Page 35 of King of Moon and Claws

He wished he had been warned about it. This made him feel insane.

“Oh, here we are!” Vasilis yelled, calling out through the slashing of rain. “Just as you have promised, silly wolf king. You truly think you can defeat the creatures of the night?”

Bastian barked back, his voice menacing and dangerous even to his ears.

“I’m going to mount your fucking head on my mantel, you shriveled-up corpse fucker.”

The vampire lord, who likely had heard rumors about the Wolf King’s sensible and gentle nature, stood in the furious rainstorm, speechless.

It made Bastian deliriously elated.

His men took their positions, lowering onto all fours. The vampires before the king dropped their jaws open, elongating their canines until they stretched into fangs that glistened in the dim. Their eyes illuminated a startling red as they posed like warriors, their expressions far too self-assured for Bastian’s liking.

“Wolves, attack!”

All of the shifters changed in a snap into their wolf forms along with the king himself, and let out a deafening, howling war cry. The king did, too, wailing into the stormy darkness not only for his people but for his long-lost love.

The war had started.

Vampires and wolves collided with each other, the sound of crunching bones a symphony to Bastian’s ears. He had meant it when he said he wanted the vampire lord’s head, but he lost him once the chaos had erupted. He hoped morbidly that one of his men hadn’t taken his life before he’d wrapped his paws around his throat and crushed his windpipe like a straw.

The king fought valiantly and with a jarring brutality. His vision went black a few times in the hysteria, waking to the sight of glossy blood and severed limbs. It only fueled his thirst. He slashed, he thrashed, he bit and ripped. Nothing was going to stop him until every single vampire lay in their final resting place on the bedding of his damn kingdom.

His fucking Kingdom.

Bastian? Bastian, can you hear me?

He was in the middle of lacerating a vampire’s throat when the most beautiful voice drifted into his mind. It took him a minute to shake off the disorder of the moment and to tap into who was calling his name. She spoke it with a honey tongue like every syllable was a piece of poetry.

Elora? What are you doing? I thought you were leaving.

When she didn’t respond immediately, the king returned to the battle. He used the agony of his heartbreak as an incentive to fight with savagery, making his enemies suffer more than he had previously allowed. He started to see red stain matting his fur, the blood so thick and so dull in the starless night, then he heard her call to him again.

Please listen to me, Bastian! I need you to stop and hear me. Find somewhere else off the battlefield. You have to hear what Serife and I have to say.

Serife? That conniving bitch!

Before Elora could respond, Bastian spotted what he had been searching for throughout the entire monstrous and deadly fight. Vasilis’s eyes, glowing like demonic fireflies, hovering in the inky night.

And the bastard was still fucking smiling.

It was too late for her pleas. The wolf galloped on all fours, thumping against the ground, ready to make that undead bastard meet his maker.

His final maker.

TWENTY-ONE

ELORA

There was no stopping the battle. As soon as Bastian’s speech was finished, he gathered the troops, assembling an army in mere hours. Unless Elora wanted to make a dramatic plea in front of thousands of amped-up shifters, she would have to find another way of getting to him.

Thankfully, she had Serife on her side again. She trusted her in a way only witches could beyond the boundaries of average human connection. They relied on their senses and sensations with the utmost trust, the impenetrable kind that would take humans years of dedicated mindfulness practices to forge.

So together, the witches gathered their shared abilities and experiences to peek into the ongoing battle. Rain hammered down from a bleak, pitch-dark sky, the moon swallowed whole by the storm. Elora stood by the window of the guest room, wringing her thumb between her fingers till it turned blue.

She could see nothing through the silver slashing of rainfall.

“Ready when you are, sweetheart.”

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