Vladimir's Marked Luna
Chapter 32: Wolfsbane
CHAPTER 32: WOLFSBANE
🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
I watched little tendrils of flesh weaving together, tissue solidifying into honeyed skin. Pale spindles of nerves took root in the macabre process, knitting through flesh, spiraling in an unnerving dance that horrified me—despite being the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on.
My finger regrew, slowly giving me something to look at and concentrate on instead of the boiling tension in the car. Being sandwiched between both of them only pulled the atmosphere tighter, taut as a bowstring.
"So desperate you decided to maim yourself to prove a point." A chill crawled up my spine at the disdainful note in Veronique’s tone. "You didn’t prove the point you think you did." She chided.
I opened my mouth to respond, but she spoke over me. "And I knew you people are fond of excuses. So don’t bother."
My mouth snapped shut, and I shrank into myself. God, I wanted to disappear.
Between Veronique’s sweltering heat and Vladimir’s unyielding cold, I was left boiling and freezing all at once.
I didn’t know what it was, but I was sure something had occurred between the two. It didn’t take a genius to know what it might have been. The only recently altered variable in their lives was me.
And it only made things worse.
Veronique drew a sharp breath, lips parting as if to continue her tirade. But before the words could form, the air shifted.
A sudden cold seeped into the car, sharp and unnatural. The windows fogged at the edges, and the leather seats beneath me chilled as though frost threaded through their seams. My breath came out in a faint puff of white.
Her voice died instantly. The disdain in her eyes flickered, smothered by something rarer—hesitation.
I stilled, pulse leaping into my throat. This wasn’t the usual cold presence Vladimir carried around like armor; this was something else. Something deeper, older. Power laced in the air, coiled tight like a storm contained within flesh and bone.
He hadn’t moved. Not a shift in posture, not a glance in her direction. Yet the temperature in the car dropped so sharply it felt as though winter itself had answered his unspoken command.
Veronique’s jaw clenched, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her seat.
I couldn’t breathe properly, not because of the cold, but because of the truth curling at the edges of my awareness: Vladimir Dragunov was not just an Alpha. He was something stranger, something the stories didn’t warn me about.
Was that why his body remained cool to the touch?
As the chill receded in the car, the tension refused to ease.
I would pay anything to be out of this silent hell, wedged between them.
Promptly, my prayer was answered.
The world blew apart in an instant.
A deafening crack cleaved the air, followed by a blast that violently knocked me sideways, seatbelt digging into my stomach as glass shattered, cutting me as the car lifted.
For a heart-stopping moment, I was weightless. Silence pierced the air before the impact came with a crash that rattled me down to my cells, my teeth clattering so hard I thought they cracked.
The frame of the car twisted, cold steel warping around me, caving into my back and chest until I felt something in me give way to a wet, popping snap that resonated through every tissue. Pain exploded like fireworks, engulfing me in agony.
Instinctively, my mouth braced to open, but it was sealed, my own screams suffocating me.
Then, as instantly as it started, it stopped.
Still, I braced for the next hit—but none came. My lids had grown heavy, every breath like shards of glass through my lungs. I lay limp, afraid to twitch.
Only when things had mildly settled did I register a smell, one that prickled at my nose, acrid and almost painful to inhale. An odor that seemed to penetrate my skin.
What the hell happened?
Then a metallic rip tore through the darkness.
My eyes moved behind my lids, and suddenly I was floating again. The heat that clung to my broken body receded as cold arms lifted me slowly.
Vladimir.
Yet I refused to open my eyes as he carried me a distance and placed me gently on level ground. "Wait here for me," he muttered softly as he pulled away. The heat returned, licking at my skin again.
I listened to my surroundings.
"There was wolfsbane in the bomb. I can’t shift." The voice was distorted but feminine.
Veronique.
I caught the thrumming of a phone being dialed. A single word hissed out.
"Help."
"Lilith," Kaia’s voice tuned in, soft but edged with strain. "You will be okay. Open your eyes."
Just as my eyes began to flutter—
"Something’s moving."
Veronique’s voice was sharper than glass, stripped of arrogance. Fear whirled through the air, thick enough to taste. My lashes snapped open just in time to see her eyes locked on the treeline.
The woods seethed. Shadows shifted. Then the underbrush erupted.
Three enormous wolves burst forth—monstrous, feral, their bodies carved of muscle and teeth, pelts bristling like razors under the midday sun. Their snarls vibrated through the earth, rattling my bones, each one of them bigger than anything I’d ever seen.
They didn’t hesitate. Every set of blazing eyes pinned me.
My heart jammed into my throat. Air fled my lungs. My body went still, braced for the crush of impact, for teeth to sink into bone, for pain so sharp it would drown me.
I didn’t even get to scream.
The first wolf lunged—
—and then it was split in two.
Blood sprayed, hot and metallic, raining across the clearing. The beast’s jaw had been torn apart mid-snarl, its body collapsing in a grotesque heap before I could process how.
Vladimir.
He stood where the wolf had been, unshifted, his towering frame heaving. His clothes hung in tatters, shredded by metal and gore, his pale skin streaked crimson. His hand still dripped with blood, the air around him vibrating with something primal, something terrifying.
His eyes found the other two wolves.
And for the first time, I saw him without the polish. Without the cold mask. His gaze was carved with hunger, savage and raw.
Craved.
He looked at them like prey.
The towering beasts crouched low, hackles raised. But still, they hesitated.
Because Vladimir Dragunov, High Alpha, wasn’t just facing them.
He was daring them.
The other two wolves circled, their bodies rippling with raw muscle, their snarls vibrating like war drums. They darted in, fast, testing him—yet always pulling back at the last second.
Because they knew.
One touch. That’s all it would take.
Vladimir moved like water over stone, rigid yet fluid, every step precise as though he’d danced this battle a thousand times in silence. His fists struck with the weight of a hammer, his kicks sharp and surgical, every movement leaving dents in earth and air alike.
Their jaws snapped inches from his throat, claws slashed close enough to draw blood, but his icy gaze never wavered. His eyes—no longer the cool blue I’d known, but bright, searing silver—tracked them with a predator’s calm. He didn’t bare his teeth, didn’t snarl.
And somehow, that was worse.
There was something feral, otherworldly, in the restraint. A promise that if he unleashed it fully, nothing would remain.
Both wolves pounced at once, massive bodies slamming into him with no mercy, no pause. The world blurred with snarls and claws and the sound of flesh striking flesh. But Vladimir did not stumble. He twisted with them, redirected their weight, fighting not like a beast but like a weapon honed sharper than steel.
Blood painted his skin, his shirt little more than rags. Still, he stood taller with each strike.
From the corner of my eye, Veronique moved forward, her body already tensing for the shift.
"Stay back!" Vladimir’s voice cracked like a whip, his silver gaze flashing her way for only a fraction of a second. "You’re hurt. Protect Lilith."
The words slammed into me harder than the explosion had.
I wasn’t the one fighting. I wasn’t the one bleeding. But in that moment, I was the center of it all.
A shadow slid into my view. Veronique.
Her eyes darted toward Vladimir—tracking his every blow, the wolves snarling around him—but they always came back to me. Fixated. Watching. Measuring.
She crouched low, her face far too close to mine, her breath trembling against my cheek. For the first time, she didn’t look regal or disdainful. She looked... hungry.
"Fuck," she whispered, her lips curling into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "You’re not dead."
My pulse stumbled, then lurched into a sprint. I could hear Vladimir fighting, the crunch of bone and guttural growls ripping through the clearing, but all of it seemed muffled, distant. My focus tunneled to Veronique as her hand slid, deliberate and slow, until her fingers grazed my collarbone.
Her touch wasn’t gentle. It crept upward, curling around the column of my throat.
I froze, every instinct screaming, even as my body betrayed me, too broken to fight back.
Her grip tightened, nails digging in just enough to sting. Her eyes gleamed with something sinister, like a wolf catching scent of blood in the snow.