Chapter 401
401
401
Third Person’s POV
“What has Adelaide ever done for you? Managed the Bloodmoon Pack’s finances and internal affairs? Sent your family small gifts and clothes? Cared for your mother? Aren’t these all part of her duties as your Luna? And those tasks aren’t even specifically for you–they’re what she’s obliged to do. So where exactly have you wronged her?”
“Is it because you failed to honor your commitment to Airella?”
“But Ulrik, life requires compromises. As a Gamma, I mated with you as a breeder. Wasn’t that a compromise on my part? Why can I compromise, but she cannot?”
A bitter taste filled Ulrik’s mouth as he connected the dots, realizing Velda might be right.
“You’ve wronged me. You had Adelaide first, then mated with Gloria. Yet I never caused a scene. I stayed within the Bloodmoon Pack, waiting for a chance to regain honor and working toward our future.”
“Ulrik, was your affection for me back then nothing but a fleeting impulse?”
She covered her face, tears seeping through her fingers, her sobs muffled and agonized.
After a long while, she spoke through her tears, “Do you have any idea how hard each day is for me? If I were any other woman, enduring what I have, I would have taken my own life long ago.”
Velda’s cries struck Ulrik’s heart like hammer blows, leaving him both bewildered and distressed.
No matter her actions, she was someone he had once truly cared for.
He stood and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault, I …”
With a sudden whoosh, a poisoned bone arrow pierced through the window, its tip glowing with the faint blue of wolfsbane.
Ulrik’s pupils shránk to fine lines, and he instinctively grabbed the back of Velda’s collar, yanking her backward.
The arrow embedded itself in the oak screen behind them, its wolf–hair tassel still quivering.
A bone arrow? Fired at close range!
Ulrik’s cedar pheromones exploded, and his hand partially shifted into a silver–gray wolf claw.
He spun and hurled a bronze wolf–head shield to Velda.
Their wolf eyes glowed faintly in the dim light as they pressed against the wall, their claws scraping against the stone.
Velda’s mint pheromones sharpened with fear, her heartbeat drumming like a war drum
“An assassin? How could there be an assassin? Could it be the remnants of the Western Tribe? They’re the ones who slaughtered the Adelaide family!”
As Ulrik swept aside the curtain, the two of them slid out the door like wolves ready to pounce,
The hallway lanterns swayed, stretching their shadows into fierce wolf shapes.
After a moment of silence, Ulrik thrust his shield–bearing arm out.
s
At that moment, his cedar pheromones froze. Three bodies lay on the stone steps outside–the throats of Velda’s maids torn by wolfish bites, blood seeping down the steps in a dark red stream under the moonlight.
The bloody scene from the Frostfang Pack massacre flashed before Ulrik’s eyes, and he howled, “Father! Mother!”
His cedar pheromones, charged with rage, surged forward, but Velda clutched him tightly.
Her nails dug into his arm, her half–shifted wolf cars flattened with terror.
Velda’s face was ashen, her lips trembling. “I think… I think they’re after me.”
Her pheromones reeked of blood, and the gland at the back of her neck burned with anxiety.
Ulrik’s cedar pheromones turned icy, his wolf eyes blazing with crimson.
He realized this was likely revenge from the Western Tribe wolves, drawn by the scent of blood.
Earlier, when Velda had defended herself so Righteously, her confidence now shattered like a spider–web in a storm.
Four black–clad figures landed silently in the courtyard like night owls, their masks revealing wolf eyes glowing with emerald malice.
Their bodies exuded a stench of frozen earth and rot, the unique aura of wolves steeped in slaughter. The bone blades in their hands, coated with wolfsbane, glinted an eerie blue under the moon.
Their bloodlust was almost palpable, shaking even Velda’s mint pheromones and forcing her claws to
emerge.
Suddenly, the four bone blades whistled through the air..
Ulrik dragged Velda back into the room, slamming the door behind them.
He bolted it with his wolf–like arm, while Velda swiftly extinguished the light.
In the darkness, their wolf eyes glowed faintly. Ulrik and Velda stood back–to–back, their tense jaws reflecting the cold light.
Though demoted since returning to the capital, Ulrik’s Alpha instincts made him acutely aware of danger.
In the deathly quiet, he detected the sound of hair brushing against glass–a telltale sign of a approach.
His cedar pheromones coalesced like a frozen glacier.
“‘s stealthy
As expected, the window shattered with a crash, and a dark figure lunged in!
Ulrik’s cedar–powered sweep knocked the assassin back.
The intruder leaped away like a startled night wolf, but not before Ulrik’s bone blade grazed his calf, drawing a trail of blood.