Page 90 of Feral Fates
“None. This is the only way to the inner sanctum.”
I nod, decision made. “I’ll breach. You follow and secure.”
Before they can object, I shift, my massive form filling thecorridor. The silver in the air immediately begins to affect me—a burning sensation in my lungs, a heaviness in my limbs that would weaken a normal wolf substantially.
But I am not normal. I am Ryker Ashmere, alpha of the Shadowmist Pack, and my mate lies beyond these wolves. There is no force in existence that will prevent me from reaching her.
I charge.
The elite guards brace for impact, silver weapons forming a wall of lethal points. In open ground, I might have maneuvered around them, used superior mobility to my advantage. In this narrow corridor, with silver dulling my reflexes, I have only one option—through them.
The collision is brutal. Silver spears pierce my shoulder and flank as I crash into their line, but momentum carries me forward, massive jaws closing around the throat of the center guard. Blood sprays as I tear through flesh, using the dying wolf as a battering ram to disrupt their formation.
Pain flares where silver touches me, but rage and determination push it aside. I tear through a second guard, then a third, my team following in my wake to engage those I pass.
A silver blade slices along my back, burning like frost and fire combined. I snarl, twisting to rip the weapon from my attacker’s hands before tearing his arm from his body. He falls screaming as I continue my advance.
The doorway is breached, the guards eliminated, though not without cost. Silver burns mar my hide, and one of my team lies dead, two others wounded. A harsh price, but one I expected to pay.
Grief will come later.
Beyond the doorway lies a circular chamber with multiple exits—a hub connecting different sections of the inner compound. I shift back to human form, conserving strengthwhile my regeneration addresses the silver wounds as best it can.
“Secure the chamber,” I order the remaining wolves. “Hold this position. No one follows us, no one escapes to warn the others.”
My wounded fighters nod grimly, taking defensive positions while I scent the air, seeking any trace of Kitara. The silver dust has weakened my senses, but there’s a small scent, barely detectable, pulling me toward one particular corridor.
I follow that pull, moving with greater caution now. The inner sanctum will be more heavily defended, the wolves guarding it more dangerous than those we’ve encountered thus far. And somewhere ahead waits the true prize—not just Kitara, but the opportunity to fulfill the prophecy that has shaped both our fates.
Thaddeus.
The corridor descends deeper into the mountain, ancient stone giving way to newer construction. The air grows colder, charged with something that raises the hair on my arms despite my shifted form—old magic, the kind wolf-kind rarely acknowledges but instinctively fears.
A set of massive double doors blocks the passage, inscribed with runes that seem to shift and move when viewed directly. Two guards stand before them. These are no ordinary wolves. Their scent carries the distinctive markers of those who’ve undergone blood ritual enhancement, their eyes gleaming with unnatural intensity in the dim light.
They see me approach, but neither raises alarm. Instead, they step forward in perfect unison, bodies beginning to shift but maintaining bipedal form—a half-transformation that reveals the extent of their unnatural enhancement. Claws extend from human hands, jaws elongate without completing the change to muzzle, muscles bulge beneath skin that remains hairless.
“The shadow wolf comes,” one intones, voice distorted by partially shifted vocal cords.
“You will go no further,” the other adds. “The seer is being prepared. The ceremony approaches.”
Cold fury washes through me at their words.
“Step aside,” I order, my voice eerily calm despite the rage building within, “or die where you stand.”
Their response is to extend wickedly curved claws that gleam with silver inlay—weapons that are part of them, impossible to disarm or drop.
“We are the Chosen,” the first declares. “Blood-bound to the Grand Alpha himself. Your strength means nothing here.”
I don’t waste breath arguing. These aren’t ordinary guards to be intimidated or reasoned with. They’re fanatics.
I shift again, ignoring the silver wounds that slow the transformation. Their eyes widen slightly—they expected the silver to have weakened me more substantially, to have prevented another shift so soon. Their miscalculation will cost them everything.
They attack together, moving with unnerving synchronicity. Silver-laced claws slice through the air where I stood a heartbeat before, missing as I launch upward, using the corridor’s height to my advantage. My jaws close on the first guard’s shoulder, teeth piercing enhanced muscle and tendon to crush bone beneath.
He screams—a sound no natural wolf would make—as I use his body as leverage to avoid his partner’s attack. Silver claws rake the air inches from my flank as I tear the first guard’s throat out with a savage twist.
The second guard is faster, more cautious after seeing his partner fall. He circles, those unnatural eyes calculating as he assesses my wounds, my stance, my advantages and vulnerabilities.
