Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 77: Caine: Unnatural Silence (I)

CAINE

I stalk through the banquet hall, my vision tinged with crimson rage. The Fiddleback wolves cower against the floor tiles, submission rippling through their bodies as my dominance rolls over them. But I don’t care about their fear.

I need answers.

"Halloway!" My roar shakes the crystal chandeliers. "Face me, you coward!"

Jack-Eye’s voice cuts through the mess in my head. Hospital says there’s no patient registered under Grace’s name. No blonde human female admitted in the last 48 hours. She’s gone.

The world stops.

Everything narrows to a pinpoint of blinding rage. My chest constricts. My skin burns.

Grace. My Grace. Gone.

Where is she?

"Halloway!"

Movement flickers at the edge of my vision. The wolves on the floor—supposedly flattened by my dominance—spring to their feet with impossible speed. Eyes gleam with malice, not fear.

Chaos erupts.

Bodies twist and contort. Bones snap and reform at unnatural speed—alpha speed, and yet too many. Their shifts should take longer. They don’t.

I barely dodge the first attack, and claws graze my shoulder. The wound burns like silver, hindering my natural healing.

As expected, something’s deeply wrong with this pack.

Fenris appears beside me, a colossus of midnight fur and crackling blue energy. This was a trap.

The blessings of the Lycan Throne are manifold; my tattoos allow Fenris a body of his own, but they also give me control of mine.

Lycan. Wolf and human. I can use either form at will.

can survive. Where Fenris is black, I am white. Where

the gods. Marked to

it was." I let the shift take me, welcome the split of bone, the stretch of sinew. "I’ll kill

catch him midair, claws ripping through his ribs. Blood sprays across my muzzle

more charge and I

one. The others hit Fenris; he snaps a spine in his jaws and crushes another underfoot as he grows

burn out before we get through them

to get through this, he growls.

coming. Ten.

out, a tidal wave of power capable of stopping a heart. It slides off

they are not wolves, Fenris says, his voice eerily calm in the havoc. Only graves await those who

Pain lances up my leg. I grab her by the scruff and slam her into the marble floor.

feel Jack-Eye’s arrival as he tears through the back ranks, but there’s something

hospital, I

I can’t leave you—

with dominance, but there’s no time for

vanishes in

path, Fenris snarls, leaping over the pack. He crushes wolves like ants

markings circles me, too calm. I feint right, then drive forward. He pivots fast—but not fast enough. My jaws close around his throat.

More come.

my jaws—bone splinters. But the wolf

it?

Indeed.

yelps. No howls of pain. Only the

fight like wolves. They fight like machines. Like puppets with no

another throat. Blood mats my white fur crimson. My wounds throb, but adrenaline overrides pain. How many left? I demand; he

Less than half.

drags me down, their

she-wolf gnaws into my shoulder. Her teeth grind into my bones, and she refuses

and Fenris towers above, a mountain of snarling

He barrels toward me.

his paw, he flings the wolves off

too long. My breath is ragged, coming