Chapter 61

There was a shift in the air.

Zeke guessed it was because Iulia was not focusing her magic as she wept over her lover. Was he dead? It felt like it, but he didn’t give a shit. What caught his attention was that the councillors’ strength was noticeably reduced.

‘We can take them now,’ Shadow growled.

But there was another scream, and this one hit him in the heart again.

He shifted and was by Ava’s side in seconds, taking her into his arms as he tried to figure out what happened. Mr Patrick was struggling to sit up with Jared’s help. But Alpha Roland was gone. He knew what had happened, but they had to be still at the academy. Hansson was a sadistic asshole; he would make sure Ava witnessed whatever he had in mind for Alpha Roland before he killed them all.

“We’ll find him,” he whispered, tightening his hold on his mate.

They had to go before Iulia and Diego calmed down and did as they were told.

He looked back at the trio and saw Alpha Diego was still standing over the other two. What sort of bond did they have? It couldn’t be a true mate bond because Hansson would have killed them long ago.

“He’s not an Earth Fae,” Mr Patrick said. “I tried to attack him when they caught me, but he absorbed everything.”

Jared held him up as he struggled to breathe. He didn’t know anything about the Fae, but he’d assumed Mr Patrick would have been healing faster than he was.

“Iulia enhances his other magic, but his element is the air, and he’s stronger than me in this state,” Mr Patrick wheezed. “But I believe in you two. Go and save Roland.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you have a Fae in your corner?”

Zeke released Ava and shot to his feet, blocking her from the growling Alpha Diego.

“Why the hell was I going to do that?” he growled.

“You’ve doomed us all,” Diego said.

Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He sensed the soldiers approaching them, following their leader’s orders.

Ava stood and wiped the tears on her face before she stood toe to toe with the councillor. He could feel her anger growing again as she snarled at the Alpha. Though Ava only reached his chest and she was stark naked, there was no denying what she was.

“We don’t have time for this bullshit, Diego. Pick your side,” Ava growled.

Ava didn’t flinch from his gaze or step back from the strength of the older wolf, even when Diego growled at her.

“Pick. A. Side. It’s now or never,” Ava growled again. “Are you going to fight me, or are you going to let me go and save my father?”

Diego looked back at Iulia and Andrei and then at Mr Patrick as he rose to his feet, still clutching his chest.

“Take them out of here,” he said to Mr Patrick.

Diego had chosen his side. He still wasn’t sure he could trust them, but Diego wasn’t faking his pain over Andrei.

“I need to regain some strength for that. The most I can do is a protective shield, but I don’t know how long that will last.”

“We don’t need long,” he growled, turning his attention to the Council soldiers.

Mr Patrick whispered something to Jared, who ran to pick up the bags that had dropped on the stage and took them over to Iulia and Diego’s body. Ava shifted first, not willing to waste another second. Diego shifted next. He had never seen the councillor in his wolf form, but he was surprised that Ava was now the same size as that beast and just as intimidating. He shifted and stood on the other side of Ava.

The guards were not even a little bit apprehensive. He knew it was their training. Any show of weakness was a death sentence, so they would still attack even if they were scared.

Shadow’s rage had morphed into something else entirely. There was nothing but bloodlust on his beast mind, yet it was more controlled. More focused.

Nyx lifted her head and howled; it was a call he felt to his core. The sound washed over him and made Shadow join in. Two howls in symphony. A call for war.

The three of them launched into the soldiers. He had never moved so fast and had never been more in sync with Shadow. He knew he was in a rage; he could feel it coursing through his body, but Shadow wasn’t attacking indiscriminately. It was only the soldiers he ripped through. Only the soldiers that screamed, the ones that forgot their training the moment they were faced with their death.

He could see Nyx doing the same. She was impressive. It was true what they said about war and sex because, amid all the bloodshed, he felt a rush at seeing his mate move like that. If they survived, he knew what he would be doing straight after.

As they got further down the road, dodging magic, wolf bites, and the vampires’ blink-of-an-eye attacks, he realised the guards had started fighting with the other students. So many guards blocked them from the sides and the top of the road that it looked inevitable that there would be a significant loss of life among the students.

There was a scream that he recognised that made him drop a lifeless soldier from his jaws to look in that direction.

Samantha. Ava’s Omega.

Ava was already moving in that direction, knocking guards out of the way with her massive body until she reached the wolf guard who had been about to clamp his jaws down on Samantha’s neck. The guard didn’t stand a chance; it was over very quickly.

Ava shifted to pull Samantha up, but he remained in his wolf form, guarding them against the chaos around them. There were just too many of them. They had already wasted so much time and energy fighting them that he feared they wouldn’t get to Hansson in time.

“We’re taking too long,” Ava said in frustration as she looked around her.

The academy had become a battlefield. He was no stranger to battles but had never fought such a formidable enemy. Ava’s first battle was a baptism of fire.

He was about to tell Ava to shift back and push forward when he saw Myles fighting a wolf guard not too far from them and a vampire guard lifting his silver sword to attack him from behind. He knew he wasn’t going to make it in time, and in the time it would take Myles to react, it would be too late, but he mind linked him anyway and started to run.

It felt like everything was in slow motion. Myles shoved the wolf away and started to turn. The vampire began to push himself forward. He was going to lose his brother. The despair was crushing as he desperately tried to pull off the impossible, shoving people out of the way to get to Myles.

And then, the next thing he knew, the vampire’s head was clamped in the jaws of an Alpha wolf. Jared. The sword dropped from the guard’s hand as Myles turned around to look at his unlikely saviour. But Jared dropped the vampire and carried on fighting.

He hadn’t even realised that the coward had joined the fight. And as he looked around, he saw the students and teachers weren’t just waiting to die. They were fighting. Miss Donovan and Penelope were protecting a group of Omegas. Coach Baxter had shifted and was fighting. Henderson was calling out instructions and fighting with his students.

They were working together.

Mr Patrick had been right. They weren’t alone.

‘Protect the Omegas,’ he told Myles.

When he looked back at Ava, she had shifted, and her frustration was evident. Then she lowered her head, raised her hackles and growled.

He knew that growl. The call of darkness. It made people tremble and fall to their knees. The call of an Alpha who had no equal.

He went to stand beside his mate and added his strength to hers. And the air shifted once again as the darkness descended on all of them.