Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Will

I could see myself in the monster that Blair had become. There was no denying that he had used a serum devised from my blood and genetic makeup. The fur on his body was the same shade as mine. His claws resembled in shape to my claws, although they were considerably larger in size.

We were just a few inches apart on the battlefield, finally about to clash with each other. I had no plan of action at this moment. I did not know how my entire pack was going to take on that army. All I knew was I had to keep charging and meet Blair in battle. If I could somehow kill him, that would stop everything.

But then, luck shone on me in the most fateful turn of events.

Right as the soldiers were about to clash with the werewolves, a big sonic boom resounded in the sky, sending shockwaves in every direction. I could see the trees rustling against the brute force of the wave.

Blair had stopped dead in his tracks. He was grabbing his head and howling in pain. Behind him, all his soldiers had frozen in place, unable to move. They were still breathing and snarling, but they were unable to move any of their limbs.

The device! Alexis cheered.

It worked, I confirmed.

But our victory was short-lived. Blair was back to normal again, wiping the blood from his snout with the back of his paw. He growled at me and began circling me. Even though I could not communicate with him, I could feel the harsh energy coming off his body, an entirely red vibe that spelled blood and slaughter.

My pack stopped behind me, unsure of what to do as the army that they were supposed to battle with had suddenly frozen. Vincent and Maliha had come through for us at the last moment.

Together, we could kill Blair in an instant if we all tried, but that would not be fair to the man whose entire army was immobilized. Besides, this whole thing had started with me and him. It had to end with me and him.

The werewolves understood this. They began forming a circle around us, as was common when two Alphas fought. As bizarre as it was to admit it, since Blair had been morphed into his mutated wolf form by the blood of an Alpha, he, too, was an Alpha. When two Alphas fought, the other wolves watched. It was the law of the supernatural.

Blair had been rendered a bit weak by the wavelength jammer signal that Vincent and Maliha had sent, but he was far from being docile. In fact, he was more agitated than before, having just witnessed the loss of his entire army.

Blair circled me, gnarling and gnashing his teeth, stomping his claws on the ground. His eyes, which were previously slit-like, had turned red and wide. Red was the color of rage. Wide was the stance of attack. With this information, I ducked at the last moment and prevented Blair from hitting me.

Instead, Blair went reeling behind me, hitting a tree. He struck it so hard that the tree fell. Blair, on the other hand, was completely unaffected. He got back up, brushed himself, and began charging toward me again.

This time, I was without any fear and without any inhibition. Victory seemed so close. The soldiers had been taken care of. Only Blair remained, lost in his mind and reasoning.

I charged my paw and brought it up in a powerful slash, hitting Blair under his chin just as he came close to me, throwing him on his back. The wolves howled around me. This was the law of the jungle—survival of the fittest. Blair was big, sure, but he was not strong. He lacked resolve. A man who had resolve would have fought me straight on without using any serums or army. Blair lacked the spine, just like his father and his friends.

My resolve was growing with each second. Blair leaped upon me, hoping to crush me under his weight. Instead of swerving to avoid him, I reached up with both claws and lifted myself off the ground, meeting Blair mid-air, digging my claws into his skin, drawing blood.

Blair howled and, in a moment of desperation, dug his teeth into my neck.

I let go of him mid-air and barely landed on all fours. His bite had stung me very viciously. I could feel his venom entering my body, weakening me. That was all it had taken from his side, one bite, to level the playing field.

Blood dripped from where he had bitten me. The wound was not closing as fast as I’d expected. How could it? Blair was imbued with my blood. His attacks were effective against me. Any more injuries and I could falter.

Luckily, the wound was just skin deep. I shrugged, throwing off the last of the blood drops leaking from my neck, and rejoined the fight, tapping into my dormant rage. I was not going to give him another chance to strike me.

I roared and unleashed a flurry of claws on Blair’s face, tearing his snout, blinding him in one eye, ripping apart his skin, creating deep gashes in his fur, and drawing blood from every wound where I had struck.

Blair howled in pain, reeling to the back of the field. Instead of letting him escape, I jumped and pounced right on top of him, returning the favor and digging into his neck with my teeth, tasting blood.

He effortlessly threw me off. While I was down, the blood-drenched mutated monster reached and slashed along the entire length of my midriff.

Weakly, I got back up and bit at Blair’s front paw, tearing its skin off. Now was not the time to hold back my attacks. Clearly, he wasn’t.

One thing was certain. If he injured me again, I would not be able to keep fighting.

With that in mind, I fought more carefully, playing on the defensive. Blair rushed at me from afar, snout bleeding, limbs torn asunder. I swerved to my right and let him hit the tree trunk behind me, making him lose his balance and fall on his face.

I hurriedly slashed along his back, tearing more of his fur and skin, and then stepped back, waiting for him to charge again.

But Bair did not charge. He stayed where he was, tending to his wounds. My wounds were not healing fast, but he was. The skin had regrown on his face, and the flesh that I’d torn off his paw, back, and neck was coming back again.

The fight was back to square one, except that I was still recovering.

Blair sneered from the other end of the fighting circle.

I closed my eyes, let go of all my thoughts, and remembered how Blair’s father was the cause of all my suffering. I would have peacefully lived out my life if it weren’t for him. I recalled how Blair had taunted me the first time I met him while trying to save Alexis. The moment when Blair had injected his serum in me atop the building, meaning to kill me, flashed before my eyes.

He was just as much in charge of my misery as his father was.

That did it.

That unlocked all the rage that I’d been keeping in check, allowing me to shift into the wolf within, my true feral form. I grew in size, becoming broader and stronger, and my injuries, although they did not heal, sealed up and prevented more blood loss. Now, I was almost Blair’s size, and the true battle could begin.

Blair tried to bite me, but I clamped his mouth shut with my mouth and tore away a part of his snout. Before he could get a chance to recoil or heal, I hit that same part of his injured snout, ripping off his flesh and revealing the bone underneath. Then I bit upon that injury again, ignoring all his attempts to fend me off.

Weakened, bleeding, and missing half his snout, Blair lay on the ground, unmoving.

It seemed like the battle was over.

As I walked over to him, I realized a little too late that Blair had been feigning. He might have been injured, but he was luring me in closer to deliver a fatal blow.

His enlarged claws dug into the skin of my chest, reaching past my muscles and touching my ribs. The pain was unbearable, but the realization that if he were to penetrate deeper, he would reach my heart was much more troubling.

I was trapped. His limbs were wrapped around me, his massive body crushing me under his weight.

Instead of trying to escape, I did the same as what Blair had done to me. I extracted my claws and dug them into his heart, feeling his rib cage brush against the tip of my claws. Two could play at this game, and if I was supposed to die in this battle, I was going to kill Blair with me before I breathed my last.

I could sense that I had hurt Blair just as severely as he had hurt me. He let go of me immediately, once again retreating to the corner of the battlefield.

The only thing that troubled me was the slow speed at which my wounds were healing. Blair was healing faster. In the time he had taken to retreat, part of his snout had regrown, and the claw holes in his chest were sealed again.

It felt like I was fighting an undefeatable enemy.

Surely, this was madness.

Blair charged at me again, stomping his paws harder than before, picking up great speed. I was barely able to get on my paws once again, still recovering from the painful injury in my chest. I wasn’t going to be able to move away in time.

Then, Blair jumped, doubling his speed, his claws reaching out for my face, his mouth open to viciously bite me as he landed.

I had known defeat on three different occasions in my life before.

One was when I fled from Germany. I could not have saved my people and my land against the violence of the Nazis. For me, fleeing was the same as admitting defeat.

The second time was when I was kidnapped by Edward Beckett. There had been nothing I could do all those long decades while he tortured me.

The third was when Blair “killed” me with his serum at Beckett Pharma’s tower.

Now, this seemed like the fourth.

My body, feral though it was, was drenched with all energy. I needed more time to recover than I had. Blair was just a few inches away from me, a momentous force coming unstoppably in my direction to rend me apart.

At least this time around, I was not running away. I was going to stand my ground till the moment I took my last breath.

But surprisingly, Blair never made it to the ground. His claws never touched me. His teeth never got too close around my neck.

Alexis, at the last second, leaped out from the crowd of the wolves, meeting Blair headlong mid-air, tackling him with brute force, causing him to deviate from his offensive trajectory and fall limply to his side.

Alexis! What are you doing? I called out as I steadied myself and got back up.

Forget the rules, Will. Blair’s not playing by the rules. He heals himself instantaneously. It’s impossible to defeat him single-handedly. We’ll do it like we always do everything. Together. Come now!

Before waiting for my response, Alexis leaped into the air again and landed on Blair’s body, delivering a series of lethal slashes to his face, torso, and legs. This was all the bolstering I needed to get back into the battle and fight alongside my mate.