The Queen's Conquer

Chapter 62 : With Life Comes Death

From author to reader, I am sincerely sorry for breaking your heart.

Viewer Discretion Advised

Atrate • [a-tray-t]
One dressed in black; a mourner.

🖤

~+~

As soon as we leave Eira to handle Markus, Alpha Reed rejoins me in his wolf form, shifting as we sprint back to the cabin's skeleton and debris. The massacre engulfing the field hasn't gotten any better, either, and it leaves me on edge—fearful for Samuel.

Just as I begin skimming the terrain for my mate, a brown coat comes scurrying towards our direction. I nearly take the wolf for an attacker before I pick up on its scent.

Killian? I mindlink the male, taking note of his few wounds—nothing he can't handle. I thought you were hurt. Lilith—she thought you were—

I'm okay, Luna, he responds hastily, his wolf breathless. But Sam, he—

There's a drop in my stomach. What's happened?

Maddox is fighting him to the death.

That single sentence is all it takes for me to bolt around the male, leaving Reed and Killian in the dust as I frantically scour what's left of the battle to find my mate. While so many bodies have fallen, so many others still stand—mostly rogues, it seems. I almost get taken down by half a dozen of them as I attempt to search for my husband, but all of their efforts are dodged swiftly with my wavering senses.

Bending around the rear of the cabin where the back porch once stood, I catch a glimpse of a white coat just along the treeline. I hurdle over some of the larger piles of the cabin's remains, wasting no more time to get to Samuel—to stop my father from making another reckless mistake.

The two wolves finally come into full view as I careen around some broken roofing. And the short glimpse of white I'd caught earlier doesn't even make up for what I'm being forced to witness now.

Heavy, deep splotches of red maim most of Samuel's fur. It's hard to see the same on Maddox with his shadowy coat, but both of them are clearly beyond damaged from their hostility. Two scents come up from behind—Killian and Reed who'd apparently followed me here, standing on either side of me. But my attention is honed on nothing else but this heartbreaking scene.

I bark out just as Maddox sends another fierce claw down on my mate, the sound loud enough to echo off of the surrounding trees for miles to come. Samuel is knocked down, trembling to get back up. Those blue eyes peer up at me for a heartbeat, defeated and sorrowful. A different wolf of slate gray comes launching at Maddox—Lilith, I identify, in her wolf form—but the general dodges her attempt and uses the weight of his body to send her colliding into the fireplace's debris fifty feet away.

I thought the Moonstone had helped...Goddess, I thought it would've bought him time and help. Markus had intended to be a distraction—he wanted Samuel dead more than anything.

I bound forward, not stopping until I reach them. Killian pursues the attack with me, clearly enraged by Maddox's holistic behavior towards his own mate. But just before either of us can tackle my father to the floor, he secures his sharp canines around the underside of Samuel's stomach and mauls it apart.

The cry that leaves my husband's lungs burns a cavity within my chest, and I'm forced to come to a crashing halt at the feet of my father—because there is nothing more that can be done to stop what was unpreventable since the beginning of this war. Killian comes to a sharp stop, as well, staring down at the damage done to Samuel alongside me.