Page 45 of A Reign of Malice (Wolves of Lunara #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

JULIAN

P ain explodes through my ribs the second I land, white-hot and blinding. The blade buried deep in my side is more than just steel. It sears like it’s been forged in hell, eating into muscle, flooding my system with poison. My body convulses, and for a moment, everything blurs.

Sloane’s scream cleaves through the chaos. “Julian! Shift, shift now!”

My wolf’s already clawing forward, frantic to protect her, but the agony anchors me, dragging me beneath the pressure of the wound. The air burns in my lungs. My limbs tremble. I can feel the poison racing toward my heart.

“Ah, this is better than I could have planned.” Aeson sneers, moving out from beneath me, his movements quick despite the blood dripping from his side.

He goes to Sloane before she can get away and grabs her by the back of the neck, wrenching her forward so her uninjured eye has no choice but to look. “You’ll get to watch each other die.”

No, she fucking won’t.

A growl tears from my throat. I force myself upright with a roar of defiance, eyes rolling back as I call on the power that I know is still within me. I didn’t survive two hundred years locked in hell just to die now.

The shift crashes into me like a tidal wave. The pain should be too much, it should shred me apart, but instead it becomes fuel. The world slows, stutters, then flashes gold.

Not just any gold.

Her gold.

Aurora’s energy flares through my veins, unfamiliar yet undeniably mine. Not just power. Not just healing. Something wilder, forged only in the realm of gods. It doesn’t erase the pain, but it elevates it, turning this agony into something I can wield.

My body starts to slowly mend, and when I stand, I’m not just a man. I’m Alpha King.

Bloodied, burning, alive, and beyond furious.

Across the room, Aeson freezes mid-taunt. His blade is still slick with my blood, his smirk faltering as his eyes widen slightly. “So she gave you a parting gift,” he says, his voice a low rasp. “It won’t save you…or her.”

He lunges for Sloane, dagger flashing.

But she’s faster. A shard of glass clutched tightly in her palm slams into his thigh. It sinks in with a sickening crunch. Her own hand bleeds from the force, but she doesn’t flinch.

She jerks the fragment free, flinging it across the room, and scrambles to her feet. Her eye is wounded, blood painting the skin beneath it, but her resolve burns hotter than ever.

She reaches me and presses her palm to my chest. “His blood is toxic,” she warns breathlessly. “Be careful.”

I want to embrace her, but we don’t have time.

Aeson snarls at us. “You can’t beat me. Not after all I’ve sacrificed. ”

He stalks toward us, uncaring that his pants are soaked with his own blood.

The room dims around him, as if the shadows are reacting to his voice.

“We’re not afraid of your sacrifices,” I growl. “Not even of what they’ve turned you into.”

Sloane pulls the young woman out of the way, dragging her further from the fight. I don’t remember her, but she clearly means something to my mate. I hope her death was quick and not painful.

Sloane meets my gaze, our eyes locking for half a heartbeat. There’s no goodbye in them. Only war.

I turn away and back to my brother, hopefully for the last time.

“You couldn’t just die in that basement,” Aeson snarls through gritted teeth, dagger still gripped tightly in his crimson-slicked hand. His voice is venom, each syllable laced with decades of resentment and twisted pride.

I draw both my blades from where they’re sheathed at my sides. They aren’t coated in poison. They don’t need to be. These were forged for war, and tonight, they’ll taste the blood of a tyrant.

“I didn’t die there,” I say, voice low and lethal. “And I’m not dying tonight.”

I lunge.

My right blade slices across his wrist, a perfect arc of motion honed by rage and instinct.

Steel meets tendon with a sickening snap.

Aeson howls as his dagger drops, clattering across the marble floor.

I kick it away, the force driving my balance off, and for one critical heartbeat, my side is exposed.

He takes full advantage.

His fist slams into my ribs like a battering ram. Bone crunches. The breath leaves my lungs in a guttural gasp. I stagger, pain flaring, but I don’t fall. Not now.

We lock eyes right before we explode on each other.

We fight like gods damned to earth, ancient and furious.

Knuckles slam into jaws. Knees into ribs.

Our bodies collide with a violence that shakes the room.

We spin, fists flying, blood spraying the walls.

I catch his shoulder with one blade, carving deep, but his knee connects with my sternum in response.

We crash into the dining table, plates shattered as the wood beneath us begins to splinter from our combined weight until it finally crumbles. A wave of broken glass gets sent across the stone floor and Sloane jerks back just in time to avoid the flying debris.

She takes a step toward us, fire in her eyes, like she means to finish this at my side. But I raise a bloodied hand to stop her. Not yet. Not this part.

I can’t imagine that Aeson was the epitome of a gentleman to her, but he trapped me. He stole my life.

Now, I’m going to steal his.

“You were never meant to rule!” he roars, spitting blood. His next punch slams into my gut like a hammer. I grunt, doubling slightly, my legs buckling from the pressure as he continues. “You’re weak and soft. You would’ve crumbled the second the crown touched your head.”

I lift my gaze and snarl, “Maybe. But I’d rather crumble with honor than stand tall with corruption in my soul.”

There’s so much blood on me that not all of it can be mine, but my skin isn’t burning as I would have expected after Sloane’s warning. I don’t know if that’s because of the god energy I sensed earlier or something else; either way, I don’t let the realization distract me for long.

I drive my blade into his side .

It sinks in halfway before he jerks back, black blood pouring down his torso like tar. He screams, and it fuels me, even as my arms tremble with exhaustion. I keep going.

“You’ve tarnished everything you’ve touched,” I growl, swinging my left fist hard into his jaw. “Since the moment you tasted power, you’ve destroyed everyone who trusted you, including Venaris.”

He bellows and surges forward, headbutting me with enough force to snap something in my nose. Warm blood gushes down my face, into my mouth.

Then he moves faster than I expect.

From his boot, he draws a second blade, sleek, short, and jagged. He switches it to his uninjured hand, and the dagger arcs through the air like lightning.

I try to step back, but I’m not quick enough.

The blade plunges deep into my thigh, burying itself to the hilt.

I cry out and collapse to one knee, the force of the hit cutting my breath short. My vision blurs and my muscles seize. Pain consumes every part of me, turning the world red.

Aeson stands over me, panting, bleeding, and grinning. “I didn’t destroy this kingdom. I made this kingdom. I am Venaris.” He stares down at me and laughs. The sound is low and breathless but triumphant. “That’s more like it. Get down where you belong, brother .”

I breathe through the pain, my pulse hammering in my ears, the copper sting of blood everywhere. I close my hand around the dagger in my leg, but I can’t pull it free quickly enough to use against him.

My gaze lifts and finds Sloane’s.

She’s still bloodied and bruised, but her eye looks as though it’s already starting to heal on its own. She trembles with unleashed fury, every part of her seeming to burn with a fire that refuses to die.

“No.” Her attention falls on Aeson, her voice sharp as nails behind him. “You’re exactly what we tried to destroy in the Great War. You’re what we were supposed to evolve past.”

Aeson’s head snaps toward her, distracted just for a fraction of a second. That’s all she needs.

With a savage cry, Sloane snatches a jagged piece of the splintered dining table and hurls it like a spear. It spins once, twice, before slicing into Aeson’s shoulder with enough force to knock him off-balance.

He snarls, stumbling, but doesn’t fall.

As he works to get the wood out, I succeed in freeing the knife from my leg.

I expect to see Sloane moving forward, intent on finishing the job herself, knowing that I’m hurt, but she stays back and nods at me as I stand.

She’s giving this moment to me and me alone.

Agony nearly blinds me as I walk, but I welcome the pain, determined to use it as a weapon, especially once I notice the newest wound is clean. That last dagger wasn’t cursed like the others.

I launch forward, every ounce of my strength focused on the single objective I’ve carried for two centuries— kill him .

I’ve pictured this moment every day that I was locked away, imagined a million ways to end him. It never mattered how I did it. Just as long as it was done.

Aeson barely raises his arms before I slam into him, blade first. It drives upward into the soft space beneath his ribs, tearing into his gut, deep and final.

He gasps, but I’m not done.

I slam him back, his spine crashing against the stone wall with a sickening crack. My hand finds his throat, the other still clenched around the dagger’s hilt. He thrashes, but I pin him there, keeping him helpless, choking, and cornered.

Black blood seeps from his mouth and pours from the wound, dripping down in rivulets that sizzle against the floor, eating into the stone like acid.

I twist the blade harder.

“This,” I snarl, inches from his face, “is for my pack. For every wolf you made kneel and every lie you told. For every future you stole, including mine.”

His hands claw at my arms, fingers shaking, lips moving without sound, but none of it penetrates my ire.

“And this…” I lean closer, meeting the madness in his eyes with some of my own. “This is for my mate.”

I twist again until I feel the crack of something deep inside him. A bone, or maybe his heart. Either way, it’s final.

Aeson’s eyes widen. He gurgles. Blood spills from his mouth, hot and foul. His legs kick once. Twice. Then nothing. Only then do I release him.

His body slides down the wall, smearing black across the stone before crumpling in a heap. A worthless, ruined shell of a corpse, one who was once a power, unmade by the very truth he tried to bury.

Silence descends like fog, heavy and absolute.

I sway, my body buckling, and crash down beside his fallen form. The blade clatters from my grasp. My breaths come fast and ragged, blood pouring from too many wounds to count.

But I’m alive.

And more importantly, so is she.

Sloane’s at my side before I can even think to reach for her. She drops to her knees, arms wrapping around me, cradling my face in her hands. Her skin is warm, her heartbeat a thunderous echo that grounds me in the here and now.

“You did it,” she whispers. Her voice shakes with exhaustion, disbelief, and even awe.

I don’t know if she means killing him or surviving it.

Maybe both.

Either way, I let my forehead drop to hers, blood and sweat mingling, the fire of war still crackling outside the castle walls.

And I hold on because we’re not just survivors.

We’re the beginning of something new.

Though, our job here isn’t done.