When they reached home after the reception, that pre-dawn darkness and silence had already set in, and it was too late to go to bed and too early to get up. They were all both tired and too wired to sleep. As if by some unspoken agreement, they migrated toward the living room instead of their bedrooms.

Kay would live with Darius and the pack until Marcus and Claudia returned from their honeymoon.

She slipped off her high heels just as the doorbell rang, and they glanced at each other. No one had used the gate intercom to ask permission to enter.

How the hell was someone ringing the doorbell?

Before anyone could move, the door burst violently open. Adrenaline coursed through her veins in an instant, and she readied herself for a fight.

Where were the guards?

A short, wiry man stepped into the room, dragged a guard by the arm like a broken toy, and dropped the dead werewolf a few feet beyond the threshold.

Dressed in an expensive black suit and handmade Italian loafers, he was less than half the size of the bulky Lycanthrope and didn't even have a hair out of place. His gaze settled on them, those orbs like the icy depths of hell itself, cold, dark, and lacking both pity or compassion.

***

Kay expected Azera or Thane to appear behind him. Instead, a tall, red-haired, blue-eyed woman appeared who seemed to be the epitome of perfection, and she was dressed to kill in a sheer ice-blue sheath that left even less to the imagination than her dress.

That glare could make a statue cringe, and mocking disdain dripped from her every glance and gesture.

"Megan, please do come in," Adrain drawled sarcastically.

Kay glanced at her alpha female in shock. She was astounded at the profound hatred and animosity Adrian displayed.

"My father sends his regards," Megan taunted, eyes sparkling with malice.

Was this woman as evil as Azera or worse?

Adrian stiffened, and Darius growled low in his throat.

"Does Carduran use his little girl as a messenger now?" Darcy needled.

Megan glanced at her, undeniably and blatantly, dismissing the werewolf as irrelevant, and did not answer her.

Darcy's mouth snapped shut, her eyes radiating resentment.

"You interfered in matters that do not concern you, and I will warn you once, do not involve yourselves with Thane and his..." Megan's eyes moved toward Kay, and the venom in them startled her, "spawn. Be wise, and maybe when this is all over, we will refrain from wiping every last one of you infernal beasts from this earth," she smirked, her incisors glinting sharply in the glittering lights of the front hall.

Megan was a vampire?

"Tell Marcus he has crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed by refusing my father's offer. When we take our rightful place, he and his bloodline will die, and we will not even spare the children," Megan glared at Darius, who stood with his fists balled, barely holding on to his control.

***

Many intruders were outside that door, and to attack Megan under the circumstances would be foolish.

"We are far superior to you," Megan stared Darius down, casually indicating his dead guard as evidence.

"The time of Thane, and whatever you choose to call them, Incubus, Succubus, or Alien, is over. Like you, he has no idea what he is up against. Choose wisely, or I will make sure your end is excruciating, lingering, and humiliating." The woman almost salivated at the thought.

With a last insolent look around the room, she smirked and turned her back on them, directly insulting Darius, strolling away as if she was leaving a tea party.

***

They were gone in an instant, and Darius burst forward, his eyes growing dark as he recognized the guard lying beside the door. He ran outside, skidded through a pool of blood, and almost lost his footing as they crowded out the door behind him.

Bodies littered the cobblestones pathway leading to the driveway, where a dozen dead werewolves were scattered like broken, discarded dolls. These had been trained fighters, and they were destroyed in less than three minutes by a far superior force.

Their throats were ripped out, and not a single shot had been fired, and ice settled in Kay's veins as everything started to sink in.

"Why did she not slaughter us all?" Adrian asked the question on all of their minds, breaking the resounding silence.

"Thane," Darius answered, and the distinct smell of death already tainted the air. "They still fear him and know if they attacked us directly or harmed Kay in any way, he would act against them.

"This was a threat and a display of power to show us that we are inferior. If they really believed Thane inferior, they would have slaughtered us to prove their point and started this war openly."

Kay listened to him speak but couldn't take her eyes off the gruesome scene.

"He won't act for the loss of a few enforcers, and they know that, but they changed the game."

The werewolf king lifted his phone to his ear, and Adrian glanced at him with a worried little frown.

"Do you think it is wise to continue our course of action?" she asked, tears threatening in her eyes as she let them roam over each familiar face.

Adrian would have watched most of them grow up, she knew their families, and as the alpha female, her heart would break for the loss of them.

The echo of their loss reverberated through Darius' bond with Kay, and it would be the same for all of them.

"Would they allow us to live if they ruled?" He asked his wife, and she turned her gaze from the deceased members of her pack, looking pale but her jaw clenched, her hands fisting.

"No, they would use us for sport in their games of death," Darcy said quietly, and Adrian's eyes hardened as her thoughts went to some dark place.

"Do what you have to," the alpha female said resolutely, pivoting on her heel and returning to the house.

"Cat, put our plan in action," Darius ordered, and it seemed trivial and irrelevant in the face of what had just happened.

They were playing a game that was far out of their league.

***

"Marcus, you have to return. We were attacked, it is serious, and I don't want you or Claudia vulnerable," Darius said, listening briefly.

"It was Megan, but we all know she's just the puppet," he listened for a moment more and disconnected the phone.

Car tires spun on gravel, and several vehicles came to a screeching halt as they glanced up. Each spewed out armed werewolves who had just returned from the wedding reception, and they came to a standstill as they noticed the carnage.

"Alpha?" Kevin, Darius's right-hand man, asked with a frown.

"Megan and Carduran's elite assassins," the werewolf king said shortly, and apparently, no explanation was necessary.

"I should have been here. We should have been here," Kevin growled, anguish darkening his chocolate eyes as he glared at his men. "They would not have cut us down with such ease." Guilt shone in his eyes, even though it did not show on his face.

"That is probably why they chose to attack now. They knew we would leave our best men with our guests, and our forces would be thinly spread," Darius admitted to the genius of his enemies' plan with profound bitterness.

"Cowards," Kevin spat, and he nodded.

"Gather our people to the safe houses but not all at once, unobtrusively. Our enemies are not done with this game yet, but I will give them no easy targets," Darius glanced at Kay and caught her gaze.

Bitch! Megan, enjoy this while you can. I think Karma has a cliff with your name on it. Newest Version ©2014-2023 All rights reserved. If you find this on any other platform but Wattpad under @CSDreamer, please report it. No part of this book may be copied or reposted without the author's permission.