Page 165 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
“The extraction is reversing,” the man says, panic creeping into his voice. “Something is pulling the power back into her. I can’t stop it.”
Aldric’s face goes pale. “That’s impossible. Continue the ritual!”
“I’m trying!” The man’s voice cracks with fear. “But it’s as if something inside her is fighting back. Something…old.”
My wolf is howling now, a sound of pure rage and terror that only I can hear. And underneath it all, I can feel something else awakening. Something that makes the air around me crackle with electricity.
Harper takes a nervous step backward. “What is that?” she asks, her voice uncertain for the first time.
The lights flicker. The torches on the walls sputter and flare.
And somewhere deep inside me, something ancient and powerful opens its eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Astra
Something is stirring inside me. Something that changes the very air in this chamber, something that makes every wolf here turn their eyes toward me—even the ones in human form.
I can see their wolves. All of them. Zari’s sleek black wolf peers at me from behind her human eyes, restless and aggressive. The enemy soldiers’ wolves pace anxiously within their human shells. And Aldric’s wolf is shadowy and twisted, corrupted by years of dark magic.
But it’s Lucian’s wolf that draws my attention. The connection between us pulses with desperate intensity.
Mate, something whispers in my mind. But it’s not my wolf’s voice—it’s something older, deeper. Something that has been sleeping inside me for twenty-four years.
Zari raises her dagger, her face contorted with murderous rage as she prepares to drive it into Lucian’s exposed flank. He’s holding off three guards at once and doesn’t see her coming.
“Stop.” The word slides out of my lips like a command from the depths of my soul.
And Zari freezes.
Her arm hangs suspended in midair, the knife trembling in her grip. Her eyes go wide with panic as she fights against the invisible force that is holding her.
“Wh–what’s happening?” she gasps, her voice breaking with fear. “I can’t move. My wolf…She won’t listen to me!”
The ancient thing inside me stretches, unfurling like wings that have been folded for too long. I feel it reaching out, touching the wolves in this chamber one by one. Testing them. Tasting their essence.
Knowledge floods through me with absolute certainty: I am Eclipse Born. And every wolf in this room is mine to command.
Power floods my veins even as I sit bound by these ropes. I can feel each wolf here as if they are extensions of my own body. I feel their heartbeats. Their fears. Their desperate need to submit to something greater than themselves.
Lucian stumbles forward. Too many wounds. Too much fighting. I can feel his strength ebbing through our incomplete bond, can sense his life force being pulled away.
The sight of him weakening breaks something loose inside me.
“Enough.” My voice carries authority I’ve never possessed before. The ancient power surges forward, no longer content to hide in the shadows of my soul.
One by one, I reach out to the enemies’ wolves. Not to their human minds—to their wolves. To the part of them that recognizes dominance, that understands pack hierarchy on a level deeper than conscious thought.
Zari’s wolf is the first to break under my command. I feel the moment her connection to her animal snaps like a severed cord. The dagger falls from her numb fingers, and she begins to scream.
“No! NO!” Her voice rises to a shriek that echoes throughout the chamber. “My wolf! Where is my wolf? I can’t feel her!”
The sound of her anguish should disturb me. But all I feel is savage satisfaction as the woman who would harm my mate pays the price for her betrayal.
The enemy soldiers are next. Their wolves wink out of existence under my will, leaving them hollow and broken. They collapse to their knees, clutching their chests as if trying to hold on to something that’s already gone forever.
Aldric tries to fight me. His ancient wolf snarls and snaps, resisting my command with centuries of accumulated power. But even he can’t endure against what I have become.
