Arcane Exfil - Chapter 25: The Clean War

Fate, a gatekeeper who had been working for the castle, is beset by a few burdens.

Lucy Gray was a tech genius—until a stranger smiled, pulled the trigger, and ended his life.But death wasn’t the end. It was a recruitment.Dragged before a pantheon of ancient gods, Lucy learns his soul has been drafted into the Holy War—an eternal bloodbath in which Gods fight across shattered realms. Out of thousands, he was soul #4,000, chosen by Seraphine, the Goddess of Rebirth and Suffering.Now reborn in a dying world of Ogres, Giants, Beastkin, Dragonkin, and Elves, Lucy is a human among legends—a species exiled and nearly forgotten, for reasons that make him hated.Armed with nothing but defiance, sarcasm, and a bizarre ability to steal and master the powers of others, Lucy has one job: survive the impossible.The gods wanted a pawn.They got the wrong dead man.

After being betrayed by her family, Bai Meiyue found herself struggling in the flourishing age where zombies and mutant animals ruled. And that too with a big belly!Though people called her crazy for being stubborn, Bai Meiyue didn’t regret keeping the fruit of her one-night stand. What she regretted was not protecting her child and trusting those whom she should have killed at the very chance that was handed to her.In the eleventh year, Bai Meiyue lost her child and died while taking revenge on those who took her son away. However, just when Bai Meiyue thought it was the end, she returned two months before the beginning of the doomsday.Carrying the grudge of two lifetimes, she swore to make life living hell for those who harmed her and her son.With the heavens blessing her with a barter system, Bai Meiyue was intent on giving her child everything that he deserved.But why was the child’s father chasing after her?Hello? We only shared a bed for a night. So why was he clinging to her?Her child’s father: From the best medicine to education, you have given our child everything, Meiyue. But what about a father?

Zev prowled towards her, all shining, brutal beauty, his chin low and those incredible, piercing eyes fixed on her. He didn’t stop until they were toe-to-toe and he blocked her view of every other male in the circle.

His eyes dipped to her mouth as he leaned in, his whisper playing on her skin.

“You. Are. Mine.”

His deep voice twanged in her belly as the howls of the wolf pack rose from behind him to echo across the mountains of Thana, while the other Chimera protested his claim.

Fighting the urge to stroke his broad, bare chest with her shaking hands, Sasha forced herself to tilt her head and raise an eyebrow. “So bold for a pup who just found his fangs.”

The other males roared with laughter.

Ignoring their taunts, Zev’s eyes sparked and he leaned even closer, the scruff on his jaw tickling her cheek as he smiled. “So bold for a human who already knows the pleasure of gasping my name.”

She shivered when his teeth grazed her ear.

*****

Just days after Sasha gave herself to her childhood love, he disappeared. Five years later, on a dark city street, Zev came back—with danger on his tail.

Zev is Chimera: Half-human, half-wolf. Made in a secure research lab, his existence is a secret. But when the powerful men who created him try to kill the only woman who ever made his heart sing, Zev snaps their leash and steals her away to the brutal, hidden world of the Chimera clans.

Torn between the magnetic draw of her first love and the painful betrayal of his disappearance, Sasha tries to keep Zev at arms-length. But when they reach this mysterious world, Zev discovers that in his absence the humans took control and stole almost all the females. The Chimera are dying—and Zev isn’t Alpha anymore.

Now, Zev must fight his own people to win the right to mate his only love. Can he prove to her that his long-ago promise to protect her heart, as well as her body, was true? Or will the humans cross worlds to hunt the wolf and tear the lovers apart forever?

[Mature content, no sexual assault]