Omega Bound Chapter 280

Thane

The shift tears through me like fire and broken glass, but I barely notice. My wolf had always been massive, a predator that eclipsed most Alphas, but now that I carry the weight of Alpha of Alphas, I feel the earth itself recoil beneath my paws. I am taller and broader. Power ripples off me in waves.

Even before teeth meet flesh, they know what I am.

Beside me, Cyrus explodes into his wolf, Artemis. The gray and black beast snarling like he’s been waiting for this his whole damn life.

The second Ronan is on four legs, the hunger hits.

Blood, bone, death. I want it all.

The Triad lunge, three wolves against me and Cyrus. Sam comes first. His teeth barely graze my side before my jaws snap down on his shoulder. I feel it shatter like twigs underfoot, cartilage popping, tendons tearing. His scream cuts short as I drive him into the mud, bones crunching under my weight. I rip free, flesh tearing loose in bloody ribbons, the taste of copper flooding my tongue.

Miles hits me from the side, a silver blur. His teeth scrape my neck, shallow. I turn, slam my skull into his muzzle, and hear the crunch of teeth breaking in his mouth. He yelps, blood bubbling between his lips. I don’t let him recover. My paw lashes out, claws raking across his face, skin peeling back, one eye gouged into pulp. His howl is high, ragged, pitiful.

I want more.

Artemis doesn’t fight like a wolf; he fights like a demon loosed from hell. He collides with Ben, claws sinking into his belly. He doesn’t aim for the throat, not yet. He rips downward, spilling hot guts into the mud. Ben thrashes, howling, trying to hold himself together, but Art’s jaws are already on his throat. He shakes him violently, snapping his head back and forth, tearing skin and spraying blood across both of them. He lets him go, just long enough to rake his claws across Ben’s belly again, deeper, the stink of entrails heavy in the air.

Sam staggers up, shoulder mangled, eyes wild. I pounce. My weight slams him down, ribs collapsing under me. He chokes, lungs wheezing. My jaws close around his throat, and this time I don’t stop. I bite down until the flesh tears loose, until I’m holding his windpipe between my teeth. His body convulses, blood spurts, then nothing. I spit his throat aside, crimson froth splattering across the mud.

Miles scrabbles away, half-blind, muzzle broken, leaving streaks of blood in the dirt. I stalk him, heavy steps pressing him down with fear before I even touch him. He whines, pitiful, trying to crawl, but mercy has no place here. I slam him to the ground, jaws ripping into the side of his neck. I wrench hard, spine cracking, flesh ripping, hot blood gushing like a burst pipe. His body jerks twice, then goes limp beneath me.

Cyrus is laughing in his head, the kind of unhinged cackle that belongs to a lunatic. Ben is still alive, somehow, though his guts are spilling into the mud. Artemis climbs over him, claws digging into his chest, and begins slamming his skull against the ground.

Once. Twice. Again.

Bone caves in, skull cracking open like fruit.

Blood sprays, brain matter smears the mud. Artemis bites into the ruin, tearing until Ben is nothing but a twitching carcass. He howls, muzzle dripping red, chest heaving, eyes crazed.

Ronan growls low, the sound vibrating through the earth. The crowd of onlookers goes still, instinctive terror choking the air. I see them, their eyes wide, bodies trembling. They don’t breathe too loud, don’t dare move. They’ve just seen three Alphas reduced to meat in less than minutes. They’ve just seen what the Alpha of Alphas truly is.

Cyrus prowls beside me, his wolf dripping gore, his teeth bared in a deranged grin. He looks like he wants to tear into the corpses again, just for the joy of ripping them to pieces. His madness feeds mine, the bond between us a chain dragging me deeper into the bloodlust.

Raven steps forward, boots splashing in the gore-soaked mud. She doesn’t flinch at the carnage. Her knife glints in the moonlight, but her eyes are on Artemis, drinking him in like this is exactly how he’s meant to be. Feral, soaked in blood, teeth sharp with death.

There’s pride there.

The battlefield is quiet now, but Ronan rages. He wants more. He wants to turn the entire night into a slaughter, to show every wolf here that defiance ends in ruin. My wolf is not just larger, he’s endless. And tonight, the Triad learned the truth.

We don’t fight battles.

We butcher them.

We don’t win.

We erase.

And when the blood settles, all that’s left is death incarnate.

The mind-link stretches wide when I open it, my voice carrying through every mind tied to me. Stronger now. Heavier.

*“It’s done.”*

My words echo, vibrating through skulls. *“The Alpha challenge has finished. The Triad thought they could rise against us, thought they could cling to the old ways, thought they could play both sides of this war. Tonight, they bled out in the mud.”*

I pause, letting the truth sink in. The taste of iron and victory still burns my tongue.

*“I came to you as an Alpha. I return to you as the Alpha of Alphas. That is not a title, it is a promise. From this night forward, none will question where power rests. None will question whose word decides life and death in our world. They challenged. They failed.”*

My wolf snarls through the bond, power cracking like thunder. The link shudders, every head lowering whether they mean to or not.

*“But this is not the end. This is the beginning. We have dragged the leader of the trafficking ring into the light. We will finish him. Eric will die screaming, and Stevens will fall with him. Every name tied to this disease, every coward who profits from it, every bastard who raises his hand against our kind, they will learn what it means to rattle the foundations of our world. They will learn what it means to provoke me. To provoke us. You fought. You bled. Some of you lost. And still, we stand. Stronger. Unified. Tonight proves that the old world is gone. No more hiding. No more weakness. We don’t wait for invaders to gnaw at our borders. We hunt them. We end them.”*

I breathe through the fire in my chest, letting them feel it. *“This is our vow: we end all who rise against us. We end all who prey on our children. We end all who bring chains to the shifter world. And when they write the story of this night, let them say one thing only, that we answered.”*

The bond goes quiet. The silence left behind is louder than any roar.