The king's justice

The sickening crunch of Victor’s shattered hands still echoed in the small, ruined cottage. Victor lay crumpled on the floorboards, sobbing and violently cradling his mangled fingers against his chest. 

But Lycan was not finished. 

The air in the room suddenly grew impossibly heavy, vibrating with a dark, suffocating energy. It wasn't just the dominant aura of an Alpha this was something ancient. Deep shadows began to bleed from Lycan’s armor, swirling around his massive frame like living smoke. The temperature in the cottage plummeted to freezing. Frost crept across the stone hearth, extinguishing the fire in a matter of seconds. 

Lycan raised his hand, his eyes burning with a blinding, bloodthirsty crimson light. A crackling, violent surge of raw mystical power materialized in his palm, humming with a terrifying, destructive frequency.

Victor choked on his own blood, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the dark magic illuminating the blacksmith's face. 

"You... you low-life orc!" Victor spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of agony and sheer panic. He tried to scuttle backward away from the pulsing energy. "How does a filthy peasant pack such savage mind power? That is impossible!"

Lycan didn't even blink. He looked down at the broken Alpha heir with the cold, detached apathy of a god looking at an insect. 

"You question my power?" Lycan’s voice was a dark, gravelly rumble that physically shook the floorboards beneath us. "I would like to see if you even live to tell the tale. That is another matter entirely."

Regina, completely blinded by her own arrogance and desperate to regain control of the situation, stepped in front of Victor. She was trembling, but her psychotic vanity pushed her forward. 

"Don't you dare threaten him!" Regina shrieked, her voice echoing shrilly in the small room. "Victor is the Silver Wolf King’s golden boy! If you lay a single finger on his mind threads, I swear to the Moon Goddess you are going to wish you were never born!"

Lycan tilted his head, a dark, chilling smirk playing on his lips. 

"Is that so?" he murmured softly. 

"Yes!" Regina screamed, completely unhinged. "The Wolf King himself just sent lavish, priceless gifts to my husband this very morning! We are under his direct royal protection! If you know what is good for you, Arthur, you will get on your knees right now and beg for our forgiveness!"

The irony was so thick it was suffocating. She was standing in front of the true King, boasting about the King's favor, demanding the King kneel to her. 

Lycan’s smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated lethal intent. 

Without a single word, Lycan flicked his wrist. 

A bolt of pure, dark mystical power shot from his palm, striking Regina directly in the chest. It wasn't a physical blow, but a violent shockwave of raw magic. Regina was launched backward, her expensive velvet cloak tearing as she slammed brutally into the stone wall. 

She collapsed to the floor, clutching her chest as a blood-curdling scream ripped from her throat. The magical strike burned through her nervous system, leaving her gasping and writhing in agony on the cold stones. 

Lycan took a slow, deliberate step toward her. The earth shook beneath his boots. 

"One more word," Lycan warned, his voice echoing with absolute, terrifying authority, "and the next beam tears directly through your heart core. I will shatter your soul before it even leaves your body."

Regina choked on a sob, entirely paralyzed by the sheer terror radiating from him. 

Seeing her precious daughter broken on the floor, my stepmother finally snapped. She couldn't fight Lycan, so she turned her venomous gaze directly to me. I was still slumped in the wooden chair, clutching my bleeding side, terrified and completely overwhelmed by the blood loss. 

"Amy, you stubborn hellcat!" my stepmother screamed, her face contorted in vicious rage. "Look at what you are doing! Would you really just sit there and watch your own family be ruined by this madman? Stop him!"

Her words pierced through the haze of my pain. *My family.* They had never been a family to me. They had been my tormentors, my abusers, the monsters in my nightmares. But looking at Lycan—wrapped in dark magic, his eyes glowing with the promise of murder—a different kind of fear gripped my heart. 

I didn't care about Regina or Victor. I cared about *him*. 

In my mind, he was still just my blacksmith. A good, hardworking man who was currently attacking the most powerful nobles in the region. If he killed the Alpha heir, the entire Royal Army would hunt him down. They would execute him. I couldn't let my husband throw his life away for me. 

Fighting through the blinding, white-hot agony of the silver wound in my side, I forced myself to move. 

"Lycan..." I whispered, my voice incredibly weak. 

I pushed myself up from the chair. My legs trembled violently, threatening to give out beneath me, but I forced myself to take a step forward. I reached out, my blood-stained fingers wrapping gently around his massive, armored forearm. 

The moment my skin touched his, the terrifying, crackling dark energy in the room instantly vanished. 

Lycan froze. The bloodthirsty crimson light in his eyes rapidly faded, melting back into the warm, desperate amber I loved so much. He looked down at my small, trembling hand, and the god of war instantly disappeared, leaving only the frantic, terrified husband behind. 

"Amy," he breathed, his voice cracking. "You shouldn't be standing. The silver—"

"Please," I begged, tears streaming down my face as I looked up into his eyes. "Please, don't do this. Don't kill them."

Before he could argue, Lycan turned his head and shot a glare at the elite guards blocking the door. 

"Take them down," Lycan roared. "Chain them to the earth!"

The royal guards moved with terrifying military precision. In seconds, they swarmed Victor, Regina, and my stepmother. Heavy, rune-carved iron chains were violently wrapped around their wrists and necks, forcing them onto their knees in the dirt just outside the ruined doorway. They were completely restrained, stripped of their pride and their power. 

Once the room was secure, I swayed on my feet, the blood loss finally catching up to me. 

Lycan caught me before I could fall. He dropped to his knees right there on the floorboards, wrapping his massive arms around my waist and resting his face against my stomach, being incredibly careful not to touch my wound. 

"We have to stop," I cried softly, my fingers weakly tangling in his dark hair. "Lycan, Victor is backed by the Silver Wolf Court. He is going to be the next Alpha. We are just peasants... we are not in the position to fight the royal court. If you kill them, they will hunt you forever. Please, for the sake of our baby, stop."

Lycan went completely still at the mention of our baby. He slowly pulled back, looking up at me from his knees. His golden eyes were shining with unshed tears, but beneath the sorrow, there was an unbreakable, unyielding fierce resolve. 

He reached up, his large, warm hands gently cupping my pale face. His thumbs carefully wiped away the tears mixing with the blood on my cheeks. 

"I told you, little beast," Lycan whispered fiercely, his voice vibrating with a promise that seemed to echo into eternity. "I have always got your back. They hurt you. They hurt our unborn child. I swear to you on my life, my soul, and the Moon Goddess herself... I am going to make them pay."