Chapter 275: Taken down

"Wade!" the woman cried, yanking the heavy security door wide open to reach her son.

The moment the seal broke, the brown wolf lunged.

Before the name Wade could fully leave her lips, the beast’s massive, blood-dripping claws plunged straight through her chest. Dark crimson blood spattered across the white walls and the polished floor. The mother’s eyes widened in frozen horror as she stared into the pitch-black, hollow eyes of her own child, her body collapsing like a ragdoll.

The entire corridor froze.

A guttural, rabid growl erupted from the brown wolf’s throat. Stepping over the mother’s body, his black eyes locked directly onto Yuki, who stood just ten feet away.

Everything happened in a blinding, split-second blur.

General Reed yelled an emergency fire command, shouting for his men to shoot, but the wolf moved with terrifying, unnatural speed, lunging straight toward Yuki like a guided missile.

He barely crossed three feet.

Before the beast’s jaws could reach her, a colossal midnight-black blur smashed into the brown wolf from the side with bone-shattering force. The rogue wolf was flung across the wide corridor and slammed into the concrete wall.

CRACK.

The brown wolf twitched twice on the floor, a sickening spray of black blood erupting from his broken neck, before his body went entirely limp. Within seconds, the dark fur receded, shifting the deceased soldier back into his human form.

"Wade!" His mother’s voice broke into a faint, desperate cry as she lay dying on the cold floor, her blood pooling beneath her.

For one fleeting moment, the brown wolf’s eyes cleared. As his body shifted back into human form, his gaze found his mother. She was still alive, her tear-filled eyes fixed on him even as her strength slipped away.

"I couldn’t stop my..." Wade croaked, his lips trembling as he struggled to force out the words. But the sentence remained unfinished. His eyes lost their light, and his body went limp.

His mother watched her son take his final breath. A broken sound escaped her throat before the last flicker of life faded from her own eyes.

Standing in the centre of the ruined corridor, towering over the bloody mess, was Kieran’s massive black wolf. Dark crimson blood dripped slowly from his jaws onto the floor.

General Reed was the first to snap out of the stunned silence. He immediately motioned to his squad. "Clean up this perimeter! Secure the area and clear the civilian staff!" He then established a quick mental link with Kieran. ’You made the right call, Lord Kieran. There was no saving him.’

Kieran’s wolf did not respond. Slowly, his massive head turned, his piercing blue wolf eyes locking onto Yuki, who was pressed back against the wall.

Kieran took a heavy step toward her.

Yuki’s pulse hammered in her throat. The sheer speed and raw lethality of what she had just witnessed left her unable to move for a second—then instinct took over. She flinched and took a sharp step backwards.

The massive black wolf let out a quiet, heart-wrenching whimper at her retreat.

Suppressing the sharp twist in his chest, Kieran forced his beast to recede. He shifted back into his human form, standing tall in his blood-splattered clothes, dark crimson streaks painting his pale jawline.

He completely ignored the shouting soldiers, the weeping staff, and the bloody chaos consuming the corridor. Step by step, he closed the distance between them, reached out, and swept Yuki off her feet, scooping her into a firm bridal carry.

"Kieran—! Let me go!" Yuki gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs as she squirmed in his grip. "What are you doing?!"

Kieran ignored her entirely. He did not say a single word. Turning on his heel, he practically sprinted down the private research corridor, his broad chest heaving as he carried her away from the carnage.

He reached his personal executive office in the research wing, kicked the heavy wooden door open, carried her inside, and slammed the door shut behind them, locking the heavy deadbolt with a sharp click.

He carried her over to his wide mahogany study desk and set her down atop the wood.

"Kieran, stop! You’re acting insane!" Yuki yelled, her emerald eyes wide with genuine fear as she stared at his blood-stained face and racing chest. "What is wrong with you?!"

Kieran still did not speak. His breathing was ragged, his hands trembling as he reached out and tore away the blood-soaked gauze bandage from her left forearm.

Exposed to the air was a small, ragged claw scratch—a shallow mark left by the brown wolf when she had pushed Clara out of the way. Dark, thick blood was still steadily welling from the flesh, refusing to clot.

Kieran reached into his vest pocket with frantic speed, pulling out a small metallic glass vial containing a single luminous gold pill—his highest-grade experimental cellular regeneration serum, a masterwork created to instantly heal near-fatal wounds. The last one remaining from the batch he made for her.

A single pill wasn’t enough to heal the fatally injured warrior but at least it could heal a scratch. Kieran silently prayed inside.

He popped the vial open, grabbed Yuki’s jaw with his left hand, and forced the pill into her mouth. "Swallow it," he commanded, his voice raspy.

Yuki choked slightly, her eyes wide as she swallowed the pill under his intense gaze.

Immediately, Kieran pressed his palm flat over her bleeding arm, channelling his raw Alpha magic directly into her damaged tissues to jump-start her cellular repair. He pushed his power hard, his veins bulging along his neck as he poured his energy into the scratch.

Nothing happened.

The small scratch continued to bleed, the dark crimson drops trickling down her fair skin, utterly rejecting both his masterwork medicine and his healing magic.

Yuki watched the entire process in silent confusion, her breath catching as she looked up at Kieran’s face. The colour had drained from him until he looked almost bloodless. A low, humourless laugh escaped his throat—quiet, broken, and wrong.

"Don’t tell me..." Kieran whispered, staring down at her with a mixture of horror and desolation that made her stomach drop. "Don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a zombie wolf too, my little vixen. Why the hell did you play the fucking saviour?"

The weight of his words finally registered. Yuki’s heart fell into a bottomless abyss, and for the first time since the corridor, she had no answer at all.

"Don’t sound like that Kieran...you are scaring me." She muttered but his expression didn’t change. Kieran drew in a deep breath

"You are really going to be the death of me. " he hissed, forcing his heart to steady. "Grab your things; we are leaving," Kieran commanded.

"Why?" She asked confused and he smiled. "If you don’t want to be locked up or possibly killed because of a scratch that refuses to heal listen to me." He commanded but she couldn’t understand.

Wasn’t it safer to stay at the hospital but something in Kieran’s eyes told her she might really die if they didn’t leave. But was he doing the smart thing by hiding a possibly infected individual carrying a biological weapon?