Page 49 of The Forbidden Wolf King
I was so confused. My slap couldn’t have had that kind of effect, right?
He was turning purple.
What in Hades?
A slight wind rushed through the air, picking up my hair like a calling card.
Madelynn was here.This power was unique to the fae queen.
As Ansel’s power over me slipped and began to fade away, I slowly regained control over my muscles.
This bastard was going to pay for his treatment of me and the others. I immediately started to shift forms, allowing my head to be the first to turn to beast.
The bedroom door burst open and I didn’t even wait to fully shift before I lunged forward. I wanted to be the one to finish him and with the fae queen taking his breath, he was too weak to fight back. I grasped Ansel by the back of the neck with my hands that were shifting to paws and then took his throat into my wolf’s mouth. With one clean yank, I ripped it out. Axil had been the first one to burst through the door in his wolf form and now he stood wide-eyed before me and his brother, staring at the scene before him. I spat Ansel’s flesh onto the floor in front of Axil’s wolf and then Ansel’s body hit the ground with a thud. I forced myself back into human form, not fully completing the shift. Then I fell to the ground in front of Axil, pulling his wolf onto my lap.
Axil whined, nuzzling his wolf’s snout into my neck.
“I’m okay,” I whispered to him.
The three queens were standing in the doorway and looked down at us.
“Are you hurt?” Madelynn asked.
I peered up at her and shook my head.
“Let’s give them some time alone,” the dragon queen said. “We’ll be in the hall.”
Then the door closed, it was just me and Axil alone with his brother’s corpse. After a full minute of holding him, my heart frantically beating against his wolf, I gently nudged him off and stood. Axil started his shift back into human form and I walked over to a set of drawers at the far wall, throwing clothes on the floor at Axil’s feet. I then went into the attached bathroom and washed the blood from my face and mouth, scrubbing my teeth with a brush.
I couldn’t believe I’d just killed the wolven king.
Axil’s brother.
When I finally came out of the room, Axil was standing before me in low-slung trousers of his brother’s that were too short and a tunic that was too tight.
“I … I’m so sorry,” he said.
I walked slowly into his arms and he wrapped them around me, holding me tightly as the realization of everything that had just happened hit me.
“Did he touch you? Tell me the truth,” Axil growled.
I shook my head, peering back to look at him. “No, but if he did would it matter? He’s dead.”
Axil’s blue eyes threaded through with yellow. “Of course it would matter. I’d piss on his corpse and then feed it to a bearin.”
I chuckled a little, feeling the mood lighten even if it was in a dark way. “I mean we could still do that. He was a sadistic maniac.”
We both turned to stare at the dead purple face of King Ansel, his throat ripped clean out.
“Did you get the power back? Are you king again?” I suddenly looked at Axil. I didn’t know how that worked. Before, the brothers had to transfer it to each other through blood. But now …
Axil nodded but seemed unsettled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you mad I killed him? I know he was your brother but …”
He took in a deep breath and then leaned into me, exhaling against my neck which sent shivers along my spine.
“There have to be two living heirs of the royal bloodline otherwise—”
