Chapter 10
A crowd had gradually formed around them.
Tyler, Blake, Derek, and Josh stood nearby, faces etched with horror and genuine remorse. Leila
hovered at the edge, her eyes flickering with jealousy and bitter resentment.
Countless others watched with sorrowful gazes.
Lucas acknowledged none of them.
A single devastating fire had transformed the whole territory overnight.
Within forty–eight hours, every pack connected to the “prank” found themselves under brutal attack from the Thornwood pack. Their pack area has sharply declined, their reputations destroyed, their
futures obliterated.
Those Lucas’s friends–now locked in the soundproofed basement of his pack’s estate, subjected to his unrelenting rage.
Lucas had become something feral, something bloodlust, delivering blow after merciless blow to the men cowering on the concrete floor.
“WHY THE FUCK WERE THERE GAS CANS IN THAT CABIN?” he roared, his knuckles split and bleeding, voice barely recognizable. “ANSWER ME!”
“Why did your pussy–ass guards run without her?” Another devastating punch landed on Tyler’s already disfigured face.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU GET HER OUT? WHY IS SHE DEAD WHILE YOU WORTHLESS PIECES OF SHIT ARE STILL BREATHING?”
Each question punctuated with violence, as if hurting them might somehow lessen his own guilt–as if avenging Aria could absolve him of being the one who ultimately led her to her death.
According to their original “hilarious prank,” Aria was never supposed to be in actual danger.
As a precaution, they had stationed pack guards inside to protect her. If the fire got out of control, those guards were supposed to rescue her immediately.
But somehow, the abandoned cabin had been rigged with gasoline containers they hadn’t put there.
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Chapter 10
Somehow, those werewolves had prioritized saving themselves.
Somehow, in their panic to escape the unexpected intensity of the blaze, they had forgotten Aria entirely.
The men on the ground were barely recognizable, their faces pulverized by Lucas’s rage, barely able to form coherent words through swollen lips and broken teeth.
“Please, Alpha L–Lucas,” Blake sobbed, blood pouring from his nose. “We fucked up… we know we fucked up…”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Derek whimpered, curled into a protective ball. “The fire… it was just supposed to scare her…”
“We’ll do anything,” Tyler groaned, one eye swollen completely shut. “Anything you want, man. Just don’t kill us…”
“My pack will offer whatever you want,” Josh begged, dragging himself across the floor. “Please, please… we’ve been pack brothers since kindergarten…”
More than a dozen bloodied men knelt before him, pathetic in their terror, foreheads pressed to the concrete in supplication.
But the man standing over them seemed beyond reason, beyond humanity. When he finally spoke, his voice was terrifyingly flat–the calm of a predator who has already decided the fate of its prey.
“Pack brothers?” Lucas almost laughed, the sound hollow and chilling. “You want me to spare you because we were pack brothers? Did you spare my mate? Did any of you worthless fuckers think about her for one second?”
He moved toward the door.
“L–Lucas, PLEASE!” They scrambled after him, leaving bloody handprints on the floor.
“Go explain yourselves to Aria in hell.”
Amid their terrified screams, the basement door slammed shut with terminal finality.
When Lucas emerged upstairs, covered in their blood, Leila rose quickly from the Italian leather sofa where she’d been waiting.
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Chapter 10
“Lucas…” she began, attempting her usual delicate tone.
Her words died when she saw the extent of the carnage covering him, her face freezing in naked
fear.
Lucas ignored her completely, turning instead to his pack’s longtime pack guardian.
“Has my Luna’s burial site been prepared?” His voice was raw from screaming.
“Luna?” Leila echoed, staring at him in theatrical disbelief. “What the actual fuck are you talking
about?”
She rushed forward, manicured nails digging into his arm, her eyes wide. “I’m your future Luna,
and I’m very much alive! Have you completely lost it?”
Looking at the she–wolf before him, Lucas’s eyes filled with cold disgust.
How had he never noticed how self–absorbed and manipulative Leila truly was?
“Leila,” he said, each word precise and final, “my fated mate and my Luna is not you. It’s Aria.”
That simple statement drained all color from her perfect face. “You’ve literally gone insane!”
“What kind of ‘Luna‘ was that pathetic nobody? Have you forgotten who she was–some loner wolf who stole what was rightfully mine? Don’t tell me you actually fell for that basic bitch!”
Leila should have seen this coming. Since Aria’s death, Lucas had transformed completely.
He had unleashed ruthless vengeance on everyone involved in harming her, while shutting himself away, refusing to let authorities take Aria’s remains, keeping her with him day and night.
Even Leila, publicly acknowledged as Lucas’s inevitable future Luna, could barely get him to answer her calls.
At first, she hadn’t taken it seriously, assuming he was simply processing the shock.
After all, his wolf needs time to adjust himself.
But after being repeatedly blocked from entering the Thornwood Pack, genuine panic had set in.
She searched his face desperately now, hoping he would reveal this was all some elaborate new
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Chapter 10
game.
But Lucas merely regarded her with those dead eyes, his expression devoid of any warmth she’d once imagined was reserved for her.
Her heart plummeted as angry tears began to well up.
“You actually fell for her, didn’t you?” Her voice rose hysterically. “After everything I did for you?”
“What about ME? I waited for you all this time! You promised after 99 acts of revenge, we could finally be together. I waited THREE FUCKING YEARS, and now you’re in love with that worthless
little bitch who-”
“SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!”
Lucas’s thunderous roar echoed through the mansion. “Say one more word about my mate and I swear to the Moon Goddess I’ll forget you’re a she–wolf.”
Leila, who had been in the middle of her tirade, froze in absolute shock.
“You… you just screamed at me?” Her voice was small with disbelief.
Her shock quickly morphed into outrage. “How fucking DARE you speak to me like that!”
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