Sixty four

AIDEN’S POV

I’ve been in this world long enough to know that both humans and creatures — werewolves, vampires, and everything that moves in the spaces between — have a tendency to mythologize violence. They dress it up. Give it weight it doesn’t always deserve. Some call it the warrior’s call. Some call it the honor of a clean kill. Some call it a fair fight.

I understand the impulse. Mythology makes uncomfortable things easier to live with. It turns brutality into something the mind can file away neatly, something with shape and meaning and a story attached to it.

I’ve never found it useful.

Violence, to me, has always been a transaction. You weigh the cost. You check if it’s worth the return. Then you execute. Sentiment about the method is a luxury that belongs to people who don’t do it for reasons that actually matter.

Tonight, like I had said, the reason I was going to be violent didn’t matter at all. I needed no reason to.

I gave out the order and my pack went to it immediately.

I was standing at the edge of my territory border, while Maxwell and the weaklings looked down at me before they turned their backs on me and went away.

“Let me pause you on that thought... I don't think I'm wrong if I say your reason for suddenly wanting to step into their territory and slaughter those werewolves was because they toyed with and tortured the girl in ways you could not tolerate.”

“Correct me if I am mistaken,” Rex said from the depths of my mind, his voice carrying the quiet patience of a man who had lived through centuries and seen every kind of self-deception. “But from where I stand, this appears less like justice and more like possession.”

“You’re wrong,” I replied.

A soft chuckle echoed through my mind.

“That’s you confirming I was right” Rex murmured.

I proceeded to ignore him.

My pack had moved — spreading out through the treeline with the quiet efficiency of wolves who knew better than to make noise before it was necessary. I stood at the edge of our territory border and wondered why Maxwell and the men he’d brought with him positioned on the rise above, looked down at us with the particular composure of people who believed they still controlled the situation.

They thought I wouldn't cross the borders and hunt them.

So they had started heading back.

That was their first mistake.

Breaking rules was one of my best hobbies. Hunting and killing was first. He had made that last significant miscalculation and that was going to cost him his state. Fear crept in his eyes as they immediately started running back deep into the black shadow pack territory as they noticed we had moved from our position and were now chasing them from behind.

Maxwell was a large man, not as large as his wolf form suggested, but his broad shoulders, chest, and his green hair. Daniel and Peter flanked him. Still in their partial shifts and their wolves' bite. Marcos held back slightly. Seeing that my werewolves had cornered them, I rushed forward, vanishing from different sights, tugging my clothes.

From each tree I touched, as I jumped up in a wolf manner skillfully, and then I landed, and I rode, my eyes glowing right in front of my pack.

Movement exploded through the trees as my wolves closed the distance.

Maxwell and his men had just started running when I moved.

I hit the first trunk, pushed off it, and crossed the darkness in a blur. Bark cracked beneath my feet as I launched myself from tree to tree, cutting ahead of them before dropping from the canopy.

I landed between them and the path deeper into Black Shadow territory.

The impact sent wet earth spraying outward that every footstep behind me stopped.

And it wasn't because I ordered it to. It was that they knew who had landed.

The killing intent filled the air and was almost choking.

For a brief second, the only sound in the forest was the rain.

Maxwell's eyes widened.

Daniel's wolf ears flattened against his head.

Peter actually took half a step backward before catching himself.

I slowly straightened myself and looked directly at them while a real definition of threat with so much pressure and confidence in it filled the air.

"The next person that moves," I said, my voice carrying through the trees, "dies first."

Silence swallowed the whole environment.

No one dares test the statement.