CHAPTER 88: ALL OF THEM

Kaya

I tried to scream, but the stranger’s clammy hand clamped over my mouth so tightly I couldn’t even part my lips. His grip was suffocating, his palm cold and damp against my skin, and before I could twist away, he was already dragging me to the side. His breath came in harsh, uneven pants from the effort of restraining me.

He cursed under his breath, fumbling to yank my wrists behind my back. The pull was so brutal it felt as though he might tear my arms straight from their sockets.

Hot, stinging tears welled in my eyes, blurring the shadows around us. I kicked, twisted, jerked my shoulders—anything to break free—but his hold was unyielding, like iron shackles.

"Calm the fuck down," he hissed. The unfamiliar voice made my fear spike. In a pack of barely forty people, I knew every man’s tone by heart. This was not one of them.

My muscles seized, going stiff before giving way entirely. My body hung limp in his crushing grip as he hauled me toward the forest, each step accompanied by the foul heat of his sour breath against the crown of my head.

Then, abruptly, he stopped at the edge where the moonlight met the trees and shoved me hard onto the frozen ground. I landed with a jolt, the shock of the cold biting through my clothes. Above me, his large frame loomed—a jagged silhouette cut against the pale glow of the moon.

Freedom was only a heartbeat away, but my limbs wouldn’t obey. My body refused to move, trapped in the grip of fear.

As if sensing my thoughts, he slipped a blade from the pocket of his jacket and leaned down, close enough for me to feel the whisper of its cold steel nearly touch the space between my eyes. His grin stretched slowly, almost lazily, like a predator savoring the moment.

"One little squeak, one wrong move, and I’ll cut you to shreds, little cunt."

His voice was low, quiet, but dripping with such raw menace that my blood turned to ice. I swallowed hard and gave a quick nod, my gaze locked on the glinting edge of the thin blade in his large, steady hand.

The man grinned again, and before I could even register his movements, his massive body crashed down on top of me—so heavy, so foul, that my stomach churned in revolt. His cold, chapped lips dragged under the collar of my cardigan, smearing my skin with the rank stink of his saliva.

I wanted to scream. To cry. To run. To shed my skin entirely and replace it with something untouched, untainted.

I couldn’t take it. Not again. Not anymore.

My whole life had been an endless repetition of the same fate—powerless, helpless, weak. All I could ever do was grit my teeth and endure. And just when I had believed I was finally free, when I thought the past could no longer touch me, fate came for me again, with the same cruel, familiar hands.

And Goddess, I was so fucking tired.

I didn’t know what finally snapped inside me. Maybe it was the icy touch of his hand sliding beneath my blouse, ripping through the buttons with a brutal jerk. Maybe it was the guttural groan of impatience rumbling from his chest as he pressed his knee between my legs.

Or maybe it was when the veil of my tears finally cleared, and I saw the full moon—large, luminous, whole. Free.

That was when my skin began to crawl in a way I had never felt before, as though a thousand tiny insects had burrowed beneath it, racing up and down my limbs, my spine—every inch of me.

My scars burned like rivulets of molten metal, every hair on my body rising as if my entire being had tuned itself to something vast, primal, and dangerous.

And then, I came undone.

A loud, sickening crack split the night—the sound of bones breaking, reshaping, reassembling into something unrecognizable.

A searing ache tore through my core, scorching me from the inside out in a strange, almost cathartic release.

I cried out—a desperate, guttural howl ripped from my chest, raw and animalistic. The sharp tang of copper filled my mouth, thick and sticky, seeping between my clenched teeth.

I killed a man. No, I didn’t just kill him—I tore him apart with my own mouth. My fangs plunged deep into the soft flesh of his neck, rending through muscle and artery, his pulse faltering beneath my bite as a rush of hot, dark blood poured over his collapsing body.

For a moment, I froze, every nerve screaming with the shock of what I had done. But there was no time to think, no time to breathe.

Voices erupted around me—dozens of them—paired with the pounding of boots and the flare of torchlight. Blades caught the moonlight in glints of silver. Gunshots tore the skies.

A massive brown wolf lunged at me from behind, his jaws gaping, teeth glistening, but I didn’t hesitate. My body moved with a single-minded, primal certainty. I lunged back, claws slashing in a clean, savage arc, splitting him open. His whimper choked into silence before his body even hit the ground.

Then chaos consumed the night. They came at me from every direction—voices shouting, fire roaring, steel flashing, claws and fangs raking through the air.

I saw red. My muscles burned, straining to the edge of tearing, yet my movements were fluid, precise, deadly.

I snapped my jaws. Slashed with my claws. Ripped through flesh. Shattered bone.

I swallowed blood. So much blood it churned in my stomach and made me sick. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t stop until it was too late.

The first light of dawn burned against my skin, seething and hot, just like the blood still roaring in my veins. I jolted upright, lungs heaving, each breath a ragged gasp as shock clamped its claws around my body.

It had to be a dream—a nightmare that would fade with the morning.

Desperate to reassure myself, I raised trembling hands to my face, needing to feel the familiar shape of my humanity. But the sight that met my eyes wrenched me apart. My stomach twisted violently, and I doubled over, retching until the last traces of congealed, metallic blood spilled from me.

Blood. So much blood. On my hands. On my skin. Soaking the ground. Everywhere.

My knees threatened to give way, but I forced myself upright, every limb quivering from cold and terror. Tears blurred my vision as I looked around, my breath hitching on a sob I couldn’t contain.

Dead. All of them. Limbs torn from bodies. Flesh shredded into ribbons. Bones splintered and snapped clean in half. Lifeless eyes staring at nothing, their veins emptied of the blood I had taken.

Dead. Every last one of them—slaughtered by me. By the broken girl they had taken in. By the girl they had called one of their own.

Dead. All of them.

Except for one.

Their leader.

Damien.