Casper laughed, a wet, gurgling sound.
He spat a tooth into the mud.
"Draven. The mad dog of the North."
He didn't flee.
Arrogance was a hard habit to break, especially when backed by the Silas crest.
He reached into his tactical vest, not for a knife, but for a compact crossbow.
The tip of the bolt glinted with a dull, sickly frost.
Concentrated silver dust.
Lethal to anyone with a pulse and a wolf inside them.
"The Silas family claims this bitch," Casper hissed, leveling the weapon at Elara, though his eyes were locked on the giant.
"Walk away, Exile, or I put a piercing bolt through your eye. The Council won't mind if I put down a rabid dog."
Draven didn't blink.
He didn't even look at the weapon.
He tilted his head, inhaling deeply, as if savoring a scent that didn't belong in this rot-filled alley.
For Elara, the air felt charged, static electricity dancing across her skin.
But for Draven, she realized with a jolt of intuition, this was the opposite.
He wasn't tensing up for battle; he was relaxing.
The chaotic, red-rimmed madness in his eyes was cooling into pools of liquid gold.
"You talk too much," Draven rumbled.
His voice was gravel grinding on glass.
Casper's finger tightened on the trigger.
"Die."
The bolt flew.
Draven's hand moved.
A blur of motion.
He didn't dodge.
He caught the bolt mid-air, inches from his chest.
The silver sizzled against his palm, burning flesh, but he didn't even wince.
He crushed the shaft into splinters and dropped the dust into the mud.
Casper froze.
That was impossible.
Before the Beta could draw a breath to scream, Draven crossed the distance.
One hand, large enough to palm a basketball, wrapped around Casper's throat.
He lifted the man effortlessly, feet dangling a foot off the ground.
Casper clawed at the arm, his boots kicking futilely against Draven's stone-like torso.
"The Silas family," Draven said, his tone bored, "sends their regards."
Crunch.
It was a dry sound, like stepping on autumn leaves.
Draven dropped the limp body.
It fell with a heavy splash, face down in a puddle of oil and rain.
"Captain!" The two remaining guards screamed.
Terror overrode their training.
Their bodies contorted, bones snapping and reshaping as they forced a combat shift.
Snouts elongated, clothes shredded.
Two massive grey wolves stood there, snarling, driven by the instinct to kill the threat before it killed them.
Elara scrambled backward, her back hitting the cold chest of the man who had just murdered her executioner.
She expected him to shove her away.
Instead, he took a half-step back, effectively burying her between his massive frame and the shipping container.
He didn't shift.
He didn't grow fur.
He just cracked his knuckles.
The wolves lunged.
It wasn't a fight.
It was an extermination.
Draven caught the first wolf mid-leap, grabbing its upper and lower jaws.
With a grunt of exertion, he ripped the beast's mouth open until the hinge gave way with a sickening pop.
He tossed the whimpering heap aside and backhanded the second wolf so hard that Elara heard its skull fracture before it hit the opposite wall.
Silence descended again.
Absolute, heavy silence.
Elara was shaking.
Not from cold, but from adrenaline dumping into her system.
Her "curse"—that vacuum inside her—was humming.
It was feeding off the raw violence Draven had just unleashed, transmuting it into something strangely warm.
She looked at his back.
He was heaving, the muscles bunching up.
The gold in his eyes was starting to bleed back into red.
The madness was returning.
Without thinking—purely on the instinct that said this feels better than the pain—Elara reached out.
Her small, mud-streaked hand grabbed the hem of his blood-spattered jeans.
The effect was instant.
Draven stiffened.
The tension drained out of his shoulders as if someone had cut a puppet string.
Elara felt it too—the chaotic pressure in the air vanished, replaced by a profound stillness.
It was like stepping out of a hurricane into the eye of the storm.
He turned slowly, looking down at her.
His gaze dropped to her hand clutching his pants.
A sneer curled his lip.
"Don't touch me, stray," he growled.
He jerked his leg away, breaking her grip.
The moment her skin lost contact with him, a wave of invisible force slammed into the alley.
Draven roared, clutching his head, stumbling back as if shot.
The gold in his eyes fractured, the red chaos flooding back in a violent tide.
He bared his fangs at the empty air, fighting an enemy only he could see.
Elara felt the backlash too—a sharp, high-pitched ringing in her ears.
She realized then, with terrifying clarity, what she was.
She wasn't just a mute button; she was his anchor.
And he was her battery.
Draven realized it a second later.
Through the haze of his migraine, his eyes locked onto her.
He didn't ask.
He didn't negotiate.
He lunged forward, grabbing her arm and hauling her against his chest.
The relief on his face was almost obscenely orgasmic.
He let out a long, shuddering breath, burying his nose in the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply.
The rain steamed off his skin.
"Toby!" Draven barked, his voice clear and commanding, the madness gone.
A shadow detached itself from the top of the containers.
The scrawny scout from earlier dropped down, looking terrified, clutching a tablet.
"B-Boss?"
"Burn the bodies. Grind the bones. Leave the Silas crests in a bag on the Council's doorstep," Draven ordered, easily scooping Elara up into his arms.
She weighed nothing to him.
"Where... where are we going?" Elara whispered, too exhausted to fight.
Draven looked down at her.