Chapter 512: TWANG!!!

DAMIEN.

The world shrank until there was nothing left except the cold, blood-stained stone floorboards beneath my knees and the still, lifeless body of my brother.

I couldn’t breathe. Air dragged into my throat like jagged glass, but my lungs refused to expand. Adrein’s eyes were still open, staring blankly up at the vaulted ceiling, totally devoid of the bright, wild purple fire that had filled them only moments ago. His hand lay limp against the floor, cold, pale, and still.

He was gone. Adrein was actually gone.

"NO!"

The scream tore out of my throat with such raw, violent force that it felt like my vocal cords were splitting open. I threw my head back, throwing my hands into my hair, and wept. I sobbed until my chest heaved uncontrollably, tears scalding my cheeks, my Alpha power surging and thrashing inside me like a wounded, dying beast.

"Adrein, please!" I sobbed, dropping my forehead straight onto his bloody shoulder, clutching his cold tunic in my fists. "Please, don’t do this! Wake up! Get up and fight me like you always do! Come on, Adrein!"

Beside me, Aidan was doubled over, his broad shoulders shaking violently as he pressed his face into his gauntlets, letting out low, heart-wrenching groans of pure agony. Davian was punching the stone floorboard over and over, his knuckles bloody and broken, his teeth bared in a silent, tortured grimace. Maria’s desperate, hysterical cries echoed through the quiet hallway as Noah held her tightly, his own dark eyes overflowing with silent tears.

Then, right beneath my hands, something terrible began to happen.

A soft, golden light flickered across Adrein’s pale skin. Slowly, painfully, the human form he had worn his entire life began to ripple and warp. His bones shifted with a faint, hollow crackle, his features stretching as his body reverted to his true nature. In a matter of seconds, Adrein’s human body transformed into the grand, majestic form of his golden wolf.

"Adrein..." I whispered, my breath catching in my throat as I reached out a trembling hand to touch his thick fur.

The moment my fingers brushed his fur, his form didn’t remain. His wolf didn’t stay to be buried in the cold earth.

Slowly, starting from his paws and the tip of his tail, his body began to dissolve. Golden light consumed his fur, breaking his physical form down into a shimmering, weightless dust. The black iron arrows that had pierced his heart clattered uselessly onto the empty stone floorboards as his body faded away into nothingness.

A soft, freezing breeze swept down the corridor, carrying the golden dust up toward the high archways, scattering it into the cold night air until there was nothing left of him on the floor except a pile of dried blood.

He was completely gone... not even a body was left for us to hold.

A sudden, white-hot explosion of pure, unadulterated rage incinerated the grief in my chest.

"VINCENT!" I roared, pushing myself off the floor in one violent motion.

My broadsword was still lying on the stone, covered in dark crimson. I snatched it up by the hilt, my vision turning completely red, my golden Alpha power flaring so hot it felt like my blood was boiling in my veins. I turned on my heel and began marching down the dark hallway toward the dungeon stairs.

"Damien, stop!" Aidan yelled, his raspy voice cracking as he scrambled up from the floor, lunging forward to grab my heavy shoulder plate.

"Let go of me, Aidan!" I snarled, trying to shove him off with enough force to put him through the wall. "I’m going down to that cell! I am going to rip his throat out with my bare teeth! I am going to tear him into pieces!"

"Damien, wait!" Davian barked, rushing up to grab my other arm, pinning me in place with his combined strength. His face was covered in tears and soot, but his jaw was set into a cold, terrifying slab of granite. "Think for one second!"

"He killed Adrein!" I screamed, thrashing against their grip, my blade shaking in my hand. "He killed our brother! Why are we waiting?! Why is he still drawing breath in our cellar?!"

"Because dying in that dark cell in five seconds is too easy for him!" Davian growled, his golden eyes flashing with a ruthless, deadly promise as he dug his gauntlet into my arm. "He doesn’t get a quick death, Damien! We are going to execute him properly. Both him and Daniel!"

I froze, my chest heaving as I glared at Davian through a wall of tears. "Daniel..."

"Yes, Daniel," Aidan rasped out, his hand gripping the back of my neck, forcing me to look him in the eye. "Daniel is the traitor who poisoned Maria and opened the boundary traps for Vincent’s men. Noah’s border patrol is hunting him down right now. I have ordered for them to bring him straight here to this pack."

"They will die together," Davian added, his voice dropping into a quiet, bone-chilling whisper. "In front of the whole pack. We will bleed them both until there is nothing left. But you have to control yourself right now, Damien. You have to wait."

I let out a long, ragged shudder, my muscles trembling violently as I slowly lowered my broadsword. The rage was still screaming inside my skull, demanding blood, demanding vengeance, but I knew they were right. A quick death in a dungeon cell was a mercy Vincent didn’t deserve.

I turned back toward the spot where Adrein had dissolved into dust. Maria was still on her knees, sobbing uncontrollably into Noah’s shoulder, her small hands clutching his bloodied tunic. Noah was holding her tight, his head rested against hers, his eyes closed in heavy, silent mourning.

The silence returned to the corridor, suffocating and heavy, broken only by our ragged breaths and quiet, painful sobs. We stood together in the blood, three broken brothers standing over the empty space where the fourth used to be.

Suddenly, a sharp, terrifying ’TWANG’ echoed from the dark, high rafters above the infirmary archway.

Before my brain could even process the sound, a white-hot, blinding agony exploded straight through the center of my chest.

The shockwave of the impact slammed into me like a iron battering ram, throwing me backward. A gasp of pure, agonizing shock ripped from my throat as I stumbled, my broadsword slipping out of my fingers and clattering against the marble.

I looked down in total, paralyzing disbelief.

A thick, black-shafted iron arrow was buried clean through the center of my chest plate. The sharp tip had punched out through my back, dripping fresh, bright crimson onto the floorboards.

"DAMIEN!" Aidan and Davian screamed in absolute terror, lunging forward to catch me before my knees hit the stone.

"What...?" I gasped out, blood instantly bubbling up from my lips, spilling over my jaw as my lungs filled with liquid fire.

Noah snapped his head up, his dark eyes widening in sheer horror as he shoved Maria safely behind his back, drawing his broadsword in a single, desperate motion.

I slowly turned my head, my vision flickering with dark spots, my hands clutching weakly at the iron shaft protruding from my heart. I looked up toward the high, shadowed archway at the end of the corridor to see who had fired the shot.

Standing on the high wooden beam, a heavy war bow still raised in their hands, was the last person in the world any of us expected to see.

Every single jaw in the hallway dropped in total, paralyzing shock.