When fate and worlds collide

05| Violent Confrontation

Daegon’s head snapped down toward the courtyard as pain and terror detonated through the pack link. Ice flooded his veins, rage igniting just beneath it. The Dark Aura grinned up at him. Trixa lay pinned beneath her, the witch’s knee driven into her ribs, long black nails wrapped tightly around her throat. Blood seeped between Trixa’s fingers as she clawed uselessly at the grip, her breath hitching in shallow gasps. Daegon flattened his ears and dropped from the roof in a single fluid motion. He landed with lethal precision, stalking forward, golden eyes locked on the witch. The growl in his chest deepened as he drew harder on the merged Aura power—feeling the bond strain, the connection beginning to fray.

“Ah,” the Dark Aura purred, tightening her grip until Trixa whimpered. “So the mighty Lycan King does have a heart.”

“Release her,” Daegon spoke coldly, every word edged in steel, “and I will grant you a quick death.” The pack snarled through the link. Treyton moved to Daegon’s side without hesitation, stance solid, eyes burning.

“You still don’t understand, do you, mutt?” The witch laughed, shrill and unhinged, her eyes blazing as she pulled on her Aura. “Your life ended the moment you stepped onto this land. This power? This destruction?” She bared her teeth in a savage grin. “Your death was always inevitable. You just couldn’t be satisfied with slaughtering my kind once.” Trixa struggled again. The nails sank deeper. Blood pooled beneath her, soaking into the dirt until the earth turned slick and dark.

“It’s not too late, Nerezza—” Trixa gasped. The name detonated.

“ENOUGH!” Nerezza shrieked, her voice fracturing as power exploded outward. Daegon felt it instantly—the shift. Her magic surged, thickened, warped by the crystal clenched in her hand. The last trace of blue light vanished, replaced by a swirling, oily darkness that pulsed hungrily. “I will destroy you all!” she screamed, eyes wild, unhinged. “You filthy mongrels! Mangy mutts! A plague that should have been wiped from this world!” She raised the crystal high, ancient words tearing from her throat—layered, distorted, echoing with voices not her own—as the land itself seemed to recoil.

Daegon’s stance didn’t falter. But for the first time since the battle began, he understood one thing with terrifying clarity: This was no longer just a hunt. It was a reckoning.

“Daegon, get out of here!” Trixa’s scream cut through the chaos.

He surged forward, muscles coiled and Aura blazing—but Nerezza was faster. The Dark Aura slammed the black crystal against Trixa’s exposed wound. The she-wolf screamed, a sound so raw and primal it made the very ground tremble beneath them. Nerezza’s voice rose over the roar, echoing through the yard, through their minds, threading into their souls.

Daegon leapt—only to be blindsided from the side. The impact drove him sliding across the scorched earth, shards of stone biting into his paws before he skidded to a halt. Pain lanced through his ribs. He rose to his feet, teeth bared, muscles trembling with barely restrained fury.

Across the yard, what should have been feral rogues were vampires, moving with deadly grace, their dark forms shielded beneath the storm clouds. His pack fought fiercely, claws and fangs clashing, but the vampires were everywhere, slipping past him with impossible stealth. How had they breached his perimeter without detection? His nostrils flared—then the horrifying realization hit: Nerezza had been masking their presence, weaving her power to hide them in plain sight. His growl ripped from his chest, low and feral. He hurled his power at the nearest vampire. The creature disintegrated mid-step, fangs and claws shattering into ash. A flicker of satisfaction flared inside him, quickly drowned by the urgency of the rest.

He surged forward, drawing every ounce of Aura he could summon, the energy humming violently around him. The imbalance made the ground pulse and the air thick with electric tension. If he could not defeat her alone, he would take every one of these monsters with him. The pack poured through the treeline, a tide of fangs and claws, joining the fray against the vampires with a unified, lethal rhythm.

“Do it, Daegon! Do it! Kill the b***h!” Trixa’s scream pierced his mind, every syllable a dagger of pain, igniting his resolve. He felt the weight of his pack behind him—their loyalty, their fury, their unflinching trust. They had chosen him as their shield and sword. Horror clenched his gut as Nerezza yanked the crystal from Trixa’s throat and drove it into her chest. A sickening sizzle filled the air, the stench of burning flesh stinging his nostrils. The aura connection between him and Trixa flickered violently, unstable, threatening to tear them both apart. He drew in a steadying breath, muscles taut, preparing to sever the link before she could exploit it.

Before he could move, a colossal weight slammed down. The earth shuddered as debris, lifted by Nerezza’s dark power, rained down, crushing Daegon into the dirt. Pain tore through him, fire erupting along his back and limbs as rubble pressed into his bones. The witch’s manic laughter cut above the storm, sharp and cruel, resonating in every corner of his mind. Darkness coiled around him, suffocating, swallowing him whole.

~*~

Muffled screams reached Daegon through layers of ringing pain, each one a blade to the chest. The sharp, hollow sting told him what his mind already knew—three of his Lycans were dead, and at least half a dozen werewolf’s. A low groan tore from his throat as he forced awareness back into his battered body. Every breath burned. He tested his limbs, inch by inch, and confirmed he’d reverted to human form. Good. That meant he was still alive. It also meant the crushing weight pinning him wasn’t his own doing.

The witch had dropped something enormous on him. Efficient, but annoying.

He braced his palms against broken stone and timber and tried to rise. The debris answered by settling harder, driving the air from his lungs. Daegon bared his teeth and drew on his power, slow and deliberate. Control first. Rage later. The weight shifted—just enough to force a narrow gap and drag himself through, skin tearing, breath ragged. He hit the ground on his side, mud splashing up his arms. Then the smell reached him.

Daegon froze.

This wasn’t rain-soaked earth. The ground was slick with blood—thick, metallic, and overwhelming. Feral rogues and His pack. Lycans. Werewolves. Panic flared, sharp and vicious, before he strangled it down. He hauled his wolf to the surface, vision sharpening as the world snapped into brutal clarity. His gaze swept the ruins, searching for the Dark Aura. The fury boiling in his gut threatened to drown him in red. When he found her, he would tear her apart slowly. His jaw snapped in frustration—and then his eyes caught on Trixa. She lay where the witch had pinned her, unmoving.

“Trixa,” Daegon snarled, already moving. He tore through a rogue feral without breaking stride, claws ripping, bones snapping. “Trixa, Get up.” The command thundered through the pack link. The vampires remained perched across the shattered remains of the mansion, blood-red eyes gleaming as they watched the c*****e with lazy amusement. Spectators. Predators waiting their turn. Trixa let out a faint, broken cry. Pain surged through the link, nearly buckling Daegon as he reached her side.

“Daegon…” Her voice was thin, fraying. She lifted her head just enough to meet his eyes, desperation burning there. “She… stop her… before she…destroys…” Her strength gave out. Trixa’s wolf head fell back, her words collapsing into silence.

The world shuddered. The ground beneath them convulsed, trees groaning, mountains trembling as if something vast had stirred beneath the skin of the earth. Combat stalled. Feral rogues froze mid-lunge. His pack faltered, eyes darting, instincts screaming. The air went unnaturally still—like the world itself had drawn in a breath. A maniacal cackle drifted down from above. Daegon’s head snapped up.

High in the air, wreathed in dark power, the Dark Aura floated above them all. Dark tendrils coiled and writhed around Nerezza’s body, threading through the air like living shadows. Both crystals in her hands pulsed with an unnatural light as ancient words poured relentlessly from her mouth. Daegon’s wolf bristled beneath his skin, hackles lifting as a deep, instinctive dread twisted his gut.

This was wrong.

This, was catastrophic.

Nerezza’s head snapped toward him and Trixa. Her eyes burned a violent red, the whites drowned entirely in black. Fangs elongated until they nearly brushed her chin as she hissed—and her voice did not travel through the air so much as crawl directly into his mind.

‘You are too late.’ The sound of her—of them—scraped against his thoughts like claws on stone. ‘The world I am about to create will have your mutts kneeling as my slaves.’ Daegon snarled, forcing his will up like a shield, trying to drive her presence from his head. It was useless. Her power surged far beyond what he could counter, a tide swollen with something ancient and obscene. ‘When I am finished with this world—and the next—everything you were, everything you loved, will be erased.’ She continued. The earth convulsed violently, pitching Lycans and ferals alike to the ground. Trees groaned. Stone split. Daegon planted himself over Trixa’s fallen body, claws digging into the blood-soaked earth, teeth bared as he stared up at the witch.

‘One day,’ he hurled back through the pack link, his voice a promise carved in fury, ‘I will sink my teeth into your throat. You will die by my hand before I leave this world.’ Nerezza sneered, delight twisting her ruined features. She lifted her arms high above her head and screamed a single word—one so old, so heavy with power, it felt as though the planet itself answered her call. Light detonated.

Daegon was blinded as the ground heaved once more, reality tearing at the seams—and then darkness swallowed everything.