Chapter 509: Next to you!

AIDAN.

The thunder of fifty warhorses shook the stone foundation of the estate as we smashed through the ruined timber of the southern gates. Mud, iron splinters, and black snow flew into the air as Davian, Damien, and I led our heavy cavalry straight into the rear courtyard.

My broadsword was slick with fresh blood from the northern woods, but my chest burned with a dark, suffocating dread. The second we had realized Vincent’s northern march was a decoy, we had ridden our mounts past the point of exhaustion.

"In the main corridor!" Damien shouted, reining his mount around as the sound of screams echoed from the inner archway. "They’re inside!"

We didn’t wait to dismount cleanly. Davian, Damien, and I vaulted off our saddles while our horses were still in motion, our heavy steel boots crashing down onto the stone courtyard. We hit the inner hallway at a dead sprint, our weapons drawn, ready to tear through whatever stood between us and the medical wing.

We rounded the corner just in time to see the unthinkable.

Adrein’s knees buckled. His body collapsed forward, hitting the blood-stained stone floorboards with a heavy, sickening thud. Four black iron arrows were buried deep into his torso, dark crimson pooling rapidly around his plain woolen tunic.

Behind him, Maria was on her knees, her face ghost-pale, screaming Adrein’s name so loud it tore through the stone corridor. Noah was kneeling beside her, his hands covered in blood as he desperately tried to press against Adrein’s chest wounds, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.

A cold, absolute silence exploded inside my mind.

The bond thread in my chest—the invisible link connecting me to my quadruplet brothers—flared with a jagged, agonizing spike of pain as Adrein’s life force flickered.

Beside me, Davian let out a sound that wasn’t human. It was a guttural, terrifying roar of pure, unadulterated Alpha rage. Damien’s golden eyes burned so brightly they looked like liquid fire, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his broadsword with lethal, trembling tension.

"Adrein..." Damien choked out, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, lethal register.

At the far end of the hallway stood the Lycan prince Vincent, surrounded by the thirty archers who had just released that volley. Vincent’s hands were trembling around his iron war bow, his pupils tiny pinpricks of pure shock as he looked past Adrein at Maria sitting unharmed in the blood.

He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto the three of us standing at the mouth of the corridor. The color completely drained from his face.

"Kill them!" Vincent screamed, his smooth, arrogant demeanor vanishing into pure, frantic panic as he scrambled backward behind his shield line. "Kill them all! Don’t let them reach me!"

"Leave none of them breathing," I said. My voice wasn’t loud. It was flat, quiet, and completely stripped of mercy.

We charged.

What followed wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter.

Davian hit their front shield wall like a runaway siege engine. His broadsword swept in a terrifying, wide arc, shattering three wooden shields at once and cleaving straight through the iron breastplate of the lead guard. He didn’t bother parrying. He didn’t bother defensive footwork. He simply moved forward, a whirlwind of bloody steel, hacking down every soldier within arm’s reach.

Damien stepped right into his wake, his blade thrusting with terrifying, mechanical precision. He drove his steel through a guard’s throat, yanked it free, and spun on his heel to slice another archer straight through the chest before the man could even pull his dagger.

My own blade felt weightless in my hands. Every time an iron-clad arm rose to block me, I smashed through it with raw, crushing Alpha strength. I caved in helmet after helmet, sweeping through their ranks as if they were made of dry straw. The narrow hallway turned into a tight, suffocating slaughterhouse. Vincent’s elite guards, the pride of his mountain stronghold, dropped like flies onto the blood-soaked floorboards.

"Fall back! Fall back to the foyer!" a guard officer shrieked, but Damien caught him by the back of his neck, slamming his head violently against the stone wall before tossing his lifeless body into the pile.

In less than two minutes, the sound of clashing steel died out entirely.

The hallway fell dead silent, save for the heavy, ragged gasps of our chest plates heaving and the quiet, frantic whispers of Noah trying to stanch Adrein’s bleeding at the far end of the hall.

Thirty of Vincent’s elite guards lay dead across the stone floor, their blood pooling together to cover every inch of the passage.

Only one man was left standing.

Vincent was pressed flat against the stone dead-end at the far side of the foyer. His black iron war bow lay shattered on the floor where he had dropped it. His dark leather cloak was stained with the blood of his own men, his hands raised in front of his chest as he backed into the cold corner, completely trapped.

There were no more guards to hide behind. No more archers to command. No more clever tricks or decoy units to save him. He was completely cornered.

Davian stepped forward first, his broadsword dripping dark red onto the marble floor, his boots leaving bloody footprints with every step. Damien flanked him from the left, his golden eyes fixed on Vincent’s throat like a wolf watching a wounded rabbit.

I stepped right down the center, bringing up the rear, blocking the only exit out of the foyer.

"Aidan... wait," Vincent rasped out, his hands trembling as he held them out in a desperate gesture of peace. His arrogant smirk was completely gone, replaced by a sweating, terrified grimace. "Listen to me... we can make a deal. I have land, I have silver and I can cede the entire northern boundary to your pack—"

"Shut your mouth," Davian growled, stepping into his space, the tip of his bloody broadsword hovering two inches from Vincent’s nose.

"You shot my brother," Damien whispered, his voice shaking with a terrifying, quiet fury as he closed the distance from the left, cutting off any chance of Vincent bolting for the side window. "You put four or more arrows into Adrein."

"It... it was a mistake!" Vincent stammered, his eyes darting frantically between the three of us, his back pressed so hard against the stone wall he looked like he wanted to melt straight through it. "I was aiming for Noah! I didn’t mean to hit him! I didn’t mean for Maria to get in the middle!"

"You put a price on Maria," I said, taking one final step forward, stopping right in front of him. My broadsword rested lightly against the stone floor, the tip painted dark red. "You poisoned her for a month. You hunted her through the woods. And then you marched into Noah’s home to finish the job."

"I am a Prince of the Lycan Court!" Vincent shrieked, his voice cracking as he tried to pull a silver dagger from his belt with a trembling hand. "You execute me here, and my people will bring the entire army down on this valley!"

Davian let out a dark, bitter laugh, stepping in close and backhanding Vincent across the face with his steel gauntlet.

The heavy impact cracked against Vincent’s jaw, sending his silver dagger clattering uselessly across the floor and knocking him down to his knees in the blood of his own soldiers. Vincent gasped, clutching his bleeding face, looking up at us with wide, terrified eyes.

"Let them bring the army," Davian sneered, grabbing Vincent by his dark hair and yanking his head back to expose his throat. "We’ll bury them right next to you."