Page 122 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Then every corrupted wolf beneath the bridges began climbing.

They hit the bridges in a wave. Stone shook beneath dozens of bodies while gunfire erupted across the chamber. Vale’s team fired controlled bursts into the advancing creatures as Baptiste and two agents sprinted toward the western support with the remaining charges.

It barely slowed the swarm.

The creatures moved faster with the King fully awake. Some still resembled wolves twisted by corruption. Others had become something worse during their centuries beneath the mountain, with black mineral protruding through flesh and silver-blue light pulsing beneath translucent skin.

All of them climbed toward Theron.

The King never looked away from him. “You were always meant to return to me.”

Pressure blurred the chamber around Theron as the King forced himself deeper through blood and memory.

“Submit.”

The command crashed through Theron’s skull. Ancient instinct surged beneath his skin, older than reason and buried inside the bloodline the King had shaped into obedience.

Theron staggered.

A corrupted wolf lunged onto the bridge, and Matt killed it instantly.

Matt drove the creature through the stone railing. It disappeared screaming into the abyss while he landed in a crouch, claws fully extended as the partial shift tore through his body.

The hyena had stopped holding back.

Muscle and bone shifted beneath Matt’s skin. Black claws curved from his hands, and his features sharpened under the red light.

Then Matt smiled.

For one heartbeat, no one moved. There was little human in the expression. It carried the predatory confidence of something that had finally stopped retreating.

“Oh,” Matt said softly. “I’m done being chased.”

The next creature never reached him.

Matt intercepted it halfway across the bridge and drove both claws through its chest, lifting it clear off the ground. The swarm hesitated as confusion rippled through the corrupted wolves. Matt tore the body free and hurled it into those behind it.

Then the shift took him completely.

The wolf shifts Theron knew carried a brutal fluidity, each movement settling naturally into the body waiting beneath the human shape. Even at their most violent, wolves looked made for what they became.

Matt did not.

The shape rising where he had stood was larger than Theron expected, with massive shoulders built for power rather than elegance. Thick muscle moved beneath dark fur striped faintly by the chamber’s red glow. His jaws looked capable of crushing bone.

Then the hyena laughed.

The sharp, violent sound tore across the abyss, deeply primal and unlike anything Theron had heard from a wolf.

Every corrupted creature froze. The hesitation spread through the swarm, and for the first time, the King’s composure faltered.

Theron felt it ripple through the mountain.

The King had faced stronger enemies and watched entire armies die beneath him, yet something in this moment unsettled him.

Recognition was failing.

The King did not understand what he was seeing, and that uncertainty disrupted the control woven through the throne chamber.