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 he glows blue,

by the gods.

me, welcome the split of bone, the stretch of

my throat. I catch him midair, claws ripping through his ribs. Blood

more charge and

a spine in his jaws and crushes another underfoot

burn out before we get

enough power to get through this,

keep coming. Ten.

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

calm in the havoc. Only graves await those

the marble floor. Her

the back ranks, but there’s something

hospital, I

I can’t leave you—

I rarely touch him with dominance, but there’s no time for

hesitates, then vanishes in

leaping over the pack. He crushes wolves like ants under his paws, drawing attention as

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

More come.

attacker in my jaws—bone splinters. But the wolf doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. His teeth stay

it? I ask

Indeed.

yelps. No howls of pain. Only the mechanical rhythm of violence: bone cracking,

fight like machines. Like puppets with

throb, but adrenaline overrides pain.

Less than half.

of four wolves drags me down, their jaws locked

gnaws into my shoulder. Her teeth grind into my bones,

towers above, a mountain of snarling fur with wolves clinging like ticks. He

He barrels toward me.

the wolves off me. One slams into a

too long. My breath is ragged, coming in short,