Chapter 135: Apocalypse 1

Selene’s POV

The rock was still pinning my leg to the ground and I couldn’t move.

"Somebody help!" I screamed for what felt like a full minute before I finally saw guards running in my direction.

"Oh, Ms. Selene ... how did this..." There were two of them.

They worked together to haul that slab of rock off my leg. I was lifted to my feet but my leg buckled the moment I tried to put weight on it. I couldn’t walk. Not yet.

"Who was that?" I demanded as they steered me toward safety.

"It’s William Steelborn. He’s causing havoc from outside ... says he wants his Luna."

My mouth fell open. "What the hell? How did he even get close? You didn’t see him coming?"

"It was a missile, Ms. Selene. Fast as lightning. There was nothing we could do."

One of them told me there was an entire army stationed outside and I couldn’t wrap my head around that until I actually saw it ... but first, I had to get to safety.

"Where is Lucian? Is he safe?" I asked.

"Yes, he’s safe. He was redirected through a secure route away from the blast zones."

They brought me to a safe room and I finally stopped moving. A nurse was called in to treat my wounds and reset my leg, and God ... the pain was something else. I cried through the whole thing, biting down on my lip and gripping the edge of the bed like it owed me something.

Then a voice came through a speaker.

William had brought a damn speaker to Winterwood. He really had come prepared.

"Selene Ironheart." His voice boomed through the walls like he owned the air itself. "I told you I wasn’t leaving here without you. Today I am ready to burn this place to the ground ... completely ... if you don’t walk out here and come home with me."

Blasts kept going off somewhere at the back. Dull, rhythmic, relentless.

"Where is Lucian?" I muttered. "I can’t let this keep going on."

I tried to stand and the pain shot straight up my spine. I sat back down hard.

No. No, no, no.

"You can’t comprehend the lengths I’m willing to go for you, Selene." William’s voice continued, calm and sickening. "All of Morvaine is in shambles right now because of you. But you don’t need to see any of it. I’ll hold you in my arms and carry you home myself."

"Help me up," I said to the people in the room. "Take me out there."

They shook their heads.

"Now." I put every ounce of authority I had into that single word.

They moved. One guard took my right side, another my left, and together they carried me toward the exit. Every step was agony. I pushed through it.

Just before I reached the door, a hand closed around my arm. I turned.

Lucian.

He had made his way out and he was not in good shape. There was a burn mark streaked across his face and something in his eyes that looked more wounded than his skin did.

He’d been blasted too.

"Lucian..." I started. "What happened to you?"

"Do you want to leave me and go to him?" he asked quietly.

"No. I want to stop him. It’s me he wants ... let me handle this." I pulled his hand off my arm gently and turned back toward the doors.

In the middle of all that smoke and destruction, I walked outside.

What I saw stopped me cold.

Wolf casualties. Animal casualties. Crumbled walls and scorched earth as far as I could see. The kind of damage that didn’t happen by accident ... this was deliberate, calculated, and cruel.

And William was not alone.

He had a fleet. An actual fleet. Soldiers lined up beyond the gates of Winterwood like he had been planning this for years ... because he had. If this army was his, then he had built a kingdom in secret and none of us had known a thing about it. There were enough of them out there to start a civilization from scratch.

"William." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "What have you done to Winterwood? To Morvaine?"

He took a step forward. I took one back.

"It’s you I want, Selene." His tone was almost gentle, and that made it worse. "You are mine. Everything is ready ... the home, the throne, the future. All of it is built and waiting. You are the only element missing. My Luna."

He sounded delusional. He was delusional. But we couldn’t dismiss what he was actually saying ... he had been underground, building a kingdom beneath the bushes of Morvaine itself, and none of us had sensed it. He had raised an army in silence, constructed an entire settlement without detection, and now he had shown up to collect a queen.

A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. "So this is what you did to get a Luna," I said slowly. "And you actually believe you’ll have her?"

"I already have her," he said with full confidence. "My kingdom sits beneath the earth of Morvaine ... invisible, untouchable. But it needs a woman worthy of it. That’s you, Selene. We will not move forward without you."

"You are delusional if you think you can have her."

I looked back. Lucian had followed me out, battered and burning and still standing.

William laughed ... a low, dark sound. "Says who? The man who thought he was the strongest Alpha alive?" His jaw tightened. "I carry the blood of Icefang in my bones. The two territories of Morvaine destroyed my people ... erased them ... but I am back. And from those ashes, we are going to rise. Every soul in Morvaine will feel what that extinction cost. I promise you that."

He meant every word.

I still didn’t understand how he had managed to break through Winterwood’s defences. It was the tightest security I had ever seen ... impenetrable, or so I had believed.

"You want to start a war you won’t be able to finish, William." Lucian’s voice was hard as iron. "You came here and drove a sword between the districts yourself. There will be repercussions and you will not escape them."

"Neither will you." William’s smile didn’t falter. "You are reaping exactly what your forefathers sowed. I’m just the one delivering the harvest. Call it karma ... because karma is a bitch."

The silence that followed was heavy.

"What have you done to this land?" Lucian said, his voice dropping dangerously. "Why do I feel like this isn’t over?" He turned sharply. "Guards ... go and inspect every inch of the territory. Now."

William raised a hand, almost bored. "There’s no need for all that stress, Lucian."

He paused, letting the anticipation stretch out, and then he smiled.

"What I did was simple."

All eyes fixed on him.

"I targeted missiles at your agricultural plants ... yours here in Winterwood and your neighbours’ at Bloodmoon. The only land untouched is Icefang, because we are underground, as I’ve already told you." He spread his hands like he was explaining something to a child. "Either way, every territory above ground will starve. Slowly. Painfully. Unless..." his eyes found mine ... "you give me Selene Ironheart as my Luna."

The gasp that went through the crowd was collective. Instant.

A guard came sprinting back within seconds, breathless. "Alpha ... the agricultural plants at the back. They’ve been completely obliterated."

Lucian stared at him. Then he turned back to William.

"You son of a bitch."

Even the elders had come out of their chambers by then, drawn by the destruction, standing at the edges of the chaos in stunned silence.

Nobody spoke. Nobody could.

William kept laughing.

What is a territory without food? What are people without the land that feeds them? This wasn’t just an attack ... this was a slow execution dressed up as a negotiation.

This was a pure apocalypse.