Page 28 of Destined to the Lycan (The Shadow Realms #3)

Two of the wretched fiends leapt at me, one of them landing on my back.

I jumped, contorting midair while swiping my paws at it to keep it from successfully wrapping itself around me.

Although I didn’t split that one in half, I managed to inflict a long gash one-third of its body, which was enough to make it fall and writhe in pain.

With a few leaps and evasive maneuvers, I dodged the other assailants.

However, that wouldn’t work for much longer.

With so many of them chasing after me, the combined effect of their paralytic venom would guarantee my demise.

I hacked and slashed at them, clenching my teeth through the pain of the successful bites they managed to sneak in.

Although their attack made no sense, they would need to ingest too much of my blood or flesh before my toxins kill them.

By then, it would be too late for me. I would need fire to eradicate them all in one fell swoop.

Even as I began to weaken, a thought suddenly sparked in my mind.

I veered east, running as fast as I could while fighting off my pursuers.

While searching for my mate, I remembered seeing a patch of bitter morels.

Less than thirty meters from my salvation, a sharp pain in my right leg made me lose my footing.

An Arraphilon had savagely bitten my Achilles tendon, and it felt as if lighting had struck me there.

I crashed hard on the ground, even as my assailant used its frontal limbs to climb on me.

Leveraging my momentum, I rolled with the fall to get back onto my paws.

My right leg wasn’t fully responding, but I ignored it.

I reached for the creature crawling over me with my front paw and viciously stabbed my claws into it.

This time, I didn’t attempt to cut it in half but tore it right off me.

I cried out in pain as its thorns ripped me to shreds and tossed the creature with all my strength into the patch of bitter morels.

It landed with such force in their midst that it crushed a few of them.

The morels spit out their toxic spores, and the Arraphilon screeched in agony.

It tried to slither away but barely moved more than a few centimeters before it began writhing, its thorns falling to the ground, and its leaves darkening and withering.

A second Arraphilon lunged for my throat, but I caught it with my maw and flung it in the same general direction as its fallen companion.

Within seconds, it met the same horrendous demise.

I half-ran, half-limped closer to the patch of morels, but not so much their spores would affect me, and turned to the other creatures that had been chasing me. To my shock, they were all gone.

And so was my pain.

Instead, I stared at a handsome doppelganger standing less than ten meters away from me.

He was leaning on his forearms against the doorframe of a charming wood and brick cabin.

Intricate wards, the like I’d never seen before, adorned the entrance of the dwelling.

I didn’t need to be an arcanist to know they were powerful enough to keep at bay the foul creatures that haunted these woods.

It shouldn’t be here. When I surveyed the woods from the tree branch, the cabin had been located in a different direction and at a much greater distance than the one I covered while escaping the creatures hunting me.

“Not bad, pup,” the doppelganger said in a mocking tone. “You can think creatively and have decent situational awareness.”

I straightened as I shifted back into my human form.

“Where is she?” I asked in lieu of a response, unfazed by my nudity. “If you hurt her—”

“Then what?” he interrupted in a provocative fashion. “What will you do? Or rather what can you do against one such as I?”

I glared at him, searching for an appropriate response, but failing miserably.

Lycans were naturally immune to many forms of mind control, even more so when benefiting from the protection of a talisman like the one I wore.

The ease with which he had engulfed me in that illusion without me ever even realizing the moment I entered it blew my mind.

While the lightning streaks beneath his skin clearly gave him away as a doppelganger, he didn’t resemble any of the ones I had seen or heard of before.

They normally had a very pale, grayish or off-white skin complexion.

The streaks were also thinner and more discreet.

From a distance, they could be mistaken for old scars.

His skin was a fascinating shade of dusky blue.

His streaks were far more prominent and seemed to pulse with an inner light.

Unlike others of his species, he didn’t have stormy gray eyes.

His were entirely red—sclera included—with vertical pupils like a reptile.

Even from where I stood, I could feel the potent magic swirling around him. He wasn’t a mere doppelganger, but something far more powerful and lethal.

“It’s funny that you should care now about her welfare when you callously abandoned her,” he mused aloud before I could come up with a proper repartee—not that I had one to begin with.

But those words felt like a slap in the face. They stung all the more that I had been berating myself for that very reason.

“I didn’t abandon her,” I snapped. “I was protecting her from a pack of Aegarims. Remaining on the path would keep her safe while I lured them away.”

“Clearly, remaining on the path did not,” he countered tauntingly.

“You shouldn’t have been there!” I spat angrily. “Your kind doesn’t wander in these parts.”

“And yet, here I am,” he replied, spreading his arms wide as he took a few steps towards me, his face hardening. “You had one task, and you utterly failed. What good are you?”

I flinched, the words cutting me deep. It took every ounce of my willpower not to respond to his provocation.

He was clearly trying to rile me up, likely to push me into attacking him so that he could kill me.

Granted, his kind didn’t need an excuse to take a life, but they loved to play games and fuck with their prey’s heads before feasting on them.

“Where is she?” I repeated in a controlled voice, despite the anger and worry knotting my insides. “I can’t smell her.”

He shrugged. “Not too far.”

“Take me to her,” I demanded.

He raised an eyebrow, the same whitish-blue tinge as his long, wavy hair, in a way that hinted I was being a little too cocky.

“No,” he simply replied.

I tried to dash forward to enter the cabin in search of Amara, but I was completely frozen in place.

“What the fuck?!” I muttered under my breath.

He snorted and shook his head at me. “Seriously?” he asked, as if he was disappointed by my stupidity.

“Who are you? And what are you?” I asked, hating how helpless I felt.

“My name is Lyall, and I’m a doppelganger,” he replied in a factual manner.

I shook my head, the only thing I apparently still had control over.

“You’re way more than that. Doppelgangers do not have the type of abilities you’re currently displaying and are certainly not this powerful. This is another illusion isn’t it?”

He merely smiled but didn’t answer. His species didn’t lie.

Any word they spoke was either the truth or what they genuinely believed to be the truth.

If they didn’t want to reveal something, they would dance around it or play word games to fuck with you.

They particularly liked wording things in a way that would deliberately mislead you if misinterpreted—which was likely to be the case.

“I want to see Amara,” I said at last, annoyed when the silence stretched.

“What you want is irrelevant,” Lyall said with contempt. “You lost all rights the moment you allowed her to be captured.”

“I didn’t allow her to be captured. One such as you never should have been here,” I repeated.

“You’re correct. And I wouldn’t have been had you not allowed the word to spread about your mission. You technically lured me here.”

“What?! Lured you here how?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Amara and I are both poisoned. Sentient predators steer clear of us because eating us would cause them great harm if not flat out kill them. So why come specifically for us?”

“Because she’s special, and so is her blood,” Lyall deadpanned.

I felt myself blanch, and my blood turned to ice. “What have you done to her? Please tell me you haven’t harmed her?”

He snorted. “I haven’t done anything to her… yet.”

“Please, let her go. There is much better prey out there.”

“There is, but I don’t want them,” Lyall replied in a mysterious tone.

“Then what do you want? Name your price.”

He tilted his head to the side and examined me as if I was some kind of oddity. “What makes you think I don’t already have what I want? You’re both here at my mercy.”

I shook my head. “You don’t need both of us,” I said with conviction. “Your breed doesn’t gorge or waste food. My blood is rarer than hers. Feeding from me will make you more powerful. If you must have one of us, then take me and set her free.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, the redness taking on a brighter shade that made him even more frightening.

“Take you instead?” he asked menacingly.

“Yes. But after I have completed my mission,” I added.

By the way he gaped at me, my words truly shocked him. I could understand why. He burst out laughing, the full, throaty sound resonating loudly in the otherwise unnaturally quiet forest surrounding us.

He shook his head at me with an air of utter disbelief. “You’re either extraordinarily stupid or seriously mentally impaired if you think I or anyone else holding you at their mercy would consent to such a thing.”

“I will take a blood oath swearing to return once the mission is completed, whatever the final outcome. Amara’s days are numbered. I must take her to the plateau while there’s still time. It’s only a few more days. I pledge to return.”

To my surprise, my words seemed to infuriate him.