BloodMoon: Captivated by the Forbidden Lycan Alpha
Chapter 238: BEAST BENEATH THE BLOODSTONE

Chapter 238: BEAST BENEATH THE BLOODSTONE

{"Whoever among you sees an evil action, then let him change it with his hand"}

We all turned to the door, and I turned before the final echo faded. Lord Marcel stood across the room, framed by obsidian columns veined with veins of red-gold light. Dressed in black layered with deep wine-red silk, tall and still as a statue carved by something older than time.

And the smile on his face was the kind that did not reach his eyes.

"Well," he said smoothly, "so the curious little mice found my brother."

Qadira stepped forward, voice low and shaking. "He’s alive."

Lord Marcel’s smile did not move. "Alive is... not the word I would use. But he breathes. He remembers. He hungers."

"You chained him to an evil mountain stone!" Qadira snapped.

Marcel’s gaze flicked to him lazily. "You think I could contain him if I didn’t?"

I stepped in front of Qadira, my voice cold. "You are a bastard, Marcel; you do not deserve to live.

Marcel’s smile widened unnatural now, teeth just a little too sharp.

"Because dear Cassius is more useful to be broken than buried. He speaks to the mountain. Or perhaps the mountain speaks through him. Either way, I let him sleep... until now."

Qadira was trembling. "You monster," she whispered.

Lord Marcel’s expression did not change. "You say that as if it matters. Your brother Frery killed him."

He leaned forward, just slightly. "And I kept him alive so that he could kill Frery Kayne."

A slow rumble rolled through the earth. The stones beneath our feet pulsed faintly red.

Rita tensed beside me. "Flora—"

"I know."

He was stalling. Cassius was waking. And the mountain... The mountain was answering his blood, and Lord Marcel looked at us like a cat watching cornered birds.

"Run, if you like," he said gently. "It will make the hunt more... entertaining."

His voice dripped smugness, that dark, velvet arrogance filling the chamber like smoke. Lord Marcel had just whispered his threat, a promise wrapped in elegance and decay.

"Run, if you like..."

He turned, casually, as if he could vanish and that is when it happened and Rolan moved, not with warning, one breath, he was beside me. The next he was shifting and bones cracked. Flesh rippled. His body erupted in dark fur and muscle, not fully transformed, but enough. Claws burst from his hands, fangs from his snarling mouth. A half-shifted Rogourau, a sight I had only heard whispered in ancient pack tales.

He slammed into Marcel, and the vampire lord’s eyes went wide as Rolan’s clawed hand raked down his chest, tearing through fabric and flesh. Marcel staggered back, hissing, but before he could recover.

Rita roared and it was not just sound. It was power and it surged through the chamber like a tremor, a wave of molten earth and fire drawn straight from the soul of the mountain. The ground cracked. The torches flared. Even the barrier behind us shimmered violently.

Marcel dropped to his knees, coughing, stunned, afraid and I saw it and there was fear in his eyes.

"Impossible..." he rasped.

"You’re not the only one that has connection to the mountains.," Rita growled, stepping forward, eyes glowing like lit magma, her voice a low echo of something ancient.

Then came Qadira as she moved so fast, I almost missed it, a blur of red-gold motion and magic. Her hand pressed to the runes on the inner wall of the barrier.

"No!" Marcel barked, suddenly scrambling.

It was too late, the barrier flashed, then snapped, and the magic pulled us like a tide. We were expelled from the chamber, thrown into the open passage outside with brutal force. The stone cracked where we landed, hard and ungracefully. I hit the ground on my side; breath ripped from my lungs, but I was alive.

Qadira had managed to move us from the chambers, and Lord Marcel had come with us.

Before he could move, Rolan and Rita were on him. One clawed hand to his throat, the other gripping his arm like a vice. Marcel struggled, a snarl on his lips, but the power radiating from the two Rogourau warriors kept him pinned to the mountain floor.

His face twisted, not in pain but in disbelief. "You..." he hissed, eyes locked on Rolan. "You are not just a shifter. What are you?"

Rolan did not answer. He just growled, low and guttural, and Marcel flinched. And for the first time, I saw what the legends had never dared to name: Fear in the face of a beast even the vampires forgot to prepare for. Marcel was still snarling beneath Rolan’s grip, but I could see it now, that sheen of sweat on his brow, the slight tremble in his arms.

"You don’t know what you’ve started," he hissed at us, lips curling back. "He’ll rise... and when he does, none of you—"

Rolan did not let him finish, and with a guttural growl, his clawed hand slashed across Marcel’s throat in a vicious, clean arc.

I gasped as blood burst from the wound, black-red and steaming, splattering the stone. Marcel’s eyes flew wide, hands clawing at his neck as he gurgled and choked. He sagged under Rolan’s weight, his expression flickering between shock and fury, then fading into unconsciousness as his body slumped to the floor.

I stood, heart hammering, unsure if it was over... or just beginning, and then a sound so loud, roared so deep, ancient, and furious ripped through the mountain like a living earthquake. It vibrated through the walls, the floor, and through me. Every instinct screamed to run, but I could not move. Behind the sealed magic chamber, Cassius Marcel was awakened, and we were sure he had felt his brother’s blood spill. The walls around the door pulsed red. The barrier hissed like it was breathing, and then Rita stepped in front of me, her blade drawn. "He knows."

Qadira did not speak. She stared at the barrier, eyes wide, lips parted not in fear, but recognition. Like some part of her had been waiting for this, dreading it.

The ground had barely stopped trembling, and Lord Marcel lay at our feet, bleeding and unconscious, his pale skin now smeared in dark blood. Rita stood over him like a sentinel, jaw locked, blade still drawn. Qadira had not moved, her gaze fixed on the pulsating barrier, as if waiting for it to split open and unleash the nightmare we all knew waited behind it. Then Rolan spoke, his voice was low. Rough. But resolute.

"This is the moment." We turned toward him. "This... this was always our part to play," he said, stepping away from Marcel, his beast still just beneath the skin. "Freyr, Tor, they are heading for Ash Marcel and that shadow-creature. But we are not leaving this mountain until Cassius Marcel is dead."

Qadira finally turned toward him, her eyes wide. "You saw what he was, what he became after Freyr beheaded him. That thing in the chamber is not just a vampire. It is something twisted by death and time and dark magic. He is not Cassius anymore."

"He is," Rolan said evenly. "And he remembers you, Qadira. That means he will come for you. We use that. We end this now before he gets out."

Rita nodded. "We do not retreat. Not when the path forward is the only way left."

I looked at each of them: my mate, the deadly warrior, the haunted princess, and the half-shifted Rogourau who had just torn a vampire lord apart without blinking. We were a strange army, but we were all that stood between that thing and the world outside.

I stepped up beside Rolan, drawing both blades from my back, the cold steel a comfort in my palms. "Then let’s finish what we came here to do."

The chamber thrummed like a living thing, and the pulsing magic was not just holding Cassius Marcel in it was feeding him. Each flicker of red light along the barrier walls carried power, blood, and ancient darkness. It wanted to stand on the edge of a beating heart that hated you.

"Are we doing this?" I asked, more to myself than the others.

"Yes," Rolan said, already placing Marcel’s limp body against the outer wall. "We finish him... or he finishes everything."

Qadira stepped forward, and the air around her shifted. Her hands glowed with pale violet fire, runes racing up her arms like veins made of magic. There was no hesitation in her now, only fury, barely contained. "He remembered my name," she whispered. "Now he’ll remember my wrath."

With a sharp breath, she placed her hands against the barrier, and a hum like a scream filled the tunnel, and light exploded across the stone. The runes flared, flickered, and then the barrier cracked down the middle with a deafening snap. Energy blasted out from it, knocking grit and dust into the air. The scent of rot and ancient blood hit us all at once.

The barrier fell, and the chamber was open. Rita stepped in first, her eyes glowing molten gold, blades drawn. Rolan followed her, half-shifted still, growling low in his throat. Qadira was beside me, fire coiled in her palms. And we were surprised that Cassius Marcel was now up, and he stood at the centre of the chamber like a god of death. His body, once graceful and lean, was now a twisted blend of vampire and shadow. His hair was streaked with ash. Eyes, if you could still call them that, turned red and hollow, glowing like coals inside a skull.

He grinned when he saw us. "Ah. The living." His voice was not a voice. It was breath and hate and memory, all folded into one.

"I was beginning to think you’d run."

"No," I said, stepping forward, blades raised. "We came to kill you."