His Redemption (Complete His Series)

MADDOX

I turned and sprinted as I heard Bygrave’s disapproving voice call from behind me, “Tsk, Tsk. I will come and find you when I’m done here, boy.” It wasn’t just a taunt but a promise.

He never raised his voice, but I heard it clear as a bell even as I crashed through brush and foliage towards where we’d parked. I heard Langston growl, and Bygrave said nothing in return. The corners of my eyes burned as I fought back the tears of anger and frustration. He didn’t think I was man enough to fight by his side, and now I was going to cry like a pup.

“Why am I so weak?” I demanded of myself. The feeling of utter helplessness wouldn’t let me breathe as I ran from the Alpha that had become my close friend, trying to give me a chance at life.

“Not weak,” Tom countered. “You must protect the pack. Protect mate.”

“I KNOW!” I exclaimed, cutting him off.

I didn’t need validation right now. I needed not to be abandoning Langston like a coward. I needed… I didn’t know what I needed. The sounds of fighting behind me were wholly one-sided. The gnashing of Langston’s teeth, his growls, and the sound of his paws on the ground were almost deafening as I tried to block them out. The only sound I could tell was from Bygrave was the solid crunching of him meeting Langston’s flesh, accentuated by the occasional involuntary yip from the pain it caused. It didn’t sound like Langston was doing much damage of his own if any. Then, I heard it. A sound that I’m sure I’ll never forget and was etched into my mind permanently at that moment.

A crunch echoed through the forest like the shattering of a tree, and it was followed by a guttural, agonized scream that tore through the distance straight to my core. I felt it. I didn’t know what, but it broke something inside me too. I was no longer afraid.

“No!” Tom demanded. “We have to get to mate!”

I ignored him as I turned on my heel and launched myself back into the direction of Langston and Bygrave.

“I see you’re coming back to me, instead. My job will be much easier; I thank you!” he called to me loudly from afar, his humorous tone infuriating.

I doubled my effort, sprinting what would probably be the fastest I’d ever run in my life. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to tear him apart; I wanted his limbs to adorn the ground as I looked into his terror-stricken eyes before ripping his head from his shoulders. He would look down on no one else. We didn’t know our place? No, he hadn’t learned his yet.

I could smell b***d as I got closer, and I broke through the trees where Bygrave was standing on the lawn, no longer perfectly manicured. Trees had fallen on the grass, split and broken into shattered bits with earth scattered around where their fight had poured out of the cover of the forest. I met Bygrave’s eyes, and he smiled at me as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the grime he’d accumulated.

“I swear the uncivilized manner in which your people fight astounds me. Literal dogs.” He spat at the ground in disdain, and that’s when I saw him. Langston was in human form, prostrated at Bygrave’s feet. Lying face down, I could see him struggling to draw in breath in agonal gasps. He was covered in contusions, but the immediately apparent one was an enormous wound blossoming near the midpoint of his lumbar.

Pushing himself up in agony, Langston gasped, “Run!”

In horror, I realized what Bygrave had done; Langston’s spine was shattered. That was the cracking I’d heard so far away. Langston could only move his upper body as he made anguishing pleas for me to leave him to die.

“I won’t let you die,” I growled, the words barely escaping my lips as the rage blanketed me. It felt like every atom in my body was humming, and my skin was on fire. I needed to spill the vampire’s b***d. Harlan Bygrave needed to die.

“You don’t have a choice here, but I admire your pluck, young man.”

“I’ll f*****g end you,” I declared, not even in control of myself anymore. This had reached a crescendo that I wouldn’t be able to back away from, although I couldn’t say that I wanted to either.

“You ride the line between laudable and foolish for thinking you can do so, but I believe the latter is more appropriate,” Bygrave told me, stepping forward and placing his heel onto Langston’s back, right where it was broken. He pressed down, letting his weight rest on Langston, and that scream tore through me once more.

I was shifted and through the air before I had the conscious thought to do so. I crashed into Bygrave, and his eyes widened in surprise as I tried to close my jaws over his face, intent on obliterating it to nothing. He managed to get his hands up in time to keep my teeth from closing, but they sank into his face and drew b***d before he was able to push himself away from me. My initial lunge pushed us far away from Langston, though, so for the moment, he was alive behind me and away from the clash. I was determined to keep him that way, and I was going to make good on my promise to kill Bygrave to do it. Never in my life had I thought that I was a match for an Alpha, but every fiber of my being told me I was going to kill this Sire that had rendered an Alpha to a broken mess with relative ease. I was a warrior, and neither titles nor power mattered anymore, only my will to end the leech in front of me.

“How dare…” Bygrave started to spit, his hand clutching his face where my teeth had butchered it. I didn’t care for his speeches or his taunts anymore. He could take that to his grave. I lunged once more, interrupting his angry declaration, intent on hitting his face or his neck. This time, he swatted me away, hard. I acknowledged the pain but ignored it. f**k him and f**k whatever he just broke.

I relentlessly attacked every opening or spot left unguarded by Bygrave, focused on tearing him to shreds in any way I could now that he was foiling my plan to end this quickly. His expression had shifted from disdain to humor at his defeat of Langston, to anger at my attack, and now to nothing short of desperation. I had no thoughts beyond killing Bygrave and getting back to Langston. That was all that mattered.

“What… are you?” he roared, rocking back on his heels and unable to formulate an attack of his own.

If I had been able to answer him, I don’t know that I could have. What had I become? One minute I was a frightened child being protected by an Alpha, and now I was striking fear into the vampire that had crippled him.

“Enough of this s**t,” I raged.

I couldn’t get an opening to kill Bygrave or even tear off anything to gain the upper hand. It was clear they had been training to fight wolves on four legs. While werewolves usually fight in their wolf form, that didn’t mean it’s the only way that I could fight.

I launched myself very openly at his face, making him think I’d made a mistake. His face turned from desperation to glee in an instant as his hand flashed out in a powerful overhand punch that would have probably separated my bottom jaw from my muzzle, only I wasn’t there anymore. I’d shifted back, ducking under his punch, my knee hit the ground between his legs, and my arms wrapped around behind his knees. My ear found his h*p, and I knew I had him. His momentum carried him right into my arms, and I accepted him eagerly. I exploded to my feet, easily lifting him into the air over my shoulder. Without hesitation, I swung his legs to one side and dropped him to the ground beneath me, driving my shoulder into his chest with every ounce of force I could muster in my body. I heard the breath forced from his body as it was trapped between the unforgiving earth and my shoulder before it shattered beneath him, leaving us in a crater in the shape of his body. B***d spewed from his mouth as I turned my gaze towards him, easily mounting his now weakened frame with one knee next to each h*p. Bygrave weakly reached upward towards my chest, trying fruitlessly to push me away. I grabbed one of his wrists firmly in my hand and used the other at his elbow to straighten it, and then I drove my hand through his elbow, snapping his arm in two. Tom purred as Bygrave’s screams of agony began to calm the gaping hole that Langston’s screams of pain tore into my soul. To Bygrave’s apparent horror, I grabbed his other wrist and repeated the process. Now with two shattered arms, he had no recourse to protect himself from me, and I knew this was the end of his life. He knew it too.

Bygrave closed his eyes; I don’t know who he was praying to because it wouldn’t help him now. I grabbed his hair, wrenching his head from the impression in the ground he was molded into. Extending my claw with the other hand, I slashed across his throat and tore it open. B***d drenched me, and Bygrave tried in vain to grasp his throat with his mangled appendages as the life began to fade from his eyes. Standing up, I used his hair to pull him to his knees while he continued to attempt to draw breath after agonizing bloody breath ineffectually.

Using his hair to turn his gaze towards Langston, I forced him to look at the person he’d so distastefully thought was beneath him. It would be the last thing he would see. Langton’s face was a mixture of emotion I couldn’t read, but for a second, I thought I saw horror breakthrough. Stepping behind Bygrave, I reached around his face and grabbed his chin. Placing my knee at the base of his neck, I pushed with my knees and pulled with my hands violently. The vampire’s head ripped from his body which fell heavily away from me, now free of the only thing holding it upright. Looking down, Bygrave was still blinking and looked like he wanted to say something but lacked the vocal cords to do so.

Looking into his eyes, I spat, “f**k you.”

With that, I flattened my hands on either side of his head and put all of my strength into forcing them together. I struggled, and my biceps felt like they were going to tear from my arms, but it finally gave way. Bygrave’s skulls shattered in my grasp, and he was rendered to nothing more than the stains on my hands.

Not bothering to clean the b***d and filth from myself or find clothes, I darted to Langston’s side. I didn’t think I could make his spinal injury much worse by moving him, and he would die if I left him, so I picked him up in my arms gently and began my way towards the car. I strained my ears for any sign of vampires along the way, but no one ever came. They probably thought sending a Sire for a wolf or two was overkill, and it should have been. All I knew was that I needed to get Langston to safety, and I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from that mission. Trudging through the forest, I still didn’t see anyone, and as I approached the car, I focused on the sounds and scents around us. Nothing. It was a good sign, but I still steeled myself to the fact that if anyone stood between me and the car or Langston’s safety, they’d never stand for anything else ever again.