Chapter 168: The Alpha Choice

Reality flattened air out of me with a pall of unstoppable iron cuff closed as tight as an iron maiden upon me clenching squeezing pinching. Reality towered above me, limitlessness and formlessness-no longer now that I would become: the Alpha Lleus. My form, my fur, me designed to be otherwise. Not naturally going to occur. The Underworld Lord stared at me through his ice-blue, immortal eyes, as if this had all been scripted. My friends were grouped around me, mouths open, holding their breaths for cue. Viktor was the first to break. "Lleus. just forget it. We can do something else." Daisy's arm across my shoulders was tight. "We have to go. Now." But I could not see them all. My gaze was upon my own body, half-buried. My head was a jumble of pieces of memory—my wars, my victories, my love for Reika. Was it all inside? Had I died and turned something else? I questioned the one who had sewn my fate. "If I exchanged my wolf, what was exchanged in return?" The Underworld smile of the Lord touched me, velvet voice. "A monster not of human flesh. A fighter who can contain death in the hands of his or her own. You are no longer bone and flesh. You are bigger, you are complete." Anger crept up my spine. I had clenched my fists, glanced at them. They were together. And yet, inside me, I was one. Viktor advanced, venomous in his tone. "Lleus, don't play games with him." Darius, the leader of the Desert Wolves, looked at me sternly. "It is not playing games," he finally said. "It is truth." Daisy's voice was cracking. "Lleus, please come with us." I closed my eyes, breathed deeply. I could feel it bubbling in me—the anger that I let loose out there on the battlefields, the way I fought and did not change, shatter. It was within me, no question at all. And what price did I give in exchange for that, then? Was I any human person whatever, still? The Price of a Wolf's Soul I'd had bulls and chariots drawn up against me once more before the King of the Underworld. "You said you could let me retain my wolf. How much?" Low chuckles rippled across him. "And so you are tempted, then." Daisy's hold around my arm tightened into talon-like claws. "Lleus, no." I snarled at her, at the whirling fear in her eyes, but I had to know. The monster smiled wider. "The price is easy. You need to restore the stolen." I frowned. "What are you saying?" He moved closer, darkness behind him. "Your wolf survives—trapped in the world of the damned. To release him, you'll have to cross over… and redeem him." Horror contorted Darius's face. "The world of the damned? That's a lost city." The creature laughed. Viktor growled, "That is a death sentence.". Her tears-shaded eyes glittered like sparkling diamonds. "Lleus, please. Do not make me lose you again." I flipped her over, the fight blazing in me for life. I'd already lost so much—my past, my identity, my place in a world where I'd had limitless power. Was it all to be for nothing to try and take a shot at reacquiring my wolf? Or something else then? I swore a disgusting glare at the beast beside me. "And what of I wolf no more? Of I remain thus?" The Underworld Lord did not reply for centuries before he did. "Then you will be what you are," he said to me. "Not living, nor dead. A monster of power, but not of belonging." Shivers ran down my back. A monster of power… but not of belonging. Darius folded his arms. "You can't sit there like that, Lleus. You're a warrior. A general. You have to make up your mind." Viktor exhaled. "I don't want to say this, but he's got a point" Daisy was rubbing away at tears. "Whatever it is, don't go and cut us all down like that." I inhaled. My mind had made up its mind, at least short-term at least. I could no longer be myself. Not now. Not with the reality of what I was following me. I got up and glared at my friends. "I have to do it." Daisy wept, her head nodding up and down. "No, Lleus—" Viktor pushed hair back from behind his ears."You're not actually considering doing that , are you?" I nodded."No, but I have to. If there's any chance that I can recover something I've lost, then I have to do it." Darius nodded gravely. "Then you'll need an escort. The demon-devastated lands aren't a holiday resort, full of demons who'll make a meal of your bones. You can't go by yourself." I swallowed. "Then I won't." Daisy's eyes flew open in shock. "You'll go with me?" I nodded. "I wouldn't be here otherwise." She frowned, hands out shooing from in front of her face and hunching forward like a jack. "Whatever. You're paying me for cutting in on a ride in a different nearly dead roller coaster." Viktor grinned. "Well, if we don't nearly die, then it isn't really an adventure, is it?" Alfonso cracked his knuckles. "Don't die, 'kay?" I stood in the presence of the Lord of the Underworld. "How do we continue?" He lifted his hand, and air around us grew to be heavy with earth beneath it bitter as winter frost. Shadows uncoiled, revealing a storm of inky black cloud. "The way is open to you," he told us. "But listen well, Alpha Lleus. Not everything that is gone would ever appear to be returned." And so the darkness descended, and we dropped into the void. The excitement of free-fall was immediate. Screams of frozen air whizzed past us, pulling us into the vacuum. And then, started, finished. We came down on a shattered, barren wasteland, grey clouds boiling above. Needle rock projections thrust up through the vacuum, and in the vacuum an evil stillness. Daisy trembled with terror. "Where are we?" Darius gazed out at the wasteland, his eyes wildly despairing. "The land of the damned." Viktor breathed deeply. "Yeah. This building is seriously haunted." I could sense it—the ghosts pressing in around us, uncoiling. Their presences in the air, their rage-filled screams of despair, of fury. And then, before us, the darkness itself moved. And something stirs. Hungry, burning red eyes ripped through the darkness, and then the queasy hulking form of some kind of creature I'd never so much as heard a rumor about. It was a wolf—except it wasn't. Twisted, corrupted, composed of writhing blackness. And the voice in my head. Low and smooth. "You shouldn't have come here." I gasped for breath It was my wolf. But their eyes didn't shine with love. No warmth. No recognition. Only rage. Daisy's hold on my arm grew firmer. "Lleus. what is it?" I swallowed. "I don't think he recognizes me" The eyes of the wolf blazed with fury.The shadows around him drew back from their rage. And then he charged at me. I was able to fend him off, but only just. My battle of will had commenced.