Page 5 of Reign of The Beast (Immortal Passions #2)

5

~Jaxon~

“Fuck,” I ground out as my back smacked against the trunk of an old oak tree.

The impact had it shuddering, almost tearing from its tough roots.

Fucking vamps had some major power in their shoves.

Growling, I pushed off it, flashing my claws, my wolf teeth dropping, as I stomped toward the asshole vamp who’d tossed me a hundred feet across my pack lands into the trunk with his super speed.

Three of his buddies had joined him now, all of them snarling at me.

I was pissed that I hadn’t sensed that shithead’s attack in time.

As Alpha of the largest pack in the world, my instincts could be matched.

But there was a hell of a lot going down right now.

My pack was under attack, a brutal territory invasion that had come out of nowhere.

No warning, nothing .

They’d hit us hard and fast, outnumbering my combatants ten to one.

We were in deep shit.

But I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

This was my pack, my wolves, my family. It was our land and our lives we were fighting for.

And these assholes were going to suffer through some major pain for trying to fuck with that.

Coming onto our territory? What the ever loving shit were they playing at?

Roaring, I leapt through the air at the two vamps flanking the one who’d attacked me. With two swipes of my claws, I tore their fucking heads off.

The other two ran at me.

Kicking one of them back, I twisted my body, grabbed the other one by the scruff of his shirt, then drove my clawed hand through his chest. I grabbed hold of his demonic heart and tore it through his open chest cavity.

Tossing it on the ground, I watched as his now dead body hit the ground, reduced to what all vamps were when they were killed—a mass of decomposed flesh and bone, partial ash, and a pool of blood. The amount of decomposition depended on their age. The blood on how much they’d consumed the day of their death.

It had been a long time since I’d murdered indiscriminately like this and the sight of so much death caught me off guard for a couple of seconds.

That was all the last vamp needed to take another shot.

I felt his talons digging into my shoulder, piercing through the hard leather of my jacket, just before he buried his fangs in my throat.

I fisted my hand in his hair, intending to wrench him off me and snap his neck at the same time with the force I was about to use, when he did it for me, jerking back and staggering a couple of feet.

I frowned as I took in his now dazed eyes, his uneasy movements.

Was he high?

Licking my blood off his lips, he spoke, “What are you?”

“I’m the goddamn Alpha, fucker.”

He shook his head, trying to shake off whatever had come over him. “No. Your blood is—”

He never finished his sentence.

A shot rang out, his body jerked.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

In his place stood my Beta, Tyson, his pistol armed with wooden bullets still in firing position. “You all right?” he asked, gesturing to my neck.

I touched the bite and my hand came away drenched in blood.

No wonder I was kind of lightheaded.

There wasn’t time for that, though. I shrugged it off. “It’ll heal.”

He frowned. “What was that bloodsucker going on about? Your blood?”

“No fucking clue, T.” I turned, scanning my pack lands. “Anyhow, we’ve got bigger shit. Focus up.”

After hours of back-to-back fighting, we finally had a few moments to take a damned breath.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I gasped, my stomach churning at what I saw.

Acres of land were charred beyond repair, lodges were going up in flames. Others were already burned to the ground. All I could hear was screaming, snarling and growling, as the battle raged on .

I’d already had my secondary enforcers lead an evacuation of the women and children.

But now my army was being decimated.

If it wasn’t bad enough worrying about the vamps with their speed, there were also traitorous wolves from hell knew where following whoever the fuck was leading the charge to take us out.

The worst, though, were the magic-wielders. We had no defense against them. They were the ones who’d set everything on fire. It was how it had happened so fast, why it had been impossible to stop.

“What do you want to do, Alpha?”

I watched more enemy soldiers coming in from the valley, making their way up to the mountain top where we were at.

So much destruction and devastation had already gone down.

I had to stop them from wiping out what was left. My top enforcers, the homes still standing.

But as I saw magic coming from the second wave of soldiers, I knew we needed help. The only way to fight magic was with fucking magic.

“Gotta call for help.”

I shoved my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out something I’d kept close for months now, figuring I’d be needing it sooner or later with the way things were playing out everywhere because of Draco.

Rubbing my fingers over the raised letters of the strange card, I called out, “ Subitis.”

I heard Tyson gasp as a green glow emanated from it.

A bright spark exploded, then died out a second later.

I stared at the card for another couple of beats.

When nothing else happened, I stuffed it back in my jacket. “Guess that was it. ”

“I hope so. If that SOS didn’t go through we’re screwed,” Tyson said.

He’d been holding it together real well, especially because he always liked to be prepared for every eventuality, and this attack had come out of nothing. But now we had a second, I could see he was freaking, right on the edge.

I had to get him to focus. He needed a task.

I slapped his shoulder. “Get me word on the women and kids. Make sure they’re on the road to our safehouses.”

“On it, Alpha,” he said, snapping into action and speeding off to get it done.

I let loose a command in Wolf Tongue for the pack to come together. It sounded like a ferocious howl to outsiders.

Every pack member in the area stopped and eyed me.

And then, as I bounded over to the edge of the mountaintop, I felt the ground rumble beneath my feet, the thunder of the fifty members left standing following my command.

I looked over the mountainside, seeing the enemy’s second wave was just a klick out now. I cursed under my breath just as my wolves lined up either side of me, a row forming at my back too.

I spoke to them in Wolf Tongue as we all braced ourselves in an attack stance, reminding them that we didn’t cower in the face of any threat, that we’d fight to the last breath to defend our territory, our home, our people, our family. We’d show no mercy.

Roars sounded all around me.

And then silence fell.

An awful silence.

It was the last thing I needed.

It had me focusing on the negative .

Normally, I could keep up with the positive, maintaining morale, which was vital as the leader everybody was counting on.

But, I was fading, big time.

I’d lost too much blood from hours of fighting. Taking that bite from that cocky vamp really hadn’t helped with that.

All I could think about was how fucking brutal it was going to be when this next wave hit.

There was no way we could push them back. There were hundreds of them.

We weren’t going to survive it.

Half a klick out now.

I shifted my weight, clenching and unclenching my fists over and over.

Quarter of a klick.

“Hold the line!” I bellowed.

A couple hundred feet.

A blinding flash of light had all of us hissing at the pain to our sensitive wolf vision.

I’d barely gotten over it when a shimmering blue wall shot up from the ground, going up about fifty feet.

The enemy hit.

And they bounced right off the blue wall, flying back several feet.

Goddamn.

What the—

A sweet scent hit me hard. Straight in the gut.

Coconut and strawberries, mixed with some kind of high-end perfume.

Nah, it couldn’t be.

I swung my head to the right, shocked by what I saw.

So much so that I had to do a double take.

“Mia,” I choked out .

“Alpha,” she returned with a sexy wink.

She turned away, concentrating on the magic she was streaming to hold that wall up.

Her long, blue and black hair was blowing about all wild in the wind. Even though it was pitch black, except for the fires raging and the explosion of magic coming from the enemy, I could make her out just fine with the aid of my wolf vision. She was wearing that tight fancy ass coat, black pants clinging to her shapely thighs that gave way to some fuck-me heels.

We were in the middle of a brutal battle, but just the sight of her had my cock rock hard, my whole body on edge wanting to throw her down and taste every inch of her.

After all this time she was here.

That ache deep in my gut that I’d had since she’d been forced away from me finally eased off.

I jolted out of my thoughts as vamps and wolves of the enemy hit the wall over and over with their full strength.

None of them could even make a dent.

Then the magic-wielders went at it, coming hard and fast.

She called out to them, “Turn back around! You will not breach this barrier, amateurs. ”

That was the woman I remembered. The woman I’d never been able to forget.

The enemy stepped up its game, tens of them trying to tear at the wall, all the magic wielders striking all at once.

I watched Mia’s eyes narrow. They were pissing her off.

She pulled her right hand away, holding the wall with only one.

Blue electricity circled her right hand. But then it snuffed out. I heard her cursing and grunting, as she shook out her fingers, fighting to get it back .

Shit.

Ryker’s report about her being afraid of her own power rang in my head. Was this the fallout? Fuck, if it was, we were all in deep shit.

Relief sung through me when I saw that electricity spark to life again.

She thrust her palm forward.

A bolt of lightning shot through the wall and exploded on the other side, tons of smaller bolts scattering all over the enemy.

As it hit, it destroyed them instantly. They just evaporated like they’d never been there.

Jesus Christ .

Her first hit took out a good fifty.

She didn’t let up, striking again and again.

Just as she was about to strike for the fourth time, what was left of the crowd parted suddenly.

She jerked her right hand back, her eyes wide with fear. I heard her pulse spiking.

“Mia?” I called.

“Draco,” she gasped.

I followed her gaze to see the thing she was so scared of striding through the gap in the crowd.

A giant son of a bitch holding an ancient-looking sword dripping with blood.

A cloak blew behind him, hanging off his shoulders by a chain. He was shirtless, but his chest was covered with tats. Words, it looked like. His worn brown pants that seemed made out of some kind of animal skin creaked as he stomped toward us with his hefty boots squelching in the mud.

He rubbed his shaved head, glaring at Mia for a second, until he jerked his head at me, staring in a strange and very unsettling way .

He sheathed his sword and stopped in front of the wall.

He pressed his hand to it and I was shocked when he didn’t go flying back like the others.

He thrust his fist into it. Mia cried out and the wall shuddered.

He did it again and Mia screamed and fell to her knees.

“Fear has made you weak!” he bellowed at her.

“Mia!” I dropped to my knees beside her.

Her left hand was still up keeping the wall in place. But she was shuddering and wincing in pain.

Wrapping my arms around her, I helped her back to her feet.

“I am immensely disappointed, sorceress,” Draco told her.

Ignoring him, she turned to me. “Pull your wolves back.” She thrust her palm at the wall, a ball of blue fire hitting Draco square in the chest, knocking him back. “Get them out of here,” she told me on a shaky breath.

I gave the order to my wolves and they sprinted away.

“You too,” she urged me.

I shook my head. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

“You won’t survive him,” she warned.

“Then I won’t.”

There was no fucking way I was letting her out of my sight again. I wasn’t going to be separated from my mate again. Three months was more than long enough.

She reached out and stroked my cheek. Heat flared between us. “Jax,” she breathed, shaking her head. “No.”

“Sorceress!” Draco roared. “Drop the shield! You know you cannot hold it much longer. If you heed my warning, I will spare you. For now.”

“Never,” she seethed.

“Then you will suffer greatly. I will take my time breaking you. I’ve found it extremely satisfying doing so with my old friend.”

Mia blanched. “Old friend?”

“The holier-than-thou Cornelius Martel.”

The winged bastard who’d attacked me?

“Oh my God,” Mia whispered.

I watched her clench her fist, tears filling her eyes.

Draco went on, “Information he reluctantly revealed to me led me here today.” He jerked his head my way with a creepy smile. “To you , Alpha.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded. “Why are you doing this? Attacking my pack, my home?”

“I intended to decimate your pack lands and eliminate all members, to ensure nothing was left for you here in this life as Alpha you mistakenly believe to be your calling.”

What. The. Fuck?

“Stay away from him!” Mia yelled.

Draco laughed nastily, then thrust his fist right through the wall, tearing a hole in it.

Mia screamed and cursed, stumbling.

“Stop!” I roared. “Stop fucking hurting her!”

Shocking me, he did. He even stepped back. “As you wish.”

Mia looked as shocked as me.

Why was he actually listening to me and doing me a favor?

“What do you want with him?” Mia asked, before I could get a word out myself.

That was her in a nutshell, the ball-busting woman I’d met here months ago. Take-charge. Trying to rule every situation and everyone around her. I wasn’t used to it. I was top dog in my world. I still wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Draco looked me up and down, seeming real curious.

Was it the state of me? My clothes being ripped all over, bloodstained and dirty from beating back his soldiers for hours?

“I feel it now,” he announced. “It calls to me.”

I frowned, shifting my weight, uncomfortable at his weird comment. I had a bad feeling he was headed somewhere real messed up.

“Cornelius hid you well. I couldn’t sense it until I was right upon these lands. A formidable diluting spell indeed.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, thoughtfully. “It has not only served to keep me away, but also to keep you ignorant. You believe you are wolf, pure and simple.”

Mia caught my eye, shock all over her face. She zoned in on my neck wound, courtesy of that cocky bloodsucker. “Impossible,” she breathed, looking really freaked out.

“What? What’s going on?” I hated cryptic bullshit.

“Oh, it is very much possible, ” Draco told Mia, smugly. He stepped up close to the wall, his eyes burning into mine as he told me, “You are my last descendant, boy.”

What?

Some fucked-up black talon things sprung from his hands.

Then, moving faster than I’d ever seen anybody move, he ran at the wall, tearing it to shreds with his monstrous hands.

In the next second, he batted Mia away into one of the burning lodges several feet away.

Before I could even react, he lunged at me.

Grabbing my jaw, he squeezed painfully then jerked me off my feet, holding me up in the air in front of him.

I couldn’t get a word out against his brutal grip.

I growled instead.

He snarled at me and jerked me around, pointing at the fiery lodge he’d thrown Mia into.

It was collapsing into itself .

“Yield and listen, or she will perish. She has mere moments before her supernatural body burns to ash.”

Fuck! I couldn’t stand her being hurt in any way. I felt it in my gut, a sickness, just knowing she was suffering.

I stilled in Draco’s hold.

“Good,” he said.

With a wave of his free hand, the fire raging through the lodge went out.

I heard an angry cry from Mia.

Relief filled me. She was okay. Okay enough to be pissed, too.

Draco released my jaw and I dropped into a heap on the grass.

Quickly, I reared back and somersaulted to my feet.

The demon was back in my space instantly, glaring down at me. “You despise what I have done today and you despise me by extension. Not only for my actions today, but also due to the girl’s reactions to me. You care for her, yet she is closed to you. You engage in a fruitless pursuit there. The same is true of your life here as a lowly wolf ruling over but a single pack, squandering your abilities.” He leaned in and grabbed my right hand. “The latter is not your fault. You have been denied a great deal. It is a cruel injustice that I will remedy.” Shoving my jacket sleeve up my inked arm to my elbow, he stared at the birthmark on my lower forearm that was like a beacon through all the heavy ink. A two-inch-wide flaming circle that I’d had since I was born, something that I’d never been given an explanation for. “The mark of eternal hellfire,” he said, smiling with victory.

He pushed up the sleeve of his cloak and pointed to an identical mark on his forearm.

Shit .

I fought to jerk my hand free, so I could grab Mia and wolf speed the hell away.

But he held fast, telling me, “That is the mark of the Anointed, those possessing my power. My kin. You are more than wolf. A hybrid. My blood runs in your veins. We are power personified. I will free you from the shackles forced upon you by Cornelius. Then we will reign.”

“Look, you’ve got the wrong guy. Now, accept you made a mistake and get the hell out of here so I can start rebuilding what you’ve destroyed.”

“Fool!” he bellowed. “I do not do things half way. When I set out to accomplish a task, I am thorough.” He pointed to the forest behind us. “You think I did not plan accordingly? I have soldiers positioned at all throughways located on Silverwood pack lands. Those you believed had been saved with evacuation are no more.”

“What?” I croaked.

He leaned in close. “Your secondary enforcers charged with leading your pack to safety, women, children. Those remaining fifty soldiers who stood with you on the mountain edge. Your pack is no more.”

“You’re lying,” I seethed.

“Reach out with your instincts. Seek them out.”

Hating that I needed to follow his instruction, I did. There was no other way to know for sure. I had to tap into the connection I had as Alpha to each member of my pack.

My stomach turned, my body tensed when I felt nothing.

The connection was… empty. There was no energy there at all.

I’d felt it before with my old man.

Death .

No. No. No. “No!” I roared, lunging at him, my teeth gnashing, my claws slashing.

I’d lost it.

I was out of control.

My rage, my grief was too much, too raw.

I couldn’t swallow it down.

I couldn’t fucking stomach it.

He’d murdered my entire pack, destroyed my pack lands? They were all gone? In one rapid-fire brutal attack, it was just... over? Everything was lost? I couldn’t... I couldn’t take it.

His boot socked me in the gut, blowing me back several feet.

As I struggled to keep on my feet, coming to a skidding stop, I noticed he didn’t have a scratch on him. My attack had done nothing to him.

“You will join me, boy. With their annihilation, I have severed your connection to this life, a life not meant for you. You will thank me for it soon enough, once I release you and you taste true power.”

Black flames started to swirl around him and he reached out to me.

I recognized the spell from Mia. He was going to teleport me away with him.

For once in my life there was nothing I could do.

He was stronger, faster, he had some serious magic.

“Hit the deck!” a voice yelled from behind me, a voice I knew well.

I reacted quick, throwing myself on the grass.

A green lightning bolt shot over my head, just as I rolled onto my back to see what was going on.

It hit Draco in the chest, propelling him away, hundreds of feet into the fields in the distance.

Holy fucking shit !

I turned just as a hand was held out to me.

Looking up, I saw Ryker standing there.

I let him help me up. “Thanks, man.”

His gaze dipped to my tattoo sleeves, lingering, some sort of intrigue sparking, a moment before he cleared his throat and recovered, telling me, “We don’t have long.” He spun and called out, “Lucian!”

I tensed. Lucian? I’d known it was only going to be a matter of time before we came face-to-face again, but tonight really wasn’t the night for it.

But, in the next second, the bloodsucker sped over to us holding Mia in his arms.

Our eyes met quick, but I blew past it, ignoring him, as all my attention went to my mate.

She was bloodied, burned, and unconscious, hanging limply in his arms.

“Her pulse is steady. I fed her my blood. Her wounds will heal quickly,” Lucian reported.

“What?” I barked. “You gave your blood to my mate?”

“Purely medical.”

I growled, getting in his face.

Ryker shoved me back.

I really was off my game if a scrawny magic-wielder was able to knock me back without using his power.

“Stop. Think,” Ryker ordered me. “Lucian doesn’t share his blood as a rule, unless he’s devoted to the person in question. It’s very special to him. Mia was in dire straits, he did it for me, knowing I couldn’t bear to lose her.” He laid his hand on my shoulder. “Enough blood has been spilled here tonight.”

Talk about a sucker punch. “Yeah,” I murmured.

Looking around, he shook his head sadly, telling me, “I’m so sorry, Jax.”

All I could do was nod .

What the hell else could I say?

Everything was burned to ash.

My pack, my family, was gone.

“He’s coming,” Lucian announced, his eyes darting off in the distance. “Now, Ryker.”

In the next second, Ryker’s magic enveloped us, teleporting us away.