When Cassian lunged, everything slowed down in front of Grae’s eyes. The air around the intruder looked as if it burst into flas 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.
Grae 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 ca 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. Grae 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 movents that unleashed from Cassian once Grae landed the first blows.
This male was suddenly so fast, and before Grae 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 Grae both lunged at Cassian at the sa ti, 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 fra with his paws, and he hung there awkwardly, unable to pull his massive canine body up with such little leverage.
Grae slamd against the wall between windows and braced against Cassian who ca 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 Grae realized why—this male had taken Violet’s wolf just like August had taken Marius’. With another threatening snarl, Grae 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 so 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,’ Grae commanded Lucas with his mind as he stalked toward where the intruder was crumpled on the floor. This Alpha command sohow reached Lucas wordlessly without even touch needed as a conduit. Grae had never done this previously with soone in his pack, but now it ca naturally—the flow of his Alpha will to a pack mber 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 Grae approached. For so reason, the Alpha still had not shifted into his wolf, and he was having a hard ti 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 seed less consciously resistant to that form of attack, and Cassian was usually able to mount them from behind where they had a difficult ti 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 sohow 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.
Grae 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 desires to be with yours," he growled, allowing the deep sincerity of that truth to fill his words.
"And yet you will not let take her," Cassian hissed, glaring up at Grae.
"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 sa 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 ."
Grae opened his mouth to answer, but before he could the shattered glass from the broken windows behind him ca 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 Grae’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 Grae 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 fra. He pulled himself up through window and into the room in ti to see Cassian and Grae wrestling on the floor—Grae 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, Grae still delivering punches even as Cassian sent excruciating blows to Grae’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 pumled with blows to the glass knives that tore through his flesh, Neoma snapped her fingers and Cassian fell.
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