CHAPTER 86: TRAP

Five wolves descended in a blur of fur and claws, ripping into the nearest demon guards with savage, practiced fury. Blood sprayed, hot and black, splattering across the cracked altar stones.

Kieran landed in a crouch, amber eyes locked directly on Marcus—and for the first time in what felt like forever, Marcus almost smiled.

"You took your sweet time," Marcus rasped.

Kieran’s lips curled into something sharp and dangerous. "Told you I was coming, didn’t I?"

The king raised a single hand, and more figures surged from the darkness—twisted demon wolves, dozens of them, mouths filled with too many teeth, eyes glowing with that unnatural, green hunger.

"This is cute," the king drawled. "A family reunion."

But Kieran was already moving.

The next moments were chaos—a whirlwind of violence and blood. Wolves collided midair, claws raking through scaled limbs, the clash of old-world strength against cursed magic.

Tobias went down hard under a demon’s weight but gutted it before it could kill him. Another of their fighters had his throat torn out in a heartbeat.

But they kept fighting.

Kieran’s target wasn’t the wolves.

It was him.

With a snarl, Kieran lunged directly at the king, claws aimed for his throat. The king raised one hand lazily—and a barrier of sickly green flame erupted between them, throwing Kieran backward like a ragdoll.

Marcus fought, too—not with his limbs, but with sheer will.

The cracks in the enchantment widened. Something primal stirred inside him, something deeper than the vines, deeper than the magic. Wolves were made of stubbornness. Of survival.

One more push—

And then it came: a voice, like thunder.

"You do not command me."

It wasn’t shouted.

It was whispered, but the force behind it shattered the vines binding Marcus like glass underfoot.

He hit the altar hard, coughing, lungs screaming for air—but free. Finally free.

And for the first time, the king’s expression faltered.

Marcus staggered to his feet, one hand pressed to his ribs, blood dripping from the edges of his fingers—but his glare was steady. Defiant.

"Looks like you’re not as clever as you think," Marcus rasped.

The king raised a hand, about to summon another wave of black fire—

But then something else shifted in the room.

The green light of the summoning circle flickered—once, twice.

Then it stuttered.

A crack of something deeper, older, moving under the enchantment.

Marcus smiled despite the blood on his teeth.

Let it all go wrong.

The trap had been set long before they arrived.

Kieran didn’t know it but the king had been waiting for this moment like a spider in the center of its web, unmoving, patient, already tasting the victory that hadn’t yet been won.

As soon as Kieran launched himself through the smoke, claws bared, eyes burning with the desperate fury of a leader trying to save what scraps of his people were left—

—he knew something was wrong.

The king didn’t even move.

His lips curled in a small, cold smile.

And then the magic hit.

A sickly green blast of power erupted from the stone floor, not striking Kieran directly but expanding outward like a trap snapping shut around a helpless animal.

Runes lit up across the ground in intricate, ancient patterns—ones no wolf had ever seen before—twisting around themselves in layers upon layers of language lost to time.

Too late to stop.

Too late to dodge.

Kieran hit the barrier like a battering ram into solid glass, the backlash throwing him sideways mid-leap. He hit the cracked stone hard, his ribs folding in on themselves, air driven from his lungs in a sick, rattling gasp.

"KIERAN!" Marcus roared—but he was too weak, still staggering, still fighting the aftershocks of the enchantment that had nearly broken him.

The king only chuckled.

"Bravery," he mused, stepping over the shattered remains of a demon wolf’s corpse. His cloak flowed like smoke behind him. "It’s adorable. Foolish, but adorable."

Kieran tried to rise, claws scrabbling against the stone, but the runes pulsed again—and chains of green-black energy burst from the floor, curling around his wrists, ankles, throat.

They dragged him down, slamming his body flat against the stone with brutal, unforgiving force.

Marcus lunged—but a single flick of the king’s fingers sent another pulse of that foul light across the altar, and Marcus fell again, convulsing, his nerves burning like dry leaves in a wildfire.

"Do you see it now?" the king asked, calmly circling the both of them like a man admiring artwork. "This was never your battle to win. I let you come here. I let you fight. I even let you believe you had a chance." He crouched beside Kieran, voice soft, almost pitying. "But hope is the sweetest thing to destroy, don’t you think?"

Kieran spat blood. "Go to hell."

The king laughed, low and pleased. "I brought hell with me."

More wolves poured into the shattered hall—but they were met by the rest of the king’s demon horde, appearing as if from nowhere, ripping into the last of Kieran’s forces. Flesh tore. Bones cracked. The screams that followed were short. Efficient.

One by one, the sounds of resistance died.

Until only the crackling hum of the king’s enchantments remained.

Marcus tried to rise, again, again, again—but the chains of magic coiled around him too, hissing like serpents, pressing him down until the altar beneath him felt as if it might splinter from the weight of his failure.

Two of the strongest wolves remaining.

And both of them were nothing more than prizes at the king’s feet now.

"Don’t feel too badly," the king said conversationally, rising to his full, terrible height. "It’s been years since anyone’s given me this much fun. I’ll almost miss you when you’re gone."

He raised one hand—and the magic shimmered with finality.

"Now," the king murmured, "let’s make sure no more heroes rise up from the ashes."

But then he decided to not kill them immediately.

No.

He wanted them alive. Bound. Displayed.

Broken.

This wasn’t just conquest.

It was humiliation.

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