I charged again, this ti with claws. My vision pulsed red. The wolf in surged forward. He was a threat— he was the threat. He had touched my pregnant wife while I trusted him like a brother.
He dodged easily, too easily. Like my rage was a dance he’d choreographed.
"Ignacio," Lucía warned, stepping forward with both palms glowing. "Try anything and I’ll burn you where you stand."
"Oh, witchling. You think you scare ? I’ve danced with death longer than you’ve been alive." He crooned mockingly.
"Try ," she snapped.
I took María José’s hand and pulled her behind . She stumbled, still clutching her towel, still trembling. I felt her breath against my neck. It was hot and panicked. My poor wife.
"He was... he touched ," she choked. "I—I didn’t know, Axel. I swear. I didn’t know."
"I believe you," I said fiercely.
Ignacio’s laughter rang out behind us like broken glass. "Funny, isn’t it? I wear a new na, a new skin, and she still tastes the sa every bloody ti I grind into her."
That’s my wife he was talking about. Argh, the fury rang through my body and shook the very fiber of my being. That’s my wife.
Lucía let out a sharp word in a dead language. A blast of magic hit him square in the chest, sending him sprawling back into the dresser. He grunted, but didn’t fall. His skin sizzled where the spell hit and he rolled his shoulder like it itched.
"Do you know what it took to fool you?" he hissed at . "Nothing. She invited into her life. Her ho. Her heart. I was there when you weren’t. I cooked for her. I cleaned her tears. I almost had her again this morning."
"Enough!" I roared, the sound shaking the walls.
"Axel," María José cried again, pulling at my arm.
Lucía stepped between us, holding up a small obsidian vial.
"This is it. This will mark him. You’ll always know when he’s near. But we need to make him swallow it." She announced:
He smirked. "Co and make ."
Before I could launch myself again, María José... my brilliant, furious, half-naked wife, strode forward and slapped Ignacio across the face.
The sound cracked like thunder and it sent a certain soothe into . She deserved to do more for him. In all of this, she was the victim. She was the one who had been relentlessly violated by him.
He’d use her over and over again. And now, he didn’t stop with her body. Apparently, he’d been robbing her of her heart too. This was an emotional blow for her, the type she’d never get over. I’d bata damned before she trusted anyone ever again.
"You don’t touch again," she whispered, voice shuddering. "You don’t look at again. And if you ever co near my babies..." She raised a warning finger, but even that was shaking. " I will rip your heart out with my teeth. I swear, Ignacio."
Even Ignacio blinked.
Lucía raised her brows. "I like her."
"I know," I muttered, stunned.
"Axel," María José called, her voice low, furious, still trembling but solid. "Give the vial."
I hesitated. "You don’t have to..."
"I want to."
She took the vial, uncorked it with shaking fingers, and turned to Ignacio. "Swallow this. Or I will pour it down your throat and break your nose in the process."
Ignacio stood there, taunting us all, as if this were so cruel ga only he knew the rules to. His voice was deceptively soft, but there was poison oozing from every word.
"I love you, María José," he said, stepping forward like a man who believed himself invincible. "That’s why I can’t drink the vial. Why I have to keep wearing this mask, this camouflage. Until you accept as I am, I’ll always need it. Always."
The words hit hard, poisonous and sickening. Love? That twisted mockery was not love. It was obsession, possession, the kind of darkness that clawed at the soul and refused to let go.
María José scoffed, and I saw a cold fire sparking in her eyes that made want to hold her and protect her at once. "This isn’t love. You don’t love . This—this is control. Fear. A sickness wrapped in pretty words. You’re sick, Ignacio. You need help, but people like you don’t deserve it."
"It is love," he cut her off, voice rising. "I need to stay close to you, María José. You don’t understand what it’s like without you. I can’t be... . I’ll always need the camouflage until you learn to accept ."
She scoffed, her arms crossing with the towel wrapped around her body like a last line of defense. "Tell , where the hell is the real Mateo? What did you do with him?"
His lips curled upward as he shrugged. "What do you think? Dead? In an eternal anguish?"
Oh, Dios mío. Why, that crazy bastard! And that was the final straw. We don’t need these pesky talks. We needed action.
I roared.
Not taphorically or so poetic "oh he was angry" type thing. I roared and my bones cracked as I partially shifted, strength flooding , eyes glowing, claws itching to bury themselves in his chest, but my body remained frozen. Stuck. I was about to jump on him and now, I was frozen. It was like being trapped in amber while your soul scread.
Ignacio’s eyes glead with wicked delight as he raised a finger and the room’s temperature dropped sharply. "You’re no match for , little Axel. Not now. Not ever." He sneered.
I snarled, struggling against the invisible bonds, my breath coming out in furious puffs like smoke. María José’s hands quivered as she clutched my arm, her tears shining bright in the dim light. "Leave him alone," she begged.
Seriously? We are begging him NOW?!
The witch, who had until now been silent, stepped forward.
"You think your little spells matter?" Ignacio scoffed, his voice shifting deeper, darker, sothing that vibrated in the air like the clanging of old bells.
She didn’t flinch. "Not mine," she said, raising her hands slowly. "How about the power of a thousand ancients?"
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