The Play-Toy Of Three Lycan Kings-Chapter 411: Carnage

ADAM

They were everywhere.

Even before I counted them, before my mind could make sense of the scene unfolding in the courtyard below, I knew one thing with absolute certainty—we were outmatched.

Not in numbers. In power.

At least fifty vampires prowled the open space beneath us, their movements sharp and predatory, red eyes catching the moonlight as they stalked between fallen bodies.

My guards lay scattered across the stone like broken dolls, throats torn open, chests hollowed, blood slick and blackening as it cooled.

I swallowed hard. At least they hadn’t been turned.

That mercy, twisted as it was, settled like ash in my chest. The dead should remain dead.

Beside me, I felt Sage’s tension coil tighter, her guilt thrumming through the matebond like a second pulse. It wasn’t subtle. It never was with her. Every loss landed on her shoulders as if she alone bore the weight of the world.

"This is my fault," she murmured again, voice barely audible beneath the distant shrieks and snarls. "If I hadn’t—"

"Stop," I said quietly.

She turned toward me, eyes glowing faintly in the dark, shame etched too deeply into her expression.

"If you hadn’t worked with the Queen," I continued, steady despite the chaos around us, "she would have found another way. This shows that she’s been in league with vampires far longer than you were ever involved. This was always coming."

Her jaw tightened. "I still made it faster."

I squeezed her hand, anchoring her attention back to me. I wanted—fiercely—to take that guilt from her. To shoulder it myself. But some burdens couldn’t be shared, no matter how strong the bond. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"All we can do," I said softly, "is fix what’s in front of us."

She nodded, though I knew the regret would haunt her long after tonight.

From beneath the invisibility cloak she’d cast around us, we watched the vampires pace restlessly, heads snapping up as distant screams echoed through the night. One of them shrieked suddenly, the sound cut off mid-cry.

The Ancients had begun their work.

"Did any of them escape?" Sage asked Darius without looking away from the courtyard. "To warn the Queen? Or their leader?"

Darius’s expression remained grim. "No. Ancients were stationed at every entry point. None leave."

"What if they turn into bats? Insects?" she pressed.

"Xanth built a barrier," Darius snapped. "Nothing crosses it."

Sage exhaled slowly.

I felt it through the bond and wondered what it meant. Relief, yes—but beneath it, something sharper. Calculating. Planning.

Even connected to her as I was, I couldn’t quite grasp what she intended. Only that whatever it was, it would be devastating.

"Can the three of us really take them?" I asked, eyes locked on the courtyard.

Darius laughed, low and dangerous. "We aren’t alone here."

I scanned the shadows instinctively, seeing nothing, but I trusted him. Sage did too. She always seemed aware of presences that escaped everyone else.

She turned to us then. "Ready?"

We nodded.

The cloak vanished.

The night exploded.

I shifted instantly, bones snapping and reforming as power surged through me. My wolf tore free, massive and dark, towering even over the tallest men I’d known. I landed with a bone-rattling thud, stone cracking beneath my paws.

I heard Sage inhale sharply.

For a heartbeat—just one—she stared at me in open awe.

Then a vampire shrieked, pointing at her. "Traitor!"

She smiled.

And all hell broke loose.

They rushed us in a wave of hunger and fury.

Sage moved first.

Magic tore through the air, invisible force snapping vampire bodies apart like twigs. One moment they were charging—the next, their heads twisted clean off, spines crushed inward with sickening cracks.

She pivoted smoothly, hands glowing molten gold, calling fire down from the sky in blinding spears that impaled three at once, turning them to ash before they hit the ground.

I launched myself into the fray.

My jaws closed around a vampire’s neck, severing it in a brutal twist. I didn’t slow, didn’t pause, barreling into another, slamming him into the stone hard enough to shatter bone before snapping his spine between my teeth.

Acidic blood sprayed, irritating my wolf, as screams tore through the night. I backed away from the fallen like it was a virus, because he really was. Their blood, as black as black, was just the worse.

But Sage was everywhere.

One moment she fought like a force of nature—hurling bodies through the air, collapsing the courtyard floor beneath them. The next, she was terrifyingly close, intimate in her violence.

She drove her hand straight into a vampire’s chest.

I heard his scream choke off as her fingers closed around his heart. His filthy hands clawed at her face, leaving dark streaks across her skin, but she didn’t flinch. She ripped the organ free, held it aloft for a single heartbeat, then summoned fire from above.

The heart incinerated midair, and so did all the bodies and hearts yet unburned by either she or Darius.

As I heard, if a vampire’s heart wasn’t burned, the undead somehow found a way to live, to grab a piece of it and live. So, burning was a must, even if the head had been severed.

The body meanwhile collapsed at her feet.

I felt something crack open in my chest. Awe. Horror. Pride.

She pivoted, caught another by the throat, slammed him against a pillar hard enough to crater stone, then snapped his neck with a flick of her wrist. Flames curled around her ankles, blood staining her dress, eyes glowing like a god’s judgment.

I tore through two more vampires, jaws crushing skulls, claws rending flesh. One leapt for my throat; I caught him midair and shook until his limbs tore free.

Around us, Ancients emerged from the darkness, precise and lethal, moving just as fast, as impossible, as Sage and Darius, using their hands as stakes too.

Vampires fell screaming, trying to flee only to slam into invisible barriers, trapped.

Sage raised both hands, eyes blazing gold, and the air itself seemed to bow. A wave of force rippled outward, flattening the remaining vampires to the ground. She descended among them like death incarnate.

She killed without mercy. Without hesitation. With rage.

I joined in the brutality, claiming justice for my people.

When the last vampire fell, the courtyard was silent save for crackling flames and the wet sound of ash settling.

I shifted back, chest heaving, blood matting my fur before my human form returned. My gaze searched instinctively for her.

But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t with us any longer.

Cold dread slammed into me.

"Sage?" I called, spinning, scanning the carnage.

Nothing.

My heart lurched violently.

I’d looked away for seconds—seconds—and she was gone.

Had a vampire taken her?

The thought ripped through me like a blade as panic surged, drowning out everything else.

"Sage!"