Page 47

“So,” Muriel sneered, her voice like a blade on ice. “The savages have found their way to my doorstep.”

She began her tirade about investments and grooming Ivy, but she didn't realise the shadows growing behind us. Lucien signalled, and the doors behind us buckled. Six of Lucien’s puma pack members in human form, lethal, and dressed in obsidian-black tactical gear, sprinted into the room, flanking the perimeter and circling Muriel and Shirl like a living noose.

From the high balconies and the rear entrances, my mechanics flooded in. Spud and Tommy led the charge, their eyes already glowing with an alpha’s reflected fire. They didn't just bring muscle—they brought the grit of the South District.

"Looking for someone?" a voice rasped from the back.

Kingy stepped forward from the shadows of a side corridor, his face smudged with soot but his expression triumphant. He was supporting a battered, pale, but very much alive Lola. Aggy and Mia were right behind them, their hands glowing with offensive charms they had been eager to use.

"Lola!" I roared, the relief momentarily eclipsing my fury.

Muriel’s eyes widened, realising she was no longer the hunter and that a forest of fur, claw, and ancient warlock blood surrounded her. Her personal guards lunged, but they were instantly intercepted. Lucien’s clan moved with a grace that was sickeningly beautiful, snapping necks and pinning warlocks to the marble floors before they could finish a single incantation.

“She’s not an investment,” Lucien purred, his voice so low it made the floorboards vibrate. “And she’s certainly not yours.”

Muriel shrieked, swinging her staff to cast a wave of kinetic force. Lucien and I moved in perfect harmony, our combined auras creating a shimmering shield that deflected the blow effortlessly. Ivy watched us from above, her green eyes wide with a fierce, possessive pride. I could feel her magic beginning to flare in response to our presence.

The last of the coven guards fell. Muriel realised the tide had turned and began to chant a desperate escape spell, her form flickering.

“Not this time,” Lucien growled. He struck the ground, sending a ripple of puma-magic that shattered her concentration and sent her staff flying.

Muriel stumbled back against the grand altar, her perfect composure finally fracturing. Shirl stepped in front of her, hands sparking with the ugly, jagged purple lightning of the Council’s enforcers. She threw a blinding arc of current straight at my chest, narrowly missing me as I jumped back. Muriel let out a harsh, mocking laugh that echoed off the stone walls.

“You think you’ve won, Ivy?” Muriel spat, wiping a smear of ash from her cheek, her eyes glittering with mad conviction. “Look at you, hiding behind beasts and renegades. You play at being a simple shopkeeper, wrapping yourself in the pathetic illusion of a normal life, while your true bloodline rots in the gutters! You are a Thornton. You were born to be a sentinel, a battery for the High Circle, not a saviour for the low-tier trash of Ebonvale.”

Shirl unleashed another blinding blast of magic, the concrete pillars cracking under the force as she desperately tried to buy them an exit. Lucien’s pumas leapt through the debris, dodging the lightning with terrifying speed. At the same time, my pack slammed into Shirl from the flanks, burying the enforcer under a crushing mass of snapping jaws and heavy fur until her lightning sputtered out.

“The High Council has spent fifty years keeping the spark on a leash,” Muriel snarled, backed flat against the corner as the growling wall of wolves and silent, golden-eyed pumas closed the circle. “We tax the magic, we cull the weak, and we ensure total coven control because without it, this city collapses into chaos! If you release the shard's energy, Ivy, you won't free them. You will destroy us all. You can’t cage a storm with common street rats.”

“Watch me,” Ivy whispered.

The restraints snapped, and Ivy drifted down. We were there before her feet even touched the floor.

I caught her on one side, my arm enveloping her waist, while Lucien anchored her on the other. Our fingers interlaced across her back, forming a physical circuit that made the air in the room hum with the power of the First Dawn.

“You’re safe, little red,” I rumbled, my growl softening into something reverent as I buried my face in her hair.

Lola limped forward, Aggy holding her steady. "I'm okay, Ivy," she whispered, her voice shaky but her nurse’s spirit intact. "Kingy found the cell. He's a better locksmith than he looks."

Kingy offered a nervous, sweating grin. "Ancient linguistics. Coven locks are just puzzles with a bad attitude."

Lucien looked at the cornered Muriel and Shirl, his amber eyes narrowing. "You touched what is ours, and you hurt our pack, our friends, and our woman."

Shadows bled off his broad shoulders, his eyes igniting with a lethal, golden fire. The air around him dropped ten degrees as his warlock magic flared to answer his puma’s rage.

The Breaking of the Circle

The manor sub-levels didn't stay quiet for long. Muriel and Shirl were cornered, but they were not finished. Muriel let out a scream of pure, ego-driven rage, her hands clawing at the air as she summoned the remnants of her twisted power.

"You think you can take what is mine?" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "I am the coven! I am the law!"

From the darkened corridors, the last of their corrupted forces surged forward. A dozen rogue enforcers in stained grey leathers and a handful of warlocks whose eyes burned with a sickly purple light threw themselves at us. It was a desperate, last-ditch suicide run.

The room erupted into a chaotic symphony of magic and bone-deep violence. Kael’s wolves met the enforcers head-on. There was no room for spells in the centre of the fray. It was a brutal mess of fists, teeth, and raw strength. I watched Tommy take a kinetic blast to the shoulder and barely flinch while his fist connected with an enforcer’s jaw with a sickening crack.

Lucien’s puma clan moved like ink in water, sliding between the rogue warlocks and snapping their focus before they could complete a single incantation. Lucien himself was a blur of lethal elegance, his hands glowing with a steady, amber light that parried every hex Muriel threw his way. I stood in the centre of the storm, my magic flared wide to shield Aggy, Kingy, and the battered Lola.

Shirl lunged for me, her iron-shod staff whistling through the air. She wasn't using magic—she was using pure, cold hatred. Kael intercepted her mid-swing, his hand catching the staff with a roar that shook the dust from the ceiling. He wrenched the weapon from her grip and kicked her back into the ritual circle, his wolf-eyes burning gold.