Chapter 206: The Heart of the Pack
Outside the sanctuary of the pocket dimension, the mountain peak had become a frozen altar of retribution.
Wanderer didn’t wake up to a gentle sunrise. He woke up to the sensation of the atmosphere itself trying to crush his lungs. The spatial veil was gone, replaced by four silhouettes that blocked out the stars.
Victor stood at the centre, his feet planted as his Level 100 aura did not glow but bled a dark, nuclear gold that sizzled against the stone. To his left,
Ivan was a mountain of silent, bristling leonine fury. To his right,
Lucan flickered in and out of the shadows, his claws extending with a sound like a whetstone on steel.
Dimitri positioned himself slightly back from the others, his Silence Domain enveloping the space. This ensured that no matter how loud the Jackal screamed, the sound would never reach the ears of the woman resting inside the portal.
"Wake up, little rat," Lucan purred, his voice a jagged edge. He approached without hesitation and, not waiting for Wanderer to clear his head, stepped forward to drive a shadow-clad knee into the Jackal’s gut, pinning him firmly against the jagged rock.
Wanderer gasped, his eyes bulging as he looked into the void of the Black Panther’s gaze. "I-I saved her!" he wheezed, his twitchy "IT-guy" bravado vanishing into a puddle of terror. "I took her from the Convoy! I was going to keep her safe!"
The air temperature dropped forty degrees in a heartbeat.
"Keep her?" Victor’s voice was a low, chilling vibration that rattled Wanderer’s teeth. The Golden Eagle stepped into the light—this was a Level 100 unchained. "You defiled a goddess with your filth. Breathed her air. Looked at her and thought she was yours?"
Victor reached out, his hand moving with the slow, inevitable grace of a closing trap. He didn’t strike; he simply gripped Wanderer’s shoulder. The sound of the Jackal’s collarbone hairline-fracturing under the pressure was the only noise in the Silence Domain.
"Every second she spends in this cold cave is a year of your life I’m going to spend taking apart," Victor whispered.
Ivan closed in, golden eyes locked on the Jackal’s throat. No weapons. He was the weapon. "Who pays you?" he growled, the sound bone-deep. "Convoy is nothing, just scavengers. You—you look well-fed. Talk, or Lucan will rewrite your nervous system."
Wanderer’s eyes darted frantically as he realised escape was impossible. He tried to jump and fold the air, but Dimitri’s Nullification activated, hitting him like a physical wall and instantly snuffing out his Level 92 power as if it were a candle in a hurricane.
"The City of Light!" Wanderer shrieked, the words tumbling out in a rush of panic. "I—I was a scout! We trade! We find the females the Convoy misses, and we send them to the coast! They have power, they have food! I was just doing my job!"
Lucan’s laugh was serrated, humourless. "A scout for traffickers. Lovely. Give me the city’s location."
"In the hills... near the old naval base," Wanderer sobbed. "But the Boss... the Boss didn’t want this one traded. He saw the reports of the fox-woman from the highway. He didn’t want her for the trade."
The Jackal made the mistake of looking at Victor, a frantic, desperate glint in his eyes. "He wanted her for himself! He said a beautiful female was too valuable to pass up! He wanted her as his personal breeding stock..."
CRACK.
The sound of Wanderer’s humerus snapping under Victor’s grip echoed like a gunshot. The Jackal’s scream was swallowed by Dimitri’s silence, leaving only the sight of his face contorting in absolute agony.
Victor leaned closer, his face inches from the Jackal’s, his breath storm-lit. "Say that again," Victor hissed, his voice leaden and lethal. "Pair her with ’stock,’ and I’ll burn the soul from you before you finish."
"She is the Heart of the Pack," Ivan growled, his claws unsheathing, glinting with a lethal poison that promised a slow, agonising end. "She is the sun we revolve around. And your ’Boss’ thinks he can put her in a cage?"
"He’s already sent more scouts," Wanderer blubbered, his arm hanging at a sickening angle. "He’s obsessed! He’s been after her since you guys took her! He thinks he’s the only one worthy of her kits!"
Lucan’s tail lashed, his predatory acceleration making him appear as a blur of three different versions of himself standing around the Jackal. "Obsessed, is he? How convenient. We were looking for a reason to raze the so-called city he built. It seems the City of Light needs to be dimmed."
Dimitri stepped forward, his albino fur glowing faintly in the dark. He wasn’t a husband, but his loyalty to Felicity was absolute. She was the only being his power couldn’t touch, the only peace he had ever known. "Victor," Dimitri said, his voice cold and clinical. "He’s served his purpose. He’s given us a target. We don’t need his tongue anymore."
Victor looked at the Jackal, a man who had tried to play hero with another man’s heart. The Eagle’s eyes were hollow, a terrifying white-gold void. "You thought you were saving her," Victor whispered. "You thought you were better than us because you’re lean and quick and ’kind.’ But you stole a mother from her nest while she was sick. You let her vomit in the dirt while you slept."
Victor shifted his grip from Wanderer’s broken arm to his other arm, ensuring the Jackal was fully immobilised for what was to come.
"Interrogate him, Voss said. Lucan chuckled, his claws tracing a line down Wanderer’s cheek, drawing a thin bead of blood. "I think we’ve heard enough. Now, let’s see how many jumps it takes for your heart to stop when I leave you mid-way through a spatial rift."
The Jackal’s eyes went wide with a final, ultimate terror. He looked at the four men, four apex predators who had completely lost their humanity the moment their woman cried, and realised he had never stood a chance. He had walked into a den of gods and expected them to play by the rules of men.
"Please..."
"Quiet, you never gave her mercy or other women, why would we give you mercy?" Victor commanded.
The Golden Eagle’s power flared one last time, a localised sun that illuminated the entire peak. Inside the cave, Wanderer’s screams remained unheard, muffled by the silence of a pack that was no longer interested in mercy.
The City of Light was their next destination. And as Victor stood over the broken remains of the Jackal, his only thought was of the fox curled up in the hot springs, carrying the future of the world.
He didn’t care about the Boss. He only cared about the fact that someone else thought they could touch what was his.
"Lucan, clean this up," Victor said, turning his back on the Jackal. "Ivan, Dimitri... we prepare for war. If the City of Light wants a goddess, we’ll show them the hell that comes with her."
Victor stepped toward the portal and, as his aura softened upon crossing the threshold into Felicity’s space, left the cold stars behind. Inside, he had a wife to hold. Woe to any city that stood between the two.