Chapter 79: Ozai knows she exists

Terror formed a suffocating, icy lump in Alyssa’s throat.

She scrambled backward in pure instinct, flattening her spine against the cold wood of the bedroom door as the shadows around those glowing eyes twisted and warped.

A monstrous figure materialized, cloaked entirely in darkness. The only visible features were those eerie, blood-red eyes burning into her soul.

He moved silently, gliding inches above the floor, closing the distance between them with sickening ease.

Alyssa tried to scream for help, but her throat closed up. Only a broken whimper escaped her lips. She slithered down the wood, cowering into a tight ball as the cloaked entity stopped right in front of her.

Then he spoke, voice sounding like it came from the depths of a dark abyss.

"So it’s true," he chuckled eerily. "An abnormality was born between two powerful bloodlines."

He extended a long hand, his gray fingers reaching out to touch her face. Alyssa slammed her eyes shut, hot tears streaming down her cheeks as her chest heaved in ragged hitches.

But the moment his skin grazed hers, a vicious hiss filled the room.

The entity recoiled violently with a screech, as if he had plunged his bare flesh into molten lava. He floated back into the dark, his glowing red eyes wide with a new kind of shock.

He raised his trembling hand, watching in disbelief as the touch of her skin melted through his fingers, dissolving them into smoke.

"What are you?" he whispered hoarsely.

Before Alyssa’s dazed mind could comprehend what was happening, two cloaked figures materialized out of thin air.

"Get away from my daughter, Ozai!" Wren ordered sharply, her voice ringing with protective fury.

Alyssa jerked her head around in utter shock. Daughter? What the hell was happening?

Beside Wren, Miranda threw her arms forward. A searing arc of white light burst from her palms, slamming directly into the cloaked figure’s chest.

He let out a blood-curdling hiss and disintegrated into a cloud of black smoke right before Alyssa’s horrified eyes.

Alyssa froze, her heart hammering against her ribs as the two women from the market rushed to her side.

"Solange! Solange, can you hear me?" Wren cried frantically, reaching out for her. "There is no time to explain, but you need to come with us now. You’re not safe here. They are coming for you!"

The frantic words made no sense to Alyssa’s shell-shocked brain. Who was coming? How did they find her? Where was Dorian?

Before anyone could make another move, a massive, snarling creature smashed straight through the balcony windows, its black eyes gleaming with pure malice in the dark.

The moment Alyssa saw the black wolf from her nightmare, the knot in her throat loosened. She opened her mouth and let out a piercing, raw, high-pitched scream.

Her scream generated a powerful shockwave. Wren and Miranda were flung backward, crashing against the far wall.

Every window shattered into millions of flying shards. A jagged crack tore across the ceiling, and the crystal chandelier dislodged from the beam, plummeting to the floor and exploding into rain of sharp glass.

Alyssa was still screaming, her fists clenched white at her sides as pure power poured out of her lungs. The rogue wolf let out a pained, whimpering howl, cowering back on its hind legs as if its ears were bleeding.

The second her scream finally died out, the door to the bedroom was slammed open.

Cade rushed into the room with a few lycan guards. They took in the chaos before them; the two mysterious women collapsed near the bed, the rogue writhing on the floor, the disintegrating ceiling, and Alyssa sitting frozen in the center of the destruction, untouched, her blue eyes glassy and unfocused.

Suddenly, two more massive rogues leaped through the ruined window, growling furiously. All around the villa, loud howls and savage snarls echoed through the night air.

"PROTECT THE LUNA!" Cade bellowed, his voice booming over the chaos.

In the next second, bones snapped and fur erupted as the guards shifted into their massive Lycan forms. The rogues lunged with snapping jaws, and a brutal, blood-drenched battle erupted inside the bedroom.

Miranda dragged a dazed Wren to her feet, her hands glowing as she began to weave a teleportation spell to pull them out. But Wren shoved her hand away.

"No! We can’t leave without Solange!"

"Wren, we have to go now!" Miranda screamed over the sound of tearing flesh. "We can’t take her with us!"

"We have to try!" Wren insisted hysterically, tears tracking through the dust on her face. "Her powers are awakening! Ozai knows she exists, and I can’t lose her again!"

She turned, looking desperately at Alyssa across the chaos. Alyssa was crouching near the wall, guarded by three ferocious Lycans. The expression on her pale face was a blend of horror and confusion as the guards fought savagely to rip the rogues apart.

Another rogue burst into the room with a deep, guttural growl, lunging straight towards Wren.

Miranda moved instantly, chanting a spell of invisibility. A bright orb of light engulfed them both and they disappeared a split second before the rogue snapped its jaws shut.

Alyssa slipped completely into shock. Her entire body began to tremble, her chest heaving, her mind fracturing under the chaos of the whole scene.

Deep within her soul, something ancient and profound churned awake, a dark power rising to the surface.

The entire villa began to shake on its foundation.

The remaining rogues locked in combat with Cade and his men suddenly stopped, their heads snapping toward Alyssa. They whined loudly, backing away in terror from the unseen, crushing power oozing off her shivering frame.

One by one, they turned tail and threw themselves recklessly out of the shattered windows, fleeing for their lives.

Before Cade and his guards could process the sudden retreat, the villa began to disintegrate from the inside out. ​The walls cracked open, deep fissures tearing through the plaster and stone. Dust and debris billowed into the air as the ceiling caved in and the floor below began to give way.

[GET TO SAFETY! THE ENTIRE BUILDING IS COMING DOWN!] Cade yelled the command through the mind-link to the rest of the lycans.

They leaped out of the broken windows into the night. Cade reached Alyssa in a split second, wrapping his massive, fur-covered body around her tiny frame to shield her.

But before he could launch them out the window, the floor beneath his feet gave way entirely.

They plunged into the lower floor. Cade held Alyssa tighter, taking the full force of the impact as his back slammed into the ground floor. A second later, the entire two-story villa collapsed on top of them with a thunderous, deafening boom.

...

Down at the port, Dorian and Cole stood on the blood-stained docks, watching the remaining rogues scramble frantically back into the ocean.

An hour earlier, when they had arrived with reinforcements, the docks had been a bloodbath–Dorian’s men desperately holding off an endless horde of rogues crawling out of the sea as if pulled by an invisible beacon.

Then, without warning, the rogues had all stopped at once. A wave of blind panic had washed over the creatures, and they had retreated simultaneously, diving back into the ocean until the shoreline was completely silent.

Dorian stood on the shore in his human form, his bloody hands clenched into tight fists, his golden eyes dark and hooded.

"I still don’t get it," Cole muttered beside him. "Ashgard has never been attacked by rogues. Never in our history."

But Dorian knew. The truth was already settling in his gut. His theory had been right; the rogues hadn’t attacked Ashgard at random. They had tracked Alyssa’s scent. Something about her had drawn them here.

As he turned to answer Cole, a frantic voice cut through the mind-link.

[Alpha! We suffered a breach at the villa, and the entire building collapsed. Cade and the Luna are buried beneath the rubble!]

Those words instantly snapped something inside Dorian’s mind, driving him into a feral, unhinged fury.

With a savage, earth-shaking roar, the Demon Lycan burst forth, tearing through his skin.

He spun around and hurled himself into the forest, sprinting toward the villa at terrifying speed, with Cole shifting and tearing right behind him.