Chapter 406: Shattered
When Cassian lunged, everything slowed down in front of Graeme’s eyes. The air around the intruder looked as if it burst into flames with the Veiled that he could now see, and without even a glance in either of their directions, Sam and Lucas went flying against opposite walls of the office.
Graeme felt the resistance of that force as well as if there was an invisible attempt to throw him, too, but he braced himself against it and watched as Cassian’s fists came at him in slow motion. He ducked and dodged before landing a series of shots to the male’s torso all while blood-curdling snarls surrounded them. Graeme knew they were coming from him—that was the lycan effect of making yourself as threatening as possible in every way during a fight, including the sounds that threatened death—but they were a backdrop to the cascade of movements that unleashed from Cassian once Graeme landed the first blows.
This male was suddenly so fast, and before Graeme knew it he was colliding with the wall of windows he had just been gazing out of—the impact of the force that threw him shattering the glass and forcing the breath from his lungs. Lucas and Sam had gotten back to their feet and latched onto the male—Sam on the broad muscle between the male’s neck and right shoulder and Lucas on the male’s left leg, their teeth ripping into his flesh and almost toppling him before Cassian delivered a crushing blow to Lucas’ spine, causing the wolf to release him.
Cassian then flipped Sam over his shoulder, landing the wolf on his back before Sam released him and sprang back to his feet. He and Graeme both lunged at Cassian at the same time, but the male pushed an explosion of the Veiled toward them again, throwing them through the air. When the energy hit both Alpha and Beta, they were both mid-lunge and the force of the impact sent Sam through the broken window. He was able to grab onto the edge of the frame with his paws, and he hung there awkwardly, unable to pull his massive canine body up with such little leverage.
Graeme slammed against the wall between windows and braced against Cassian who came at him right after, catching the male by the shoulders and twisting him so that he was now against the wall instead. Cassian was trying to bite—snarling and snapping with his suddenly elongated canines, and then Graeme realized why—this male had taken Violet’s wolf just like August had taken Marius’. With another threatening snarl, Graeme flung him off of the wall and through the air where he landed against his desk and fell to his knees.
Lucas was struggling to get back up nearby where the blow to his spine had broken some bones that had not fully healed yet from the night before. His loyalty to his Alpha and lycan instinct to keep attacking despite injuries or pain had him stubbornly trying to continue despite how badly he was hurt.
’Stay down,’ Graeme commanded Lucas with his mind as he stalked toward where the intruder was crumpled on the floor. This Alpha command somehow reached Lucas wordlessly without even touch needed as a conduit. Graeme had never done this previously with someone in his pack, but now it came naturally—the flow of his Alpha will to a pack member without him needing to speak. It was as if the Veiled flowed between and through them, making the space between their embodied forms at once no distance at all. Lucas stopped struggling once he received the command, his body relaxing obediently despite a frustrated growl of protest that did not go unnoticed by his Alpha.
Cassian lifted his golden eyes in a furious glare as the massive form of Graeme approached. For some reason, the Alpha still had not shifted into his wolf, and he was having a hard time getting access to him with his teeth.
Lycans instinctively shielded themselves and dodged from bites, as the flesh injuries from an opponent’s teeth could do an incredible amount of damage. But it was easier for Cassian to get leverage on a lycan in their wolf form. They were easier to throw around with energy taken from the Veiled, as they seemed less consciously resistant to that form of attack, and Cassian was usually able to mount them from behind where they had a difficult time removing him. That’s how he had been able to deliver the fatal wolf-taking bite to the Alpha from the first pack.
But this one was proving to be more difficult—more formidable. He could see Cassian’s attacks coming and somehow he was more able to resist the invisible forces that he threw at him.
"My female was pregnant with your child," he spit, recalling how Violet delivered that blow in the dungeon. The female he felt connected to through even his emotions was not only desiring the Alpha before him but had been intimate with him—had carried his heir.
Graeme stopped a few paces away from him, chest heaving with the adrenaline of the fight that was still rippling through him, waiting to be expended. He was just getting started.
"I have a mate, a Luna, who is carrying my heir. No part of me desires to be with yours," he growled, allowing the deep sincerity of that truth to fill his words.
"And yet you will not let me take her," Cassian hissed, glaring up at Graeme.
"If she wants to leave with you, then there is no problem. But that is not the case, and she is under this pack’s protection," he explained in his same low grumble.
"Do you truly wish to leave your pack and your mate without an Alpha?" Cassian chuckled—the sound like a death rattle in his throat. "That is what will happen if you refuse me."
Graeme opened his mouth to answer, but before he could the shattered glass from the broken windows behind him came flying through the air, impaling him in a dozen spots from behind. The force with which Cassian was able to propel them sunk them deep into Graeme’s body, piercing his liver and spleen.
Sam felt his Alpha crumple. It was like a part of his soul had been knocked out of him when Graeme went down, and he roared from where he clung to the window sill—finally risking a shift back to his human form and scrambling to keep his hold on the sill with its shards of broken glass jutting up from the frame. He pulled himself up through window and into the room in time to see Cassian and Graeme wrestling on the floor—Graeme still fighting despite the wounds that were causing severe bleeding.
There was blood everywhere, but that wasn’t unusual in a fight. What was unusual was the glowing suns in both of the opponents eyes as they rolled around, Graeme still delivering punches even as Cassian sent excruciating blows to Graeme’s glass-filled torso.
Greta and Neoma appeared at the door just as Sam rose from the floor—Greta throwing herself on the back of her brother’s attacker without a second thought only to be shrugged off and launched through the air as if she were nothing but a rag doll.
"No," Neoma whispered, the terror in her eyes at the scene before her flashing, and before Sam could even roar a response to his mate’s pregnant body being flung forcefully against a wall or his Alpha’s being pummeled with blows to the glass knives that tore through his flesh, Neoma snapped her fingers and Cassian fell.
