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.

survive. Where Fenris is

the gods. Marked

what it was." I let the shift take me, welcome the split of bone, the stretch

him midair, claws ripping through his ribs. Blood

charge and I

snaps a spine in his jaws and crushes another underfoot as he grows

he’ll burn out before we get

power to get through this,

coming. Ten. Twenty.

of power capable of stopping a heart. It slides

says, his voice eerily calm in

up my leg. I grab her by the scruff and slam her into the marble floor. Her skull cracks,

tears through the back ranks,

the hospital, I snap.

I can’t leave you—

rarely touch him with dominance, but there’s

vanishes in

crushes wolves like ants under his paws, drawing attention

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

More come.

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

you feel it?

Indeed.

Only the mechanical rhythm of violence: bone

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;

Less than half.

down, their jaws locked deep. Blood slicks the

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

flash of blue light and Fenris towers above, a mountain of

He barrels toward me.

flings the wolves off me.

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