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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

STONE

A ring of orange fire burned around the battlefield. The flames ate up the trees and turned them to ashes within minutes. Walls of almost unbearable heat hit me one after another after another as the green grass blackened.

My pain consumed me, growing hotter and stronger by the moment. Flames crackled around me. I inhaled the smoke and glared at my brother through stinging eyes.

Dead.

By the end of today, Derrit would be a dead man. I’d make sure of it.

Surrounded by dark, swirling mist that almost shielded his entire body, Derrit stood as smug as ever. He would never let his face be covered, as that was what he used to taunt me with. That smirk, those devilish eyes.

After growling, I transformed into my wolf form and leaped toward my brother.

If he wanted a war, then I would give him a war.

I didn’t care what kind of magic-wielding wolf he could transform into.

I had made a pact with a demon of fire, and I planned to use my abilities as much as I needed in order to defeat him and protect my pack.

My canines sliced into one of the dark mist appendages he wielded, and I ripped it right off him. As if it were alive, the darkness screeched under my teeth and disintegrated into thousands of brittle ashes, drifting away in the fire’s wind.

I lunged at him again, chomping away at his dark magic as Zuri fought him head-on, the brightness from her wolf shining through the darkness and brighter than the fire around us. She moved like a ball of light.

The force of my second attack pushed Derrit back several feet across the forest floor and toward the edge of the fire’s ring.

I sprinted at him again as the fire licked my paws, and suddenly, my fur ignited in flames.

While it would’ve seared off the fur and melted the skin of any other wolf, the demon inside me only made me stronger.

After seizing his dark mist between my teeth again, I slammed it into the ground. A shock wave traveled up the darkness and to his body, banging his entire body into the ground once more, his bones cracking from the impact.

Flames popped. Forests burned. And ashes created a heavy fog that sat across the battlefield. The closer I approached Derrit, the quieter my surroundings were, until the wolves’ howls became muffled, and the hum of fire seemed to be the only thing bringing me back down to Durnbone.

Derrit groaned and pulled all the black mist back into his body, his dulling eyes refilling with energy once more. Another low growl escaped my throat, and I lurched at him again, this time sinking my canines into his thigh and ripping out a chunk of his flesh.

When I attempted to bite him a second time, he dodged my attack and jumped to his feet. The wound healed almost instantly, the darkness filling the once-empty space where his muscle had been.

“Very well done, little brother,” he hummed. “Much stronger than last time.”

In my wolf form, I snarled at him and lowered into an offensive position. The thunderous collapse of a tree suddenly snapped me back into reality, where noises weren’t muffled anymore, and I could hear the screams of my packmates all around us.

Derrit’s body suddenly disappeared and then reappeared behind Zuri in a half-man, half-wolf form. Darkness swirled around him, and he seized my mate, one hand on her neck, the other on her belly, his claws digging into her flesh.

“This is what you deserve, Stone,” Derrit roared. “You’ve always been so prideful to be on your own, so fucking excited to have a family that wasn’t like me or Dad. And now … you’ll never have that. I’ll make sure of it, brother .”

Before I could stop him, he ripped his claws right into Zuri’s belly. Blood spewed out of her stomach, her intestines falling out and onto the ground. He pulled his hand back and dropped her womb with the smallest of pups inside it.

My mind emptied as I stared at her pup— our pup —lying in a puddle of Zuri’s blood on the ground, its small body barely the size of a coin and curled up in a ball. Heart dropping, I stared at the baby and fell to my knees.

No.

No. This can’t be happening.

“Your line ends here.” Derrit laughed. “Now, she’ll never be able to bear you pups. And if she can’t bear your pups, then she’s worthless to you. To your pack. And to any other man in existence. Zuri is as good as a dead woman.”