The Alpha’s Ultimate Command: Rise of the Invisible Luna

Chapter 16: Useless Ash

Chapter 16: Useless Ash

The beta's massive door crashed closed with an abrupt snap. In here he was alone with only the rasping puff of his own breath to keep him company. He collapsed onto the velvet armchair, his hand quaking as he desperately tried to undo the buttons at the top of his tunic collar.

To his right, Chloe was slumped on the edge of the sofa, her face pallid and a silken handkerchief pressed into the damp tissues of her quivering fingers.

They had returned from the prohibited woods in a silent stupor. The old women's words pounded like a Physical blow against his own thoughts, "She's not human, Chloe," he rasped, all alpha power drained from his deep voice. He watched the dying embers in the hearth, "She's a walking disaster... The last shard of the ancient silver wolf.

Her strength is born of soul not of flesh.

We've starved a god."

"I KNOW, FATHER!

I SAW IT!"

Chloe screamed, her fingers flying up to the place on her throat where Elena's grip still burned. "She drank the nightshade as though it were water! She crushed the goblet in her hands!

DO YOU know what she will do to us if she can eviscerate a Frostclaw vanguard without even shifting?"

the Beta clenches his fist on the hidden vial in his palm, a fine dust shimmering like ash within. It is the witch's potion - meant to blow into her face and shattering the illusion of the human, revealing her overwhelming silver wolf-like powers to break Kaelen's alpha as he is made to watch her outdo him. "But we can't just walk up to her!" Chloe cried, wide eyes wide with terror staring at the vial.

"If we try that with Kaelen around she will rip us to pieces in this castle before the dust touches her!"

the Beta's eyes narrow to slits of pure, desperate malice. "Then we move under the cloak of night, waiting for the moment the Alpha's attention is otherwise distracted. It must be done tonight.

I am tired of serving some servent who holds my life in the palm of her hand. Tonight, deep within the cool obsidian halls of bloodmoon estate,braziers set into the stone walls sparkled as their embers died,casting long, languid shadows onto the dark wooden floors. Only the soft padding of footsteps echoed in the eastern corridor.

Kaelen strolled down it with one of his huge arms slung protectively around Elena's minuscule waist, his small wife snuggled tightly against his side.

A rare, genuine smile played upon his lips as he guided his mate towards their private rooms, his voice a low murmur in her ear. Elena walked gracefully by his side with a fluid, womanly movement her dark head resting upon his shoulder, her long dark hair flowing around them like black silk, the picture of delicate frailty that she made out. Deep in the shadowy archway of the hall, the beta waits for them in his darkness, his heart pounding erratically against his chest. His fingers, tremoring violently, pry the cork out of the glass vial.

As Kaelen and Elena approach the shadowy alcove, he takes a shaky breath and takes a careful step into the fringe of the dim archway.

Elena's gossamer white dress swirls around his legs as he raises the vial to his lips and inhales deeply, expelling it forcefully. A puff of ash-gray magic dances forth from it in a nearly invisible plume that travels directly towards elena, his golden eyes flashing as he inwardlycommands reveal yourself creature! Show the alpha what you are!

Just as a single particle of the potion would graze the hem of her dress, however, elena’s hyper-aware senses detect the faint stirring of air and the almost imperceptible sweet scent of dark magic. Without missing a step, she takes two sharp strides backward and pulls the alpha along with her as if she had lost her balance. The magical dust wafted around her like smoke, dissipating against the cold stone floor.

KAelen stops immediately and grabs her tightly by the waist with a worried furrow etched in his brow.

"Elena?

What is it?"

elena lowers her head and lets her dark hair hide her face as she exhales softly and feminine and nestles into his chest, gripping the leather tunic with one of her slender pale fingers. "nothing my love...just a spell of light-headedness. These hallways can get a bit close sometimes."

The alpha instinct in kAelen flares without warning.

Without another word he scoops elena into his arms and proceeds down the hall at a quick pace, his expression grim as concern for his delicate mate dominates his features.

Behind them, melting into the darkness of the doorway, the Beta pinned his back against the stone walls, his skin slicked with a cold sweat. His trump, his illegal card, had been rendered obsolete as if he didn't exist at all. Kaelen rounded the corner and Elena hovered above the Alpha's massive shoulders.

Her dark eyes open looked back into the dark and focused on the cowering Beta.

"So easily vanquished," her eyes whispered and she flashed him a beautiful nightmarish smile through the shadows, showing him a hint of silver edged with ridicule. His little game was nothing to her power. High above the snow capped peaks of Bloodmoon land, a very different kind of war had brewed. In immense fortress deep underground in the eastern mountains, the other Frostclaw leaders and two Alphas of infamously notorious and brutally wicked territories, Shadow-Mane and Jagged-Fang met over an iron table.

They seethed with rage and disbelieve.

"An entire vanguard… slaughtered in an hour," Shadow-Mane grumbled, hammering a clawed fist onto the table, the wood cracking under the force of his impact. "Our most formidable fighters, reduced to stone and ash. The Frostclaw commander, broken like dry reeds.

Kaelen has grown far too arrogant for these trifling wins." Ignorant of the existence of an Ancient Silver Wolf, in their ignorant and bestial world, all they could assume was that Kaelen had walked right into the trap, his Alpha blood having boiled over, and he was so overcome with Alpha fury that he had lost his senses and had his guards annihilated. "We can not tolerate this insult," the last Frostclaw elder shouted, his eyes blazing with a deep-seated hatred.

"If we do nothing he will systematically slaughter our bloodlines.

Mobilize all of our warriors! Gather all of our rogues! We shall march straight into Bloodmoon's territory! We shall raze their pack house and we shall take his head!"

By noon the next day high winds swept through the courtyards of Bloodmoon, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of war.

Kaelen stood in the center of the war room with his highest ranked commanders at his sides. A scout had just galloped into the gates of Bloodmoon's fortress, delivering the dreaded news that a combined force of three of the most ruthless packs had already broken through Bloodmoon's borders and was surging towards the main valley like a horde of locusts.

"You want war?"

Kaelen rumbled, a low, demonic sound that vibrated the swords on the walls. "We will give you a blood bath. Mobilize the vanguard!

All shifted warriors will meet us on the field at dusk.

Show no quarter."

The commanders roared their approval and scattered in order to organize the warriors' weapons and armor. The Bloodmoon pack went into an absolute frenzied, swords clashing, and wolves howling furiously in unison. Kaelen remained in the war room to brace himself for the impending bloodbath and ready to pick up his sword at the forefront of the battle to defend his territory.

What he didn't know was that the battle was not one he could win alone.

High above in the grand library, Elena looked out through an arched window as streams of armored wolves made their way towards the southern gates of the Bloodmoon compound. She lightly traced the ancient red ruby necklace that lay on her collar bone. A quiet smile appeared on her lips and her eyes glittered, transitioning from dark pools into liquid silver.

The invaders were on their way and they marched with supreme confidence believing that they were marching to their doom by encountering pure Alpha fury. They did not know the battlefield they were walking into was owned by a queen…and she was ready to burn them all to the ground.