Chapter 167: The Alpha Who Should Not Be

Flames spat into darkness, serpent-like silhouettes ripping across visages surrounding it. Lleus ground his teeth, jaw locked, fists balled. The Desert Wolves' leader's words echoed in his head. "You are not living as you think you are." Daisy, Viktor, and Alfonso were stunned, faces reshaping themselves from shock to bewilderment. Viktor came out first. "What the devil is this? He's here. He's breathing. He's alive." Darius, alpha of the Desert Wolves, tilted his head. "That is what is vexing." His yellow eyes glowed in the fire. "Alpha Lleus was in a coma, was he not? And when he returned, no longer could he shift. The color of his eyes had changed. But yet his gift is. changed." Lleus gasped. "You mean I was resurrected?" Darius spat the words out level. "I'm saying to you, the Lleu we all cowered before, the Lleu you'd summon in the dead army of—" He made a jerky gesture towards the non-existent army. "—didn't live. And the Lleu who stands before me now." Daisy laid her hand on Lleus' arm. "This is ridiculous. You're just the same as you were." Lleus swallowed in agony, looking at his own hands. "So why won't my wolf obey me?" Alfonso, previously silent, said to him, "There is but one certain way." Lleus looked at him. "What?" Alfonso looked back at him, his expression stern. "We must go to where you 'died' and attempt to find out what precisely did happen to you." A Perilous Task They departed before dawn the following morning. Darius released them for the moment but under guard by some of his men. Three days across rolling hills to where Lleus had perished. Their first night they slept under a crescent moon, and for the first time in years Lleus experienced something other than pain: a hollow. Daisy sat beside him, scowling. "You're not saying much." Lleus sighed deeply. "I feel. empty. As if something is missing from inside me." She took his hand, her own hand soft. "Whatever we discover, you are the same man I know. The man I trust." Lleus tried to fake a weak smile, but doubt prevailed. The next day, they encountered a patrol of soldiers—mercenaries, waging some war that no one could recall. They were tough men, and they attacked them, and yet even as Lleus fought against them, there was something missing in his motion. He ran faster than he ever had run in his life. Harder. Deadlier accurate. And yet, not a wolf. Viktor knew it, too. "Lleus, you've killed four of them without shapechanging. This cannot happen." Lleus wiped blood from his sword, his fist clenched. "I know." They stood, the ritual going on. The Ruins of the Past By the third day, they came where there had been battle. Before them lay a ruin of broken rock and charred earth. Lleus continued, his breath caught in his throat. "This is it." Daisy shivered. "It feels. wrong here." Alfonso moved cautiously to the floor, his eyes sweeping the room. "There's something here. Something buried." They tore up the earth, shattering stone and sand. And then—Lleus' breath was stolen. His own body was entombed. Dead shell, rotting, its eyes dead for years. Daisy screamed to a blood-curdling shriek of horror. "No… that's impossible." Viktor was pushed aside. "What the devil—!" Lleus' vision was reeling. He was staring at his own dead corpse. At the corpse he'd had. Darius, standing in his stead, breathed softly, "You are not the same old Lleus who died here." Lleus knelt down. His memories of his past life hit him—his wars, his Reika, his victories. But the rigid reality confronted him. He had died. And something. someone. had revived him. Alfonso moved toward him, his voice so low it was barely above a whisper. "If you're not. him. what are you?" The Truth Beneath the Ashes Lleus hadn't time to reply before the wind howled through the ruin. The ground trembled, and a dark and evil presence slid into the air. A deep, ominous thunder voice thundered. "At last, you've returned to me." Lleus's gaze clashed with his. The blackness resolved into a gigantic hooded figure in tattered robes. Supernatural power glowed in its eyes. Darius's teeth clenched. "The Underworld Lord." The abomination laughed. "You dared question me, Alpha Lleus. And now you'll have answers." Lleus's heart pounding. "What have you done to me?" The monster leaned its head. "I gave you a second chance. But not as a werewolf. No. I re-made you something better. Something immortal." Daisy whirled her head back around. "No, it can't be." The monster stepped forward and Lleus was struck with a burst of uncontrolled power. "You were dying. Body shattered beyond repair. Soul dancing on the threshold of falling into nothing. But I gave you an option. And you accepted it." Lleus' own breathing froze. "A bargain?" Memories churned back—twinklings of blackness, of silence in the blackness, of a voice promising forgiveness at a cost not inscribed. Viktor's voice was stern. "What did he pay?" The Lord of the Underworld's smile was smug. "His wolf." Lleus recoiled. Mem shook his head. His response was lean. "You are no longer a werewolf," the monster continued. "You are larger. A monster of death and vengeance. The first of your kind." Daisy had her arm around him so tight. "Lleus, don't listen to him." But deep within, where it mattered, Lleus did know. This was real. He was no longer mythic Alpha. He was something else. Something monstrous. Viktor swallowed hard. "Can he get his wolf back?" The monster grinned. "If he's willing to pay the price." Lleus' fists clenched. He'd already lost everything. Reika, alone, himself. Now they're asking him for impossibilities. Be what he used to be—monster of no humanity, monster of the dead. Or risk everything for the chance of having it all again. The expression on Darius' face did not shift. "No matter what you do, something is for certain—you are no longer the Lleus you were. Your past is finished. Now you get to choose what you become." The wind howled across the wasteland. The choice was waiting for him. And Alpha Lleus—or whatever he was to become—stood at the crossroads.