage. Let me tear their throats out!
If you shift now, the energy spike will alert every pack within fifty miles, I argued desperately. Including Xander.
Then we die! she snarled.
The black wolf lunged, jaws snapping toward my throat. I braced myself, preparing to unleash the White Wolf, consequences be damned.
But the jaws never reached me.
A shadow detached itself from the canopy above. It didn't fall; it plummeted like a meteor of pure, concentrated darkness.
The impact was catastrophic.
The shadow landed directly on the lunging black wolf. There was a sickening, wet crunch that echoed louder than the thunder. The assassin's spine was instantly obliterated, folded in half under the sheer, impossible weight of the newcomer.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat.
The creature that slowly rose from the crushed carcass was not a normal wolf. It was a bipedal nightmare, standing nearly seven feet tall, covered in pitch-black fur that seemed to drink the meager moonlight. Muscles coiled beneath its skin like thick steel cables. Its claws were curved, obsidian scythes.
A Lycan. An ancient, apex predator of myths.
The remaining grey assassin whimpered, its tail tucking firmly between its legs. It turned to run, abandoning all loyalty to Chloe in the face of absolute death.
The Lycan didn't even chase it. He simply reached out a massive, clawed hand. The air around him warped. A surge of dark, kinetic pressure shot forward, slamming into the fleeing wolf with the force of a freight train. The wolf's body exploded against a tree trunk, leaving nothing but a gruesome smear of red and grey.
Silence descended on the clearing, save for the relentless hammering of the rain.
I didn't move. I didn't breathe. My heart hammered wildly, not from fear of the assassins, but from the apocalyptic aura suffocating the air.
The Lycan slowly turned to face me.
His eyes were not the amber or yellow of ordinary wolves. They were a glowing, hypnotic crimson. They were eyes that had seen centuries of slaughter, eyes filled with a terrifying, ancient madness.
But as those red eyes locked onto mine, the madness flickered.
He tilted his massive head, sniffing the air. The scent of my blood, the scent of the rain, and... something else.
Suddenly, my chest seized. A jolt of electricity, a thousand times more potent and violent than what I had felt with Xander, struck my heart. It wasn't a warm, gentle pull. It was a gravitational collapse. It was a chain wrapping around my soul, anchoring me to the monster standing ten feet away.
Mate. Nyx whispered, completely stunned into silence. True Mate.
The Lycan's breathing hitched. His massive chest heaved. He took a step toward me, the ground shaking under his weight. He wasn't looking at me with love or instant devotion. He looked at me with profound, irritated confusion, mixed with a dark, terrifying hunger.
He didn't want a mate. I could feel his resistance through the bond, a dark, churning ocean of cynical rejection. And yet, his body betrayed him, drawn to me like a moth to an inferno.
He stopped inches from me. The heat radiating from his monstrous body fought off the chill of the rain.
I didn't cower. I didn't beg. With my right, uninjured arm, I blindly reached into the mud, my fingers wrapping around the hilt of my dropped silver knife.
I brought the blade up, pointing the toxic tip directly at the center of his massive, armored chest. My hand was shaking, but my eyes were locked fiercely onto his crimson ones.
"Take one more step," I rasped, my voice barely a whisper over the rain, "and I'll see if a Lycan King can survive silver in his heart."
The monster froze. He looked down at the tiny, trembling knife, then back up to my face.
For a long, tense moment, the forest held its breath.
Then, the Lycan King did something I didn't expect.
A deep, rumbling sound vibrated from his chest. It took me a second to realize what it was.
He was laughing.
"You're broken, bleeding, and half-dead, little wolf," his voice was a gravelly, demonic purr that vibrated deep in my bones. "Yet you bare your fangs at me?"
His massive hand reached out. He didn't swat the knife away. He gently, deliberately wrapped his clawed fingers around the sharp blade, ignoring the sizzle of the silver burning his skin. He pushed the knife aside and leaned down, his face inches from mine.
"Fascinating," he whispered, his red eyes burning with a sudden, dark obsession. "Perhaps the Moon Goddess isn't entirely blind after all."