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.

few can survive. Where Fenris is black, I

gods. Marked

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

dishwater-blond wolf lunges for my throat. I catch him midair, claws ripping through his

more charge and

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

burn out before we

get through

keep coming. Ten.

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

not wolves, Fenris says, his voice eerily calm in the

sinks her teeth into my thigh. Pain lances up my leg. I grab her by the scruff and slam her into the marble floor. Her skull cracks, broken as easily

tears through the back ranks, but there’s something

the hospital, I

I can’t leave you—

him with dominance, but

hesitates, then vanishes

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

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

More come.

twist and crush the leg of one attacker in my jaws—bone splinters. But the wolf doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch.

you feel it? I

Indeed.

of pain. Only the mechanical rhythm

They fight like

wounds throb, but adrenaline overrides pain. How many left? I demand; he has a better

Less than half.

of four wolves drags me down,

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

of blue light and Fenris towers above, a mountain of snarling fur with wolves clinging

He barrels toward me.

sweep of his paw, he flings the wolves off me. One slams into a

too long. My breath is ragged, coming in