60 Chapter 60 White Wolf Returns
Lightning. 1
My spine straightened, the migraine temporarily overshadowed by a sharp lance of fear. “Don’t you dare suggest what I think you’re suggesting, Maxwell. We eliminated
that threat.”
I slammed the receiver down, dragging my palms across my face. Fool. Why did everyone assume they possessed the right to discuss Roxanne? She held importance in my life, certainly, but she wasn’t-
As the bond reached full intensity, a panicked voice exploded in my mind-my Beta’s terrified scream.
‘Specify the situation!’ I mind-linked back, already tearing off my clothes as I initiated the shift. Bones snapped and elongated, the office blurring around me. My wolf form landed soundlessly on the carpet.
The white wolf rotated its head. Its eyes, the shade of liquid silver, connected with mine. In that instant, the pull became savage, a recognition so complete it trembled the earth beneath my paws.
I gazed at the pale flesh, the slender build, the cascade of dark, matted hair.
They were nearly mythical, legendary protectors, but also hunted and slaughtered for their devastating, uncontrolled powers. Witnessing one here, within my territory, defied possibility, yet the mate bond screamed that this impossible creature belonged
to me.
I sprinted toward the western perimeter. ‘We have visual confirmation and are advancing to neutralize-‘
It was her.
“It’s a nightmare, Julian,” Maxwell’s words crackled through the speaker, vibrating with barely controlled rage. “I’m reaching out because I need confirmation that you’re
witnessing the same disturbing trends.”
The Mate Bond.
I forced my voice to sound casual, though each syllable felt like shards of glass scraping down my throat. “Maxwell. Give me an update.”
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The woman who had departed, who had destroyed my world and my sanity, now lay defenseless on my territory’s ground.
The atmosphere in the room turned arctic.
A White Wolf.
The White Wolf shuddered, battling the compulsion to surrender.
I employed my voice. Deep, metallic, and inescapable.
“Did we truly? Are you certain?” Maxwell pushed harder. “These assaults bear identical hallmarks, the same suicidal abandon, the complete disregard for their own survival. Someone is orchestrating this, Julian. And that trail leads to only one conclusion. The Rogue King lives.”
Seraphina.
“Excellent news. They’re fortunate to have you. Listen, six years is significant time, Julian. When will you finally ask Roxanne to marry you? You’ve established a life together, you’re raising a child. Isn’t it time to formalize the arrangement?”
Negative! Cease all action! Do not engage! I commanded, already charging toward the door, demolishing the wooden frame in my urgent desperation.
The patrol reports scattered across my desk painted nothing but disaster when the phone’s shrill ring cut through the silence. Alpha Maxwell’s name flashed on the display. Perfect. The one man who could match my stress levels and exceed my volume on any given day.
It flickered weakly, like a distant beacon struggling to penetrate dense clouds, but the instant I identified it, it erupted into an excruciating, undeniable inferno. My chest constricted. She’s nearby. My entire being roared with desperate, primal recognition. The pull wasn’t gentle; it was a steel cable dragging me forward, commanding immediate action.
The relentless pounding inside my skull felt like a sledgehammer striking metal. This wasn’t an ordinary headache anymore. For days now, this brutal migraine had been my constant tormentor, drilling deeper with each passing hour. I pressed my fingers against my temples, grinding them in circles, and released a low growl of irritation.
I ordered you to retreat! Fall back immediately!
He stammered an apology, recognizing he’d struck an impenetrable barrier, and hastily
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terminated the call.
“Shift.”
My conviction seemed to ease Maxwell’s panic, though barely. “Alright. If you confirm his death, then he’s dead. But something else is commanding them, Julian. Something equally dangerous.”
“Maxwell,” I snarled, allowing my Alpha authority to seep through the phone
connection just enough to make him falter. “Keep your commentary about my private affairs to yourself. We have more pressing concerns than my romantic situation.”
I ignored the laws, the peril, or the rarity. I only knew I needed to discover who existed behind those eyes.
‘Alpha! Intruders detected! Not rogues!”
We dedicated another ten minutes to tactical planning, agreeing to reinforce territorial markings and expand surveillance networks, before Maxwell’s tone shifted unexpectedly, becoming strangely casual and familiar.
My fist crashed against the desk surface. Pain exploded through my knuckles, but I dismissed it entirely. “I executed him personally, Maxwell. I stared into his eyes and crushed his neck two years ago. We haven’t heard so much as a whisper since then.” I ran with unprecedented speed, my paws hammering against the compressed earth of our territory. The skull pain had vanished, overwhelmed by the terrifying, electrifying power of the mate bond. It was pulling me toward the territory’s outer edge.
This wasn’t the headache. The headache burned like fire, but this sensation was pure electrical current. It originated deep in my core, a profound, tugging ache I hadn’t experienced in six endless, frozen years.
I launched upward so violently my chair toppled backward. The scent, the magnetic pull of the bond, was directing me straight toward the disturbance he described. The question was unnecessary. I exhaled heavily. “The rogue incidents. Numbers have doubled since last week. They’re coordinated, attacking in systematic waves, and they’re not just testing our boundaries anymore. They’re attempting full penetration.” “Enough battle strategy. On a lighter subject, how are things at home? How are my daughter and my granddaughter doing?”
Silence stretched between us like a taut wire. The same devastating report echoed
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from every territory across the nation.
My heart ceased its frantic beating. Air abandoned my lungs. The mate pull
crystallized into a devastating weight of six years of agony, betrayal, and yearning.
“Precisely,” Maxwell’s voice dropped to a whisper, his fury transformed into bone-deep terror. “Three of my patrol wolves are dead in five days, Julian. This level of viciousness, this calculated brutality. It mirrors what we experienced before. The prelude to catastrophe, two years past.”
Julian’s POV
The wolf released a tortured, primitive wail, half rebellion and half devastating anguish, and strangely appeared to be shifting for the first time. Its body began convulsing. Fur withdrew, bones restructured with nauseating clicks, and the magnificent creature dissolved into the form of a delicate, bare woman.
“They’re both well,” I replied, my jaw clenching automatically. I despised these conversations. Maxwell was fully aware of this fact.
She crumbled onto the dirt, grasping her chest, her silver eyes clamped shut against the sudden vulnerability.
I advanced one calculated step, my hackles rising not in hostility, but in absolute, territorial possession. I released my Alpha presence into the clearing-heavy, commanding, and utterly irresistible.
Holden and two senior warriors stood motionless, their muzzles directed at the figure fifty feet distant. It was a wolf, but unlike any I’d encountered in decades. Large, prepared for escape, its coat was pristine, untouched snow.
Holden’s confusion flooded the mental link. Alpha? Why stop us? It’s a territorial violation!
Their scents reached me now: my patrol wolves, rigid with anticipation, and another fragrance, subtle beneath the pine and soil, but completely distinctive and strangely recognizable.
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