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

Chapter 10 — The Shattered Sanctuary

Chapter 10 — The Shattered Sanctuary

Iron-rimmed wheels of wooden carriage creaked heavily against rocky mountain road, crunching their way through dense, low-lying fog of the northern valley. Elena leaned head against frost-chilled window pane, clutched Kaelen’s heavy wool shawl tight around shoulders. Miles she climbed higher into whispering crags the stranger sensation of false security settled around her.

Six of Kaelen’s most fierce and loyal pack warriors escorted her – men who had shed their blood with Alpha on freezing battlefields in the north.

Their comforting scent of iron and wolfpelt filled crisp air, barrier against outside world. Despite profound silence of the mountains, an achingly empty hollow grew in Elena’s chest, each thunderous beat of horses’ hooves hammering home that she was drifting farther from Kaelen. She missed his comforting weight of hand, heady scent of winter rain and cedarwood, golden glare of his eyes that promised her kingdom. By late afternoon, outpost was visible, hiding behind twin gargantuan rock formations: an ancient and beautiful cabin crafted of obsidian stone and solid timber, a fort-within-a-fort, secreted away from eyes of the living.

Elena walked into warmth of hearth already roaring with fire, cozy dark wooden rooms hushed and quiet.

For a few hours, she finally allowed herself to breathe, convinced that she was safely out of enemy’s grasp. She never could have imagined that patrol coordinates their guards received from Beta were riddled with deception; that blind spots they had been instructed to protect were open highways for the monsters in shadows. Midnight descended like an inky shroud, silencing even the whispering crags with an unnatural hush.

Elena sat beside dwindling embers of the cabin hearth, sigh escaping lips as she closed her eyes and sent a silent plea through their bond to Kaelen. Achanak, ek khaufnak saaya khidki ke baahar se guzra. Before Elena could even register movement, ear-splitting, soul-wrenching howl tore through night, sending the glass windowpane to a million shattered pieces.

The sound was followed by scores of – nay, hundreds – of sharp, ravenous snarls from all directions.

Elena’s heart pounded against her ribs, jolting her to feet. She rushed to the fractured window, her eyes expanding to nearly impossible size in absolute terror. Illuminated by pale crescent moon, snow-dusted clearing surrounding the cabin was alive with swarming grey wolves, hulking and muscular with glowing crimson eyes. Frostclaw pack had come.

They hadn’t come to skirmish; they had come with an army.

“Luna!

Stay inside!”

the lead loyal guard, hulking brute named Samuel, bellowed as he kicked the heavy door open.

In the blink of an eye, Kaelen’s six guards morphed into their huge, dark-furred wolf shapes and, without pause or an iota of fear, hurled themselves into the horde, fighting with wild, savage ferocity. Battle was loud, bloody, and terrifying. Samuel ripped the throats from two Frostclaw wolves in seconds, his own enraged snarls bouncing off the stony cliff faces. The ground quickly becoming a ghastly shade of red as Kaelen’s warriors fought like the very demons of the northern hells, desperately trying to defend their Alpha’s mate.

But the odds were not in their favor.

For every Frostclaw wolf they slayed, five more seemed to rise from the deep shadows of the surrounding trees.

Elena was staring with her eyes glued to the door and with immense pain as the trap enacted its last, bloody toll. Kaelen’s men, who had remained loyal to her, were falling like ninepins all around her, unable to beat back the overwhelming number of the beasts. Four wolves were pulling a younger guard down and a guttural dying scream reverberated from the woods before a giant grey wolf ripped into Samuel’s throat, sending him crashing in to the bloody snow.

She was alone.

BOOM!

The door to the solid cabin was sent flying inward by a concussion force which was so strong that the doors splintered and fell inwards to the center of the cabin in a huge storm of wood splinters and dust. The head honcho of the Frostclaw pack lumbered through the shattered opening in his human form. It was a man as large as he was hideous, with a face crisscrossed by scars made by silver and a huge cloak of polar bear pelts covering him.

His dark eyes met hers at the fireplace and a smug smirk curved his lips.

“So this is it then,” he sneered, his voice a low, rasping purr of absolute malice as he took a step over the debris. “The unmoved waste that made the Supreme Alpha fall on his knees. You stand and shake like a prey bird in fear of her hunter.”

Elena’s whole body trembled; she could barely suck enough air into her lungs to make her next gasp of sheer fear and terror. Every part of her screamed to cower down and whimper like she had under Chloe’s cruel hands but then her fingers touched the cool silver around her neck and Kaelen’s words came thundering through her like wild fire. Your strength comes directly from your soul.

With a furious shriek, she did not shrink back. She snatched a knife from the tool rack next to the hearth, it had a wickedly curved blade, and lifted it before her, brandishing it with both her hands. “Don’t come any closer,” she rasped, her voice thin and desperate. The commander’s eyes widened with a flash of genuine surprise before a rude, contemptuous laugh exploded from his chest.

“A knife?

So cute.”

Before Elena could raise the knife to stab him, the commander flashed before her with the speed of light. His massive hand shot out and smashed against her temple and before she knew what happened the knife fell from her hands and clattered to the ground as her eyes blackened and her limp body collapsed into the rough, calloused hands of the commander. Miles and miles away, in the center of the central Bloodmoon packhouse, the night was unnaturally still. Kaelen stood in the middle of his dark study, poring over a map of the northlands, a phantom feeling of unease tingling under his skin.

Gasp!

Suddenly Kaelen’s entire body seized up; an unbearable, agonizing and utterly crippling flash of phantom pain lanced through his heart making him crash to the floor where he scrabbled to get hold of the hilt of his dagger and pull it out, as he felt as though he was literally clawing his own heart out to release the pain. It was not physical agony. It was the mate bond, straining at its breaking point as a piercing scream of pure fear tore through it on an impossibly high pitch as part of his soul tore away.

“Elena…” he choked out and a cold sweat bead of perspiration rolled down his pale temple. He opened his eyes and his amber color was now an utterly unholy black as his wolf came into effect.A gut wrenching scream of absolute terror and frothing fury burst from his throat as he roared into the void, “You took my queen.”