Chapter 230: Over My Dead Body
Like a rising tide, the wave of protests began in earnest. Alpha Thorton staggered back, his eyes blazing with anger. Knowing his arrogance, he must have felt even more enraged when everyone else decided to gang up against him.
"You will not force me into abdication!" He roared, spittle collecting by the side of his lips. "Damon Valentine is a liar. And you will know it when the eclipse ends. My son will have his wolf, and when that happens, I will have Damon on his knees in front of me, begging for forgiveness."
"Kinky," Blaise chimed in.
There was a smattering of suppressed snorts, as no one wanted to be seen as immature for laughing at this solemn occasion.
"Blaise!" I scolded. I wanted to smack him but settled for hiding my face behind my palm in embarrassment.
"Sorry, dear," Blaise said, sounding not sorry at all. "The joke wrote itself."
"Damn right it did," Luna Cassidy said approvingly, but she turned to Alpha Thorton with a lot less warmth and humor. "Alpha Thorton, what if your son has no wolf even after the eclipse ends? Will you admit your fault then and abdicate? Will you go on your knees and beg for forgiveness too?"
Alpha Thorton’s face reddened. "The eclipse has to end first before you can even dare to make any decisions about my leadership! I will abdicate over my dead body!"
I narrowed my eyes, wondering why this man was stalling, so intent on denying the inevitable.
Blaise murmured in my ear, "He’s hoping that this eclipse lasts long enough that he can high tail it back home, or find someone to handle Darach."
"Fair enough. Whether this eclipse lasts ten hours or ten years, I’ll be waiting," Damon said, glancing at Alpha Thorton from the corner of his eyes. "I have all the time in the world. An old man like you does not."
His taunts hit home, but Alpha Thorton restrained himself from clawing Damon’s throat out.
"Just you wait, you insolent boy! Come on, Dahlia, we are leaving!"
"But Daddy!" Dahlia protested, but her father didn’t spare her a second glance, so close to storming out of the room. However, he was halted by an oracle who materialized out of thin air.
"You..."
Haughty and arrogant as Alpha Thorton was, he was still in possession of his last remaining sense of dignity to not push the oracle out of the way.
Meanwhile, I was marveling at how fast she moved. It was as though she had teleported― did they have magic powers due to their connection with the Moon Goddess?
"You can’t keep me here," Alpha Thorton said imperiously, even as his eyes nervously darted to the door. "The eclipse might last for hours! Days, even!"
The oracle held out her palm, a wordless order for him to stop.
At that very moment, the very air in the room seemed to shift. Alpha Thorton startled as if struck, his face paling immediately.
I glanced around the room in surprise; every werewolf seemed to be on their haunches, as though they were vibrating within their places. Before I could ask what was going on, the room was brighter — clearer — and I felt twin surges of relief rush through me.
There could only be one explanation for this change.
The eclipse had ended.
The moon had returned, and with it, everyone’s wolves.
"The eclipse is over," Blaise breathed out a sigh. "We’re lucky this was a short one."
"It felt a lot longer to me," Damon said with a deadpan expression. He didn’t need to explain the reason why he felt that time itself was moving as slow as molasses; he raised an eyebrow as he stared at the backs of Alpha Thorton and his daughter.
It was enough for anyone to understand his hidden meaning. Unfortunately, Damon’s words weren’t soft enough to go unheard by Dahlia.
"Damon Valentine, don’t think that just because I was in love with you, I won’t dare to hurt you!"
"Was?"
Blaise and I blurted the same thing, and we snickered as we met each other’s eyes.
"Would wonders ever cease? Damon, she’s finally over you!" Blaise cheered. "It’s a miracle, thanks to the Moon Goddess!"
I nodded, a smile emerging from my lips.
Meanwhile, Damon didn’t even bother to respond to Dahlia or the both of us verbally. Instead, he chose to roll his eyes.
The mood in the room was more jubilant than before, as everyone rejoiced over getting their wolves back.
But a panicked cry echoed throughout the room, disrupting the atmosphere.
"I can’t... the bond is not there anymore! Where is my wolf? Where did it go?!" Darach screamed.
The moonwater’s surface rippled to reveal a shaky image of Darach, his eyes wide with delirious fear. He gripped at his own hair as though he was about to tear it off.
"What is happening to me?" Darach howled, fear evident in every syllable of his voice. "Miss Nicole, help me! Anyone, help me!"
"You have your father to thank for every hardship, boy," Alpha Burke said, his tone grave. Sympathy colored his words, and he gave Alpha Thorton a flinty look from the corner of his eyes. "He severed the bond you had with your wolf by slowly poisoning you with wolfsbane. You are now practically a human man."
"No... no... this cannot be!" Darach staggered back, and his face flickered as the moonwater shook. "Father, how could you do this to me? I’m your son! Your son!"
Unfortunately for Darach, his father callously ignored his pleas for an explanation. Instead, Alpha Thorton stared at Damon with intense hatred in his eyes.
"Abdicate, or I’ll make you," Damon ordered.
"Never," Alpha Thorton was seething with rage. His eyes darted to me, and a malicious smirk crossed his face.
Familiar cracking sounds echoed through the air as he shifted into his wolf form without warning.
Before I could react, Alpha Thorton had leaped through the air to pounce on me!
