The Alpha’s Forbidden Valkyrie

Chapter 18

Jax’s POV

The darkness of the night was torn to shreds by the clash of metal and the sickening sound of tearing flesh. The spacious, muddy courtyard in front of the clubhouse had turned into a literal slaughterhouse.

They outnumbered us. Far more of them had come than we anticipated.

The moment our front line collided with them, I realized instantly that Freya had not been exaggerating. These were no ordinary street bloodsuckers, they were the clan's elite execution squad. They wore fitted black leather gear, and their movements were so unnaturally fast and unpredictable, it was as if they stepped right out of the shadows themselves. Long chains forged from titanium and silver spun in their hands, and even the slightest scratch from their blades caused a searing, paralyzing pain for my wolves.

I tore out a vampire's throat with my bare hands, warm blood spraying across my face, but the moment I shoved the twitching body to the ground, two more jumped into its place. My chest heaved, and a long, silver-inflicted, smoking gash throbbed on my arm, refusing to heal.

"Hold the line!" I roared, kicking back an enemy rushing toward me. "Silas, they're breaking through the left flank! Kane, watch out for the chains!"

My pack fought heroically, but I could see the exhaustion on them. They fought in wolf form, with massive bodies and devastating jaws, but because of the silver weapons, every single hit they took could be fatal. Slowly but surely, we were being pushed back toward the walls of the clubhouse.

Meanwhile, my soul was waging a war on another front.

Through the bond, Freya's emotional state poured into me without stopping. She was crouching up there in my room, locked inside, and her terror weighed on my chest with such a dense, suffocating mass that I could barely even breathe. I felt her panic, her despair, and her gnawing guilt. It was as if this dark, trembling fear wanted to bury my own mind under it as well.

Every single time a wolf howled in pain, the girl's terror crashed through me in a fresh wave. This bond was maddening. I wanted to protect her, but the knowledge that she was so afraid, and that I wasn't there with her, nearly ripped my sanity apart.

A vampire suddenly drove a knee into my back and wrapped a silver chain around my neck. The metal hissed, burning my skin. I clawed at the chain, gagging, trying to rip it off me, while another vampire in front of me raised his titanium knife, aiming straight for my heart.

We are going to lose. This thought pierced through me. There are just too many of them.

And in that fraction of a second, as I prepared for one last, desperate strike, the bond inside my chest changed with sudden, shocking force.

The suffocating, icy terror vanished within a single heartbeat. It was as if someone had sliced a rope. Its place was taken by something entirely different: a hot, pulsing energy glowing in shades of gold. Fear was replaced by rage. Not the blind, destructive rampage of the wolves, but a cold, focused, divine wrath. Such a flood of confidence washed over me through the bond that it pumped fresh strength into me too.

With all my might, I ripped the choking vampire off me and snapped his neck, then sent the one attacking from the front flying into a tree with a single kick.

Suddenly, the heavy, double wooden doors of the clubhouse blew open with a massive crash.

For a single fraction of a second, the noise of the battle seemed to halt. Every gaze, wolf and vampire alike, turned toward the entrance.

There stood Freya.

My massive, black t-shirt still hung on her like a rag, reaching down to the middle of her thighs. She was barefoot, her toes touching the muddy wooden floor. Her blonde hair fell wild and disheveled over her shoulders, her face pale from exhaustion. But her eyes... her eyes were no longer green. They shone in the darkness with a pure, blinding golden light.

And she held something in her right hand. A sword.

Not an ordinary steel blade. The weapon was incredibly long, graceful, and slender, and a faint, silvery-golden light radiated from its blade, as if starlight itself had condensed into metal. Where the hell did she get a sword in my room?! There hadn't been any weapons in there! It seemed as though she had summoned it out of nowhere, from her own soul or her ancient blood.

The vampires' tracker leader, a tall bloodsucker with a scarred face, smirked.

"We have the half-breed!" he shouted to his companions. "Bring her here!"

Three vampires immediately broke away from the wolves and rushed toward Freya with unbelievable speed.

"No!" I screamed, trying to break through the line to reach her, but two of them blocked my path. My heart pounded in my throat. She is still too weak!

But in the next moment, the breath caught in my throat.

Freya did not back down. She didn't even take a defensive stance. Instead, she raised the sword and started walking toward them.

My eyes simply could not follow her movements. She did not move like the vampires, who relied on the raw speed of a predator. Freya's movement... it was poetry itself. She glided through the muddy courtyard at the speed of light, as if gravity didn't even apply to her. Her bare feet barely touched the ground.

The first vampire struck at her with a silver chain. Freya evaded it with a single, graceful dodge, and her sword sliced off the attacker's head with a single sweep, almost soundlessly. The body hadn't even hit the ground by the time the girl was already at the second enemy.

The blade flashed in the dark. The metal chimed as Freya parried the titanium knives with effortless ease. Every movement she made was perfect. There was no cruelty in it, no bloodlust. Just pure, lethal judgment. Every parry, every step, and every cut was sacred. An ancient, divine dance the world hadn't seen for centuries.

The third vampire got behind her back and prepared to strike. Freya spun, the massive black t-shirt billowing around her, and the sword cut the vampire's weapon, and then the man himself, in half with an arched s***h.

The battlefield froze. The members of my pack watched with wide eyes, completely stunned, as the girl we had starved and chained up for three days slaughtered the elite vampire squad in the guise of an angel.

I could see she was dancing on the edge of her physical limits. Her chest heaved heavily, her skin was almost transparently pale, and her hand trembled after certain movements. The valkyrie magic was keeping her alive and moving, consuming the remainder of her energy. But the golden fire in her eyes did not go out.

The tracker leader, seeing the destruction of his men, roared and threw himself straight at Freya, spinning the thickest silver chain in his hand.

"Freya, watch out!" the shout burst from me.

Freya turned toward him. Instead of leaping away from the destructive chain, she gripped the golden-glowing sword with both hands and braced for the impact. The metals met with a deafening clash. Freya slid backward in the mud from the force of the collision, but she didn't fall.

She planted her bare feet, and between her panting lips, the words of some ancient, melodic language suddenly took shape. The moment she uttered them, the blade of the sword exploded with a blinding light, throwing back the darkness.

With a single, decisive shove, she batted the chain aside, then plunged the weapon straight into the leader's heart with a lightning-fast step forward.

The vampire's eyes widened. He stood there for another second, and then his body simply crumbled into ash around the glowing blade, the wind scattering it into the dark. A small, broken glass vial fell to the ground. The carrier of the blood magic.

As the glass shattered into pieces, the remaining vampires froze. I saw the confusion in their eyes. The magic that had guided them this far was gone. On top of that, they had lost their leader. The growling and howling of wolves signaled that my pack had noticed their hesitation.

Freya slowly lowered the sword. The radiance in the blade began to fade, just like the golden light in her eyes. She took a deep, trembling breath, and then her gaze locked straight into mine across the battlefield.

I no longer saw the valkyrie warrior. Just my mate, who had given everything to protect me and my pack. The sword suddenly dissolved into tiny sparks of light in her hand and vanished into nothingness, just like an illusion.

Freya's knees buckled.

Before she could hit the ground, I was already there. I crossed the distance with the speed of the beast and caught her in mid-air, pulling her unconscious body tight against my chest.

"You got what you wanted!" I turned toward my pack while holding the girl in my arms, my voice ringing out clearly over the battlefield. "Kill the rest! Not one leaves here alive!"

As my wolves threw themselves upon the fleeing vampires with bloodthirsty howls, I just bowed my head and pressed my lips against Freya's cold forehead.

I brought a goddess into my house. And I will never, ever let anyone take her from me.