Chapter 505: Can die...!!!

NOAH.

The deafening, metallic crash echoed through the stone floorboards, rattling the glass vials on Physician Thorne’s table and sending a shudder straight up my spine.

The sound of splintering timber and shattering iron was unmistakable. The outer gates had been breached.

My heart hammered in my chest as the cold, harsh reality slammed into me like a brick wall. In our blind relief at Maria waking up, Adrein and I had completely dropped the ball. We hadn’t set the archers on the inner ramparts. We hadn’t placed the heavy guards at the courtyard choke points. We had left the entire inner perimeter wide open while we rushed to her bedside.

"Noah..." Maria gasped, her dark eyes widening with sudden, terrified clarity as she gripped my hand tight.

"Stay down," I commanded softly, squeezing her fingers once before gently letting go and stepping back from the cot.

Adrein was already on his feet, his face pale as chalk, his head whipping toward the infirmary doors. "That wasn’t from the northern woods," he muttered, his voice tight with rising panic. "That came from the southern courtyard."

"The southern ridge," I growled, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached.

Heavy boot heels clicked frantically against the stone as my head of security shoved his way through the infirmary doors. He was breathing heavily, his face covered in dark soot, his leather armor scraped and bloody.

"Alpha Noah!" he shouted, his voice cracking with urgency. "The southern wall is compromised! A heavy squad of Vincent’s elite guards blew through the timber gates with iron rams! They’re already inside the courtyard!"

"How many?" I snapped, taking three quick strides toward him.

"At least thirty, sir!" the officer reported, gasping for air. "They’re moving fast, cutting through the courtyard guards, and heading straight for this wing! It’s as though they know exactly where you all her!"

"Dammit!" Adrein swore loudly, kicking a low wooden stool out of his way as he stepped in front of Maria’s cot. "Aidan and the others are still three miles out in the northern pass!"

"Then it’s just us," I said, my raspy voice dropping into a cold, lethal register as I reached down to pull my broadsword from its scabbard.

The heavy iron blade hissed against the leather, gleaming dully in the dim lantern light.

I turned back to look at Physician Thorne, who was standing frozen beside his herb table. "Thorne, bar the secondary door behind the cot. If anyone breaks through the front corridor, you keep Maria behind you."

"Yes, Alpha," Thorne said quickly, grabbing a heavy wooden bar and hurrying toward the back door.

I turned my attention to Adrein. He didn’t have his full war armor on—just his plain woolen tunic and trousers—but the golden fire burning in his Alpha eyes was hotter than a forge. He drew his broadsword, stepping right up beside me at the head of the corridor.

"We stand at the threshold," I told him, looking him straight in the eye. "Not a single one of those bastards steps foot into this room."

"They’ll have to go through my corpse first," Adrein growled, shifting his grip on his sword hilt, his knuckles turning white.

"I’ll be right beside you," I said flatly, turning to my head of security. "Gather every guard left in the main hall. Fall back to this corridor and set up a tight choke point right outside these doors. We hold them here until Aidan and the cavalry get back!"

"Understood, Alpha!" the officer yelled, turning on his heel and sprinting back down the hallway to mobilize the remaining house guards.

Shouts and the sharp, terrifying clash of steel erupted from the far end of the corridor. The heavy footsteps of dozens of armored men echoed off the high stone walls, growing louder and closer by the second.

Maria shifted behind us, the fur blanket sliding off her shoulders as she tried to push herself up against the wooden railing of the cot. "Noah... Adrein... don’t go out there..."

I turned my head slightly, catching her gaze over my shoulder. "I told you earlier, Maria. Nobody touches you in my house. I meant every word."

The heavy oak doors at the end of the long hallway were violently kicked open, slamming against the stone walls with a resounding bang.

A dozen heavily armored Lycan soldiers wearing Vincent’s silver-and-black crest flooded into the narrow corridor. Their dark steel armor was splattered with fresh blood, their broadswords and war axes raised and ready. At the head of the squad stood Vincent’s lead strike captain—a towering brute with a scarred face and cold, ruthless eyes.

The captain stopped ten paces down the hall, a dark, arrogant smirk spreading across his face as he took in the sight of Adrein and me standing alone outside the infirmary doors.

"Alpha Noah," the captain sneered, his raspy voice echoing off the stone walls. "And the fourth quadruplet, the Lycan Prince sent us to collect what belongs to him."

"You’re in the wrong house, captain," I said, stepping forward slowly, my sword point resting low against the stone floor.

"Hand the girl over, Noah," the captain demanded, taking a heavy step forward as his men fanned out behind him in the tight space. "The prince doesn’t care how many of your guards he has to butcher to get her back. You’re outnumbered, you’re exhausted from his poison, and your allies are stuck out in the woods."

Adrein let out a low, predatory growl, stepping up right beside my shoulder, his broadsword raised into a high guard position. "You talk too much for a man standing in a narrow hallway."

"Kill them both," the captain commanded, raising his sword to point directly at my chest. "And bring the girl to the courtyard!"

"On me!" I roared.

The lingering headache in my temples completely vanished under a sudden, surging wave of pure adrenaline. Adrein and I charged forward together, our boots crashing against the stone floorboards as we met the enemy strike team head-on in the narrow corridor.

The initial collision was pure carnage.

I swept my broadsword in a vicious horizontal arc, catching the first guard’s blade, shoving his weapon aside with raw strength, and driving my shoulder straight into his chest plate. He stumbled backward into his squad mate, and Adrein instantly capitalized, lunging forward to slice through the second soldier’s leather armor.

"Hold the choke point!" I shouted, parrying a heavy axe strike from a third Lycan and kicking him hard in the knee, sending him crashing down onto the stone floor.

The narrow hallway worked entirely in our favor. Vincent’s men had the numbers, but they couldn’t surround us. Only two or three of them could engage us at the same time, forcing them into a bloody, brutal bottleneck right outside the infirmary threshold.

Sparks flew into the air as steel slammed against steel. Adrein was a whirlwind of motion beside me, his lack of heavy armor making him faster and more agile than Vincent’s weighed-down elite guards. He ducked under a broadsword swing, stepped inside a soldier’s guard, and drove his hilt straight into the man’s throat.

"Keep pushing them back!" Adrein yelled, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps as he blocked another strike.

The strike captain shoved his own men out of the way, stepping into the front line with a furious roar, his massive broadsword swinging straight for my neck. I brought my blade up just in time to catch the strike, the heavy impact vibrating down my arms and rattling my collarbone.

"You can’t hold us off forever, Noah!" the captain snarled, pressing his weight against my blade, his scarred face inches from mine. "The Lycan prince is right behind us!"

"Then he can die in this hallway, too!" I snarled back, throwing all my weight forward to shove him off me.