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.

are a force few can survive. Where Fenris is black, I am white.

the gods.

shift take me, welcome the split

ripping through his ribs. Blood sprays across my

charge and I

tear through soft underbelly, disemboweling one. The others hit Fenris; he snaps a spine in his jaws and crushes another underfoot as he grows

he keeps this up, he’ll burn out before we get through

power to get through this, he growls.

coming. Ten. Twenty.

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

says, his voice eerily calm in the havoc. Only

slam her into the marble floor. Her skull cracks, broken as

arrival as he tears through the back ranks,

hospital, I

I can’t leave you—

dominance, but there’s no time for

hesitates, then vanishes

his path, Fenris snarls, leaping over the pack. He crushes wolves like ants under his paws, drawing attention as Jack-Eye slips

calm. I feint right, then drive forward. He pivots fast—but not fast enough.

More come.

crush the leg of one attacker in my jaws—bone splinters. But the wolf

it?

Indeed.

Only the mechanical

wolves. They fight

wounds throb, but adrenaline overrides pain.

Less than half.

drags me down, their jaws locked deep. Blood slicks the

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

of snarling fur with wolves clinging like

He barrels toward me.

sweep of his paw, he flings the wolves

long. My breath is