Free Web NovelChapter 489: Chapter 489 TERRIBLY LATE
SERAPHINA’S POV
Jack Draven barely resembled anything natural anymore.
Darkness writhed under his fur, laced with crimson veins. His massive claws scraped deep grooves into the steel floor beneath his paws.
His body stretched unnaturally, warped by corruption, flesh and soul twisted into the monstrous being before us.
And his eyes...
Where there had once been fragments of Jack somewhere deep inside all that darkness, there was now...nothing.
They locked onto me first.
Then Kieran.
A low growl rolled from Jack’s chest, deep enough to vibrate through the walls.
His form dwarfed the elevator, shoulders nearly scraping the reinforced steel frame as he slowly emerged into the sterile laboratory corridor.
Darkness bled from him.
Not metaphorically.
Actual black flames crawled across his body in slow, living waves, curling between strands of fur and dripping onto the floor like burning oil.
Wherever they touched, the polished white tiles blackened instantly.
Kieran moved slightly in front of me.
“Jack,” I said carefully.
The name changed nothing.
His ears flattened. The growl deepened.
Then the darkness around him surged violently, and every remaining trace of humanity vanished from his eyes.
My stomach dropped.
He was gone.
Nothing remained of Jack Draven but raw instinct and blind obedience.
And judging by the way he positioned himself directly between us and the elevator, I knew exactly what those orders were.
Do not let anyone pass.
“Sera.” Kieran’s voice was deathly soft, his eyes fixed on the flames surrounding Jack. “Trust me.”
Before I could question him, Jack lunged.
Kieran shoved me backward just as Jack’s claws tore through the space where my throat had been a second earlier.
Steel screamed as the wall beside us split open beneath the force of the impact, sparks bursting from shattered wiring.
Kieran hit Jack head-on.
The collision shook the entire chamber.
Jack’s black flames surged instantly across Kieran’s arm, where they connected, and my breath caught sharply when smoke rose from his skin.
“Kieran!”
He tore himself free instantly, recoiling from the flames.
Fear slid cold down my spine as I stared at the angry, charred marks on Kieran’s arm.
Kieran saw my expression.
“Sera,” he said sharply, “don’t touch those flames.”
Jack attacked again before I could answer.
He moved like a beast driven by slaughter instinct, claws tearing through steel and concrete as black fire exploded with each strike.
The flames did not spread naturally. They moved with intent, reaching hungrily toward anything living.
Kieran dodged one wave barely in time.
The wall behind him dissolved, like the fire consumed existence itself.
My pulse stumbled violently.
No.
No, no—
The nightmare vision flashed through my head without warning.
Ash.
Blackened ground.
Kieran on his knees in a pool of his own blood.
I staggered as memory crashed against reality, my chest tightening painfully.
Jack lunged again.
Kieran shifted partially, Ashar’s claws bursting from his skin as he met Jack’s lunge. The resulting explosion of power cracked the observation windows lining the upper walls.
Kieran was being forced backward now.
Not losing, but adapting. Calculating. Watching the flames carefully.
Jack slammed him through one of the reinforced glass panels with enough force to shower the laboratory below in glittering shards.
I moved instinctively.
Silver surged through my veins as I prepared to join the fight—
“No!”
Kieran’s voice cracked through the room with Alpha force strong enough to stop me cold.
Kieran crashed to the ground, sliding across shattered glass. He forced himself up, positioning between Jack and the elevator, still blocking Jack’s advance.
Then I saw it: the elevator.
Still open.
Understanding hit me instantly.
Kieran saw it settle across my face.
“I can hold him,” he gritted out, though fresh blood already streaked one side of his jaw. “You need to keep going.”
Everything inside me rebelled against the words.
“No.”
“Sera—”
“I’m not leaving you here with that!”
Jack slammed Kieran into the far wall hard enough to crater reinforced concrete.
Black flames exploded outward.
Kieran twisted away barely in time.
My heart pounded unevenly as terror clawed inside me.
Kieran rose slowly from the wreckage, chest heaving as Ashar fully surfaced beneath his skin. His eyes burned gold so intensely they almost looked molten.
Then he looked at me, and everything else disappeared for one terrible heartbeat.
There was no battle. No danger.
Just him.
Just us.
“Sera,” he said quietly, and somehow his voice reached me clearly even through the chaos, “if you stay here, Catherine wins.”
Pain clawed through my chest.
Jack charged again.
Kieran intercepted him with brutal force before turning his head sharply toward me.
“GO!”
Jack’s flames erupted again.
Kieran shifted fully.
Ashar exploded outward in a massive surge of golden fur, enormous paws slamming against the fractured floor hard enough to split the tile beneath them.
His growl rolled through the chamber with terrifying force as he placed himself directly between Jack and me.
Jack roared.
Ashar answered with twice the ferocity.
The sound of two dominant wolves colliding shook the entire lower chamber.
Gods.
Even now, even surrounded by corruption and blood and nightmares becoming real around us, Ashar was magnificent.
Jack lunged, and Ashar met him head-on.
The impact detonated through the corridor like an earthquake.
“Kieran—”
Ashar’s head snapped toward me briefly, and his molten eyes fixed on mine, one message in them.
Go!
Another explosion rocked the chamber as Jack’s flames collided with Ashar’s claws.
The elevator doors were still open.
Waiting.
Kieran was giving me a chance.
Fighting for it second by second.
If I wasted it, Catherine won.
Everyone trapped inside the barrier became hers.
My vision blurred for a second, and all I could see was a blur of gold and black.
Then I ran.
The moment I crossed the elevator threshold, Jack sensed it.
He twisted away from Ashar with a roar powerful enough to shake the walls.
Black flames surged toward the elevator.
Ashar intercepted Jack with a brutal tackle, stopping the incoming flames before they could reach the elevator.
The entire chamber shook as both wolves crashed into the far wall in a tangle of claws, darkness, and fire.
“KIERAN!”
The elevator doors began closing.
Ashar drove Jack backward again with savage force, his massive body shielding the opening completely as black flames exploded across his fur.
Terror cinched my chest. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
Fire.
Ash.
Please no—
The doors slid shut.
And the last thing I saw before the elevator sealed completely was Ashar throwing himself directly into Jack’s flames to stop him from reaching me.
The descent began immediately.
I stood frozen in the center of the elevator while my pulse hammered so fiercely it hurt.
I pressed trembling fingers against my mouth.
He’ll be fine.
He’ll be fine.
He’ll be fine.
I repeated it silently like a prayer, but the ache in my chest didn’t ease.
The elevator continued descending deeper underground while the sterile walls around me gradually changed.
White steel darkened to reinforced metal etched with strange symbols. The temperature dropped, and the stench of dark magic grew stronger with each floor.
The numbers above the elevator door continued dropping.
1.
2.
3.
Then lower.
Much lower.
My stomach twisted. The blood bond beneath my skin pulled harder, urgently guiding me downward as Sylvia’s presence faded below.
Mother, I’m coming.
The elevator finally slowed.
A soft chime echoed through the enclosed space as the doors slid open on the seventh floor.
Cold air swept across my face as I stepped out slowly.
And my breath caught.
This was not a laboratory; this was a cathedral to madness.
The corridor stretched endlessly ahead beneath dim silver lighting, its walls lined with massive glass chambers filled with dark liquid. Shapes—no, bodies—floated inside them.
Some human.
Some wolf.
Some so grotesquely altered I couldn’t tell the difference.
My stomach lurched violently.
The floor beneath my boots was black stone veined with glowing symbols that pulsed faintly in rhythm with the eclipse above.
Psychic pressure saturated the entire lower level so heavily that every breath felt thick.
And at the end of the corridor, a pair of enormous silver doors stood partially open.
Power rolled from the room beyond in suffocating waves.
I could feel Catherine there.
My markings burned painfully beneath my skin.
Without thinking, I ran.
The corridor blurred around me as I pushed toward the doors, every instinct screaming louder with each step.
The psychic pressure intensified so rapidly near the entrance that blood trickled warm from my nose, but I barely noticed.
I slammed both hands against the doors and forced them open.
The chamber beyond was enormous.
Ancient symbols covered the floor beneath a massive suspended structure of silver chains and black crystal hanging from the ceiling like the center of some monstrous ritual.
Blood glowed within carved channels across the stone floor while dark magic pulsed overhead in rhythm with the eclipse slowly swallowing the sun.
And at the center, Catherine stood waiting.
Her white dress shimmered beneath the ritual light like moonlit silk.
She smiled the moment she saw me.
Then casually tossed my mother’s limp body aside like a rag doll.
Mother hit the floor hard enough to make my heart stop.
Her face was deathly pale.
Her wolf was barely present beneath the bond now.
No.
No no no—
Catherine sighed softly, sounding almost disappointed.
“I’m afraid you’re late, dear,” she said.
Then her smile widened as shadows from the eclipse darkened the chamber overhead.
“Terribly late.”
