Gamma No More - Book 3

As they move through the battlefield, a deep-seated frustration runs inside her, knowing she had to try to change her plan mid-battle with no way to communicate was a fool’s errand, realising she should have taken one warrior from each pack with her to relay messages, but then even that wouldn’t work in wolf form.

As anger rises within her, she can feel the weight of her actions pressing down on her. It’s as if she has signed the death warrants of the wolves that stood with her, and that realisation fills her with a deep sense of regret.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shoots through her body, starting at her side and radiating throughout her core. It feels like a stab wound, piercing deep into her very being.

Every muscle and bone in her body screams with fiery agony, far more intense than any pain she’s ever felt. In a fleeting moment of consciousness, she wonders if someone used poison before losing herself to the pain.

With Tyra slipping from her grasp, as she fights to maintain her wolf form, increasing the pain she felt, but a part of her knows returning to human form would be a death sentence in this battle. A roar of torment escapes her lips as she struggles against the excruciating transformation.

In the periphery of her mind, she senses the world receding from her, but almost feels, the veiled ones, her pack seem closer than ever, forming a protective shield around her as soon as they heard her anguished cry.

It’s like a blazing inferno had encased her body as her limbs contort and shift against her will and in ways that feel unnatural and wrong. The searing heat seems to flood every inch of her body, hardening and reshaping from within.

The agony is unbearable, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot stop the transformation. Her muscles and limbs are being stretched and expanded too quickly, creating a searing sensation throughout her body. It feels like molten metal is coursing through her veins, scorching her from the inside.

The pain is relentless, an unending torture that threatens to break her. Her roars echo across the battlefield, silencing all other sounds as the wolves closest are mesmerised and watch while the fight rages on in the distance.

Gradually, she can feel Tyra’s presence soothing some of her agony, allowing conscious thoughts to form slowly once again. Survival becomes her first instinct, knowing she is vulnerable on the ground even in human form. But her body seems to resist any attempts to retreat or defend itself.

Two conflicting forces battle inside her before pure instinct takes over, and she rises back up on two legs. She’s no longer fully wolf, but not quite human either.

With a guttural, primal roar that rumbles with dark power, she commands her body to stand and fight. Every nerve and fibre in her being pulsed with newfound strength, and she can feel the raw energy coursing through her, a glorious power filling her and taking over.

“No more,”

Her guard had backed off slightly, forming an arc behind her, protecting her back, but also moving back to give this new beast space, unsure of what it would do next.

The wolf in front of her had stilled, crouching low at her roar it lets out a growl trying to warn off the unknown beast in front of him, pulling her attention to it, Toni picks it up throwing the wolf away, as if it were a stick in the way, hearing its whimper as it landed.

Standing at just over six foot nine, her Lycan form dominates the battlefield, her body covered in golden-brown coloured fur, fading to the familiar chocolate brown of her wolf at her neck, ankles and wrists, her cobalt blue eyes somehow brighter almost glowing, survey those around her.

Every wolf she can see is now crouched low, tails between their legs, her dark aura pulsing like waves around her, bathing the battlefield in a cloak of submission.

As she looks around, nothing moves. Wolves frozen in time, waiting for her to move before they will get their release.

It takes her a moment to realise that Hakan and Ink are now surrounded by their own wolves. Realisation hits that they laid a trap to draw wolves to them before their pack came out in their defence.

But as her eyes scrutinise the wolves on the battlefield, her nose flares and a single word forms in her head.

‘Erasthai,’

She pushes down the urge to find her mate, aware of the eerie silence that has settled like a death shroud over the battlefield, not a single wolf from among the seventeen hundred had moved since her roar, nor made a sound and it pleases her Lycan side.

As she towers over those around her, she speaks. Her Lycan’s voice is unfamiliar, coming out of the part human, part wolf-like facial features.

“Surrender to me now,

Stop this senseless bloodshed or face my wrath, letting wolves die for no reason sickens me.”

At this point Toni feels she is acting almost on instinct, embracing both her dark and light sides to stop the fight feels right.

“Veiled, Freedom, Lowlands and Deadfall packs, round up all those who surrender and do not harm any wolf needlessly.”

She reins back her dark aura, releasing the wolves, to carry out her orders.

As she does so, the Alpha that was attacking Dimitri’s wolf, Ink, turns and runs at her, launching itself into the air, aiming for her neck.

With her sharp, clawed hands, she catches the dark brown wolf effortlessly. It struggles and snaps at the air, unable to break free from her powerful grip. The scene is eerily reminiscent of how Leif had once held Iris, except this wolf could potentially die from being held by the neck like this.

The last thought trickling through her mind makes her take action.

“Shift,” she commanded with such force that it felt like a physical push.

In an instant, the wolf in her grasp transformed into Alpha Lee Bates of the Shadow pack.

“You dare to challenge my authority?”

Her Lycan form exuded dominance as she held the alpha above her head as if he were nothing more than a tantrum-throwing child.

His voice came out raspy and broken as he responded, “You have no authority over me. I stand with the true King and Leader; one with vision and strength, unlike the weak King Petrus or yourself,” he spat out with defiance.

“You lie.”

Alpha Bates flinches at her words as if her calling him out cuts him, but she can feel the shock rippling off from others around her. Smelling one of his pack close, she points to him.

“You shift and tell me what your worthless Alpha told you was the reason you were fighting?”

Her words came out as a harsh growl, and the wolf immediately complies.

“He commanded us to fight, that we would get a reward for our actions and loyalty and take a place like those of Iron Claw, second only to the Royal Pack, led by the rightful heir.

That the King had lost his mind over his son and wasn’t fit to make decisions anymore and that the humans were plotting to rise against us if we didn’t take action.”

The wolf she had pointed was still on all fours, even in human form, and cowed in fear, staring at the ground, but she could feel his truth.

“Tell them why your pack is here. Tell them what you are risking their lives for.”

Her dominance turned solely to the Alpha she still holds aloft, leaving him unable to refuse her.

“Money. I was being paid to join the fight and humans are weak. We can use them as cheap labour once we rule over them. They are to be used as slaves. It’s all they are good for.”

His voice is getting croaky. Toni nodded, knowing she cannot continue to hold him like this if she wants him to live.

“Driven by greed and selfishness, you put your pack at risk… you are undeserving of the title of Alpha.”

She pauses, and internally she wrestles with what her Lycan side wants to do next.

“This wolf challenged me. Does anyone here support him?”

Her voice carried across the field, with silence her only reply as she throws him to the floor

“If you continue to want to challenge me, then this better be the best fight of your life, or you can choose to submit yourself to my judgment and hope for mercy.”

She smiles coldly at Alpha Bates, who glances to either side of him, looking at his pack for support. They all avert their eyes.

“Feel free to run rather than choose to submit. I don’t mind, except that way, you will also die a coward in the eyes of your pack.”

Her voice gets lower yet still seems to carry clearly across the battlefield

“So I will make the option as clear as I can. Anything other than total submission is a direct challenge to me, the first of the Lycans.”

At her announcement, there’s a collective whine from the wolves on the battlefield, each sinking lower on its belly, finally realising what they are seeing in front of them.

Alpha Bates takes one last look at her before flinging his last insult at her.

“You are an abomination,”

He spat on the ground in front, her body still. She makes no move against him. He clearly thought he was safe from her wrath as he shifted and made a run for it.

It took her less than three strides to catch him, dragging him into the air with one hand. She holds him aloft, knowing most of the wolves are watching her, no longer heads bowed.

There’s a part of her that is fascinated with seeing what the others see, but for now, her eyes stare on her hands, they are more like talons, long fingers with sharp, knife-like claws and there’s something inside her that knows what she intends to do next.

Inside her head, she’s running through the attacks that his pack has committed in his name, and she finds him guilty.

“You disgrace your pack and shall die a coward’s death,”

In one swift, brutal motion, she plunged her hand into his chest. He had no time to cry out or even process the searing pain as her sharp talons pierced through skin and flesh, sinking deep into his chest cavity. Her fingers coiled around his heart, feeling its frantic beats beneath her grasp.

For a brief moment, Alpha Bates’ mind went blank with shock, his body unable to register the intense agony that should have come with such an attack. But before he could even fully comprehend what was happening, she tightened her grip on his heart, causing every beat to jolt through her hand.

With a last gasp, the powerful Alpha succumbed to her deadly hold. As she ripped his still-beating heart from his chest, holding it up for all to see. The entire field fell silent at the gruesome display, the only sound being the steady rhythm of her own heart.

“Your soul didn’t deserve to inhabit the body of a wolf,”

There’s a muffled thud as she drops the body to the floor. She can smell his blood on her, knowing her display had coated her in his blood.

Her hand still holding the dripping heart, drops to her side. As she looked around with a challenging roar, she waits to see if anyone else dares to challenge her authority.

“No harm shall come to anyone that surrenders quietly. Anyone failing to uphold that rule will face me.”

Only a single wolf moves on the battlefield. Shifting to his human form, he shouted out.

“You heard the Alpha’s orders. No further harm will come to you if you shift and surrender.”

Karl’s voice triggers a sea of movement, breaking the wolves from their temporary stasis.

The sound of hundreds of wolves shifting into their human form breaks the silence of her announcement, they all sit calmly as the wolves from her allied packs work together to secure those that submitted in the best ways they can, ripping the shredded clothes that scatter the battlefield into bindings.

Three sets of forces met on this field today, the Royal Pack and their supporters, the Rebels all fighting for power, and finally her pack along with her allies.

Toni had hoped to arrive before any bloodshed, and yet as she glanced at her bloodied hands, she had been responsible for drawing blood and taken a second life.

She could have controlled him, forced his submission, and she hadn’t had to take his life, but as she dug deep into her feelings, she knew she didn’t regret it, Alpha Bates hadn’t been a good leader, prepared to risk his pack for personal gain and it made a point to the rest of the wolves.

Watching as the packs surrender quietly, she stands in the centre of the field in her Lycan form, feeling drained from her forced shift, she is there as a reminder, silently demanding their compliance and as she does the words of Prince Einar come flooding back to her.

‘Sometimes you need to accept that the price of peace is the loss of your freedom.’

Words she didn’t understand initially, she’d been sure he had been talking about wolves losing their freedom to ensure peace, that they may need to be controlled by another species to keep the peace, but now, it hit her, he’d meant her personal loss of freedom.

The way wolves were looking at her standing there in her Lycan form told her more than she needed to know. In stopping a war, she’d revealed her true form.

She could no longer hope to fade into anonymity, no longer free to just live a quiet life with her pack, and worse than that, in doing so, she’d forced her pack into the limelight.

“Alpha,”

Tommy stands in front of her, battered and bruised, but holding out a spare pack cloak, he has no fear of the Lycan standing before him, but he’s drawing glances from wolves in the other packs, clearly thinking he had lost his mind to approach her.

“Thought you’d need it for when you shift,”

She smiled at Tommy, giving her the smallest hint that she no longer needs to be in her dominant form. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she leans down and whispered to him, too tired to mind link.

“Are any of our pack afraid of me?”

This is her biggest concern, she’s kept the pack link shielded, while she dealt with her own thoughts, while they had been told she was a Lycan, hearing it and seeing or believing it were two very different things, she had learnt that for herself.

“Afraid? No.

Proud? Hell yes.

Revealing your secret to save lives was a brave thing to do and stopping this fight with a single execution was an impressive feat in the middle of a battlefield when blood is high and adrenaline controls the wolves. It could have gone badly.

The wolves could have turned against you en masse, so you took a risk to save them.

Alpha’s need to make unpalatable decisions, but the overwhelming feeling so far is one of honour in being part of your pack and that you stopped the violence before any of them had badly injured.”

She nods and places the cloak around her shoulders; she pulls the hood up before shifting back into human form, realising with a shock that she had grown she was now a good six foot four, and none of her clothes would fit, she looks up and Tommy’s face was full of laughter.

“That’s one hell of a late growth spurt Alpha,”

He laughed loudly, easing her tension as they turn and walk to the edges of the battlefield together.