BloodMoon: Captivated by the Forbidden Lycan Alpha
Chapter 242: BLOOD THAT CRAWLS

Chapter 242: BLOOD THAT CRAWLS

{"You can’t wash away blood with more blood."}

He rose, slowly, deliberately like a monarch waking from a long, patient slumber. Ash Marcel stood at the centre of the core chamber; his body drenched from head to toe in fresh, slick blood. It dripped from his fingertips, coiled like serpents around his arms, and pooled beneath his bare feet like a living sacrifice. I did not know where the blood came from.

But the mountain did, and the stone drank it, and around him, the very core pulsed with a terrible rhythm, each beat echoing like a war drum through the marrow of my bones. My throat tightened as I had seen horrors before. I had hunted monsters beneath moons both black and red. But this... this was not a monster. This was a hunger given form. This was death with a crown and a name.

This was Ash Marcel. He opened his eyes, black pits rimmed with ember gold, and smiled like he had already won. The blood on his face cracked as he grinned, thick and sticky like tar. "You brought your best," he said, voice low, guttural, and giddy with madness. "Good. I want to taste the heart of every legend before I end your world."

Beside me, Tor stepped forward instinctively. Sierra let out a gasp. Rou growled under his breath, and Rolan braced like he was already mid-shift, Qadira’s power. The silence was shattered, and with a flick of his blood-drenched wrist, the ground beneath us cracked like shattered bone. A tremor surged outward, hurling us off balance. I stumbled backward, catching myself against Tor just as Rolan dropped into a crouch, claws out, teeth bared.

Then came the scream, and the air twisted until the scream came not through our ears but straight into our minds. Rita doubled over, her hands clutching her head. Flora yanked her close, shielding her with her body even as her eyes went wide in terror. Qadira gasped and grabbed her chest, magic flaring uncontrolled around her in sparks and streaks of energy.

Tor’s voice was the only thing that grounded me. "GET DOWN!"

I dropped. A heartbeat later, the entire ceiling of the chamber exploded, and the stone rained like daggers. A blast of blood-soaked energy spiralled from Ash’s body, red and black and wrong. It struck the far wall, melting the obsidian into a slick pool of corrupted magic. The chamber wailed, like it knew it was dying.

And in the centre of it all... Ash Marcel laughed like a man who had been waiting centuries for this exact moment. "Do you know what the core feeds on?" he said, stepping forward as the blood on the ground followed him like a tide. "Hope. Love. Valor. I starved it long enough. Now it is hungry, and I brought you to feed it."

He stretched out his arms, and the mountain bed filled with blood beneath our feet began to rise, forming blades, tendrils, and claws. My heart slammed against my ribs. My skin crawled, and I sensed that Ash Marcel was launching a hard attack, and this time, he would aim to kill.

I saw him move before anyone else did, and my mate Tor, bound to the moon, tempered in war, rose into the storm like he belonged in it. The full moon cast its pale silver through the jagged cracks in the core’s ceiling, slicing the chaos in shards of light. And there, in the centre of the madness, my mate stood, eyes glowing silver-blue, fur laced with moonlight, fangs glinting as his Lycan form took full rein.

Ash laughed. "You again?"

Tor did not answer with words, but he lunged. The chamber split with the force of the impact of Lycan against the blood-forged god. Tor struck Ash with the weight of a mountain behind him, claws slashing straight across the vampire’s chest, tearing through the blood armor like paper.

Ash stumbled. Stumbled with a shock in his expression that was brief, but it was there. "You bleed," Tor growled, voice distorted, deep, terrifying. "Good. That means I can rip you apart."

Ash snarled, his face twisting. The blood around him coiled tighter, faster, but Tor was already moving, dodging the blood vines that rose from the ground, spinning midair, landing another brutal strike across Ash’s face that sent blood spattering onto the walls. I could not help it, I roared. Every part of me burned with pride, and I shifted into my vampire form.

Sierra stepped forward, her eyes wide. "By the stars... he’s pushing him back."

Rou snarled in approval beside her. "The Lycan’s found his prey."

Ash was reeling now, backing toward the corrupted core stone, fury warping his features and that is when "You think..." he spat blood and laughed, "...that this is all I am?"

Tor growled low and thunderous in response, ready to strike again, and the blood around Ash began to boil. The stone at his back cracked open not like shattering rock, but like skin splitting to reveal flesh. Veins of red and black magic pulsed through the air, and the corrupted core hummed with unnatural life.

"No," Ash whispered, and his bones snapped, and his body twisted. His arms stretched unnaturally long, fingers splitting into claws, his spine tearing through his skin in sharp ridges. Horn, not born but molten obsidian erupted from his skull, curling back like the crown of something born beneath nightmares. And then came the wings, blood-woven things. Ragged and Massive. Beating once, and the wind of it sent us all sliding across the stone floor.

Ash Marcel was gone, and what stood before us was evil that had risen. Its mouth split wider than a face should allow, revealing rows of jagged teeth behind a skeletal mask of crimson and black. The laugh that followed was no longer human. It was a reverberation, and I felt bone and marrow.

"I fed on a thousand souls," it said. "You’ll be next."

Ash Marcel lunged, faster than before, striking Tor with a roar that sent sparks and blood flying. I felt my blood sing and not with fear but with remembrance.

"I am Freyr Kayne," I said aloud, voice carrying, echoing, catching fire in the magic-thick air. "Son of Paradise Bay Coven and protector of Hanka Island, the home of Dragon Gerod, Heir of the Mira flame. Keeper of the Kayne Stone vows to end you today, and you will never rise again."

Ash’s grin faltered. "Your name," I continued, raising my hand, "will be forgotten. Mine will burn into the mountain."

And then I pushed all my powers, and the magic surged through me, not borrowed, not summoned, but mine. I felt the ocean salt of Hanka rise behind my ribs, the strength of Gerod’s blood running through my limbs, the burn of Mira’s living light swirling around my wrists, and the cold, carved certainty of the Kayne Stone shining from the centre of my chest.

Ash lunged but I was faster. I became the beast of the Paradise Vampire coven, and silver fire met blood-born horror. I struck him with a force that shattered the core floor. My first blow burned through his wing. My second cracked his jaw sideways. The third, imbued with the Kayne stone’s pulse, went straight through his chest. His form rippled. Magic broke around him. He stumbled back, eyes wide, gagging, choking on the purity of the powers I had become. Blood gushed from his mouth, and his skin boiled.

This was the opportunity, and with one final strike. The Mira Flame ignited around my fist as I slammed it into his heart. Ash Marcel gagged as he attempted to scream, and then he collapsed. His body dissolved into blood. It hissed as it hit the stone. I stood tall, panting, glowing, trembling, but still on my feet, and then felt the Tor’s claws go round my waist, and he pulled close to his body, and he was the anchor that I needed to calm down.

Ash Marcel’s body did not fall like a warrior; it melted. His form crumpled, then spilled, turning into thick, dark blood that puddled in the middle of the core chamber. For a moment, none of us moved. The silence was too absolute, too wrong. It was not the silence of peace. It was the kind that wraps around your throat and waits to tighten.

I stepped forward slowly, blade still in hand, Kayne stone pulsing cold in my chest. The blood did not soak into the ground like it should’ve. It shimmere,d and then it moved. Tor came up beside me, already growling low. I could feel the others react behind me, Sierra whispering a spell, Rolan shifting his stance, Qadira’s breath catching.

Then the blood rose, and it twisted into a shape tall, thin, familiar, and wrong in every way. Eyes that glinted silver. A mouth that curved into a knowing smirk. It was not Ash’s body. It was not even his monstrous form. It was... the shadow of him. Something left behind.

"Do you think," it rasped, its voice sharp enough to pierce marrow, "you’ve won anything?"

I gritted my teeth. It was not him. Just a remnant. An echo and a curse. The image pulsed as if feeding off our attention. My hands curled into fists.

"Kill the body. Kill the monster. But the darkness has already sunk its claws deep. It festers in your kingdoms. In the cracks of your peace. In your hearts, you never question."

The blood climbed the stone behind it, crawling upward like veins.

"Even now," it said, voice like rotting silk, "one stands close to you, and you won’t know peace," the echo whispered. "Not until you tear it all down... and look within."

Then it smiled. That same smug, sick grin Ash always wore when he knew he had cut too deep and the blood erupted. Splattered the ceiling. Coated the walls. And then silence. It was gone.