Chapter 383: The Teeth In The Dark

Chapter 383: Chapter 117: The Teeth In The Dark

The silence in the hall didn’t break so much as it fractured.

Aurora was still staring at the driver, her chest rising and falling in shallow, rigid breaths, when Dane suddenly went rigid beside Destiny. Before she could ask what was wrong, a choked gasp tore from his throat. He doubled over, his hand slamming into his chest right over his heart as if something inside had suddenly snapped.

Across the room, Aurora dropped to her knees with the exact same brutal suddenness, her palm clutching her chest in the identical spot.

“Dane!”

Destiny dropped to her knees beside him, her hands scrambling for his arms. His skin had gone instantly cold, soaked in a sudden, feverish sweat. His jaw was clenched so tight the tendons in his neck looked like taut wire.

“Aurora!”

Elara was already on the floor, trying to hold Aurora upright as the girl curled inward, her breath coming in ragged, agonized hitches.

Ramon was on his feet in a second, his chair clattering backward against the stone.

“What is this? What’s happening to them?”

Dane’s fingers dug into Destiny’s wrists, his eyes wide and dark with a raw, instinctual terror she had never seen in him before. When he spoke, it wasn’t just his voice. It was heavier, layered with an ancient, primal resonance that rattled through the floorboards.

“They’re coming,” Dane rasped, his teeth grinding together as he forced the words out.

Aurora raised her head, her face pale as ash, her eyes fixed on the shuttered windows.

“Cursed wolves,” she whispered, the shared pain cutting through her breath. “They’re… they’re already on the border.”

The air in the room instantly turned sharp and heavy, thick with the anticipation of the ancient dark magic curse.

Vance stepped forward, his former guilt instantly replaced by the sharp, cold authority of a commander.

“How long before they reach us?”

“Minutes,” Dane forced out, pushing himself up onto one knee, though he was still trembling from whatever phantom bite was burning through his chest. He looked directly at Vance, his voice dropping into a fierce, desperate command.

“Vance, whatever you do, do not let them touch you. You must not get bitten. If the curse enters a Lycan like you, it’s over.”

Vance’s jaw set into stone.

“Ramon, sound the alarm. Clear the lower courtyard and bar the gates.”

“We need the Heartstone,” Aurora gasped, pushing herself up with Elara’s help, her knuckles white where she gripped Elara’s arm. “The priestess… she has it in the inner sanctuary. Without it, the estate’s wards won’t hold against them.”

“I’ll go,” Ramon barked, already moving toward the side doors. “Stay together!”

The hall erupted into motion.

Horns began to wail outside, three short, sharp blasts that signaled an immediate breach. Guards rushed the corridors, the heavy clatter of iron boots echoing off the high stone ceilings.

Dane stood up fully, pulling Destiny up with him. He didn’t let go of her hand, his grip so tight it bordered on painful. He pulled her sharply behind his back, placing his shoulder between her and the doors.

“Destiny, stay behind me. You don’t step out from behind my back, do you hear me? Not for a second.”

Destiny slapped his arm away, stepping right back up beside him, her chin lifted and her eyes blazing despite the tremor in her hands.

“Don’t you dare start treating me like a glass figurine now, Dane. I’m not chickening out. If this hall falls, I’m fighting beside you, not hiding behind your shadow.”

Dane looked down at her, his eyes dark with fear for her, but there was no time to argue. He reached down, unbuckled the silver-rimmed dagger from his belt, and shoved the hilt into her hand.

“Then hold this. And don’t stop moving.”

They surged down the corridor toward the inner sanctuary, Vance and Aurora leading the way through the chaotic swell of panicking guards. The air was growing colder by the second, frost blooming in spiderweb patterns across the glass of the high windows.

They reached the sanctuary’s arched threshold just as the High Priestess stepped out from behind the heavy velvet curtains. Her robes were swept with dust, and in her trembling, age-spotted hands, she held a jagged, glowing crimson crystal that pulsed like a dying heart, the Heartstone.

“It is bleeding,” the Priestess whispered, her voice trembling as she held the stone out toward Aurora. “The dark magic outside is draining it. Take it. Place it in the central pillar before the barrier collapses!”

Aurora snatched the glowing stone, its harsh red light washing over her pale face.

“Vance, with me! We have to reach the courtyard pillar!”

“Move!” Vance ordered, drawing his blade as they turned back toward the main gates.

Before they could even reach the grand foyer, a sound tore through the estate, a sound so awful, so utterly unnatural, that every guard in the corridor froze in place.

It wasn’t the howl of a normal wolf. It was a wet, grinding roar, like bone snapping against iron, mixed with the shrieks of something rotting.

CRASH.

The heavy oak doors at the end of the grand hall exploded inward. Splintered wood and iron hinges flew through the air like shrapnel.

Through the dust and swirling frost, they came.

They were massive, twice the size of any Alpha wolf, their coats matted with black, dripping sludge that hissed wherever it touched the stone floor. Their eyes didn’t glow with light; they were hollow, pitch-black sockets spilling smoke, and their elongated jaws snapped with rows of jagged, yellowed fangs dripping with dark venom.

Dozens of them poured over the ruined gates, black veined wolves surging over the stone walls like a rising tide of night.

The estate guards screamed, drawing their swords as the first wave of monsters hit the front line with brutal, crushing force.

Destiny backed up a step, her fingers white around the hilt of Dane’s dagger, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at the nightmare flooding the courtyard.

“Gods above…” Destiny whispered, her eyes wide as the black horde swallowed the light. “There are so many…”