An Alpha's Forbidden Mate-Chapter 31: Beast Vs Man

Chapter thirty one

The fallen warrior’s breath was a shallow, wet rattle against the forest floor. Luna knelt beside him, her fingers pressing into the matted, blood-soaked fur of his neck. A pulse flickered beneath her touch—faint, stuttering, but stubborn. The scent of copper was overwhelming, mingling with the damp rot of the forest floor.

"Get him to the healers , I don’t think his body wii heal on its own," Luna commanded, her voice cutting through the stunned silence of the clan like a cold blade. "Now!"

As the scouts rushed forward to lift the broken wolf, Luna rose slowly. Her gaze fixed on the jagged trail of crimson that disappeared into the deep forest . The air felt heavy, charged with the metallic tang of iron and the lingering scent of woodsmoke from the camp. She turned to the Alphas, her eyes glowing with a flat, predatory light.

"Kael, Ronan, Aldric—stay here," she ordered. "Guard the camp and the fallen. If a single shadow moves after my leave, end it. I want this perimeter locked down until I return."

She looked at the remaining three: Darius, Magnus, and Lucien. They stood like pillars of living stone, their newly evolved power radiating off them in shimmering waves of heat that blurred the air. They were larger, leaner, and pulsed with a frequency that made the very ground beneath their feet seem to thrum in submission.

"Luna, I’m coming," Amelia rasped. She tried to stand, but her knees buckled instantly. The "Claw Wave" had drained the very marrow from her bones; she was a hollow shell of her usual self, her skin pale and clammy under the morning sun.

"No," Luna said, her tone blunt and final as a hammer. "You are still weakened from the technique. Stay in the camp until I return."

She didn’t wait for a protest. Luna vanished into the treeline, moving with a fluid, terrifying grace that left no footprints. The three Alphas flanked her, moving like vengeful ghosts through the undergrowth. They tracked the blood for miles, deeper into the untouched parts of the forest where the canopy was so thick the sun was merely a memory.

To the Alphas in their human form, the woods were a wall of silent trunks and rustling leaves, but to Luna, they were screaming with information. Ever since the Wolfmort tree had dragged her back from the veil of death, her senses had evolved into something divine—and monstrous but what frightened her most was this—she had noticed for days now that she couldn’t shift into her wolf form.

No matter how hard she tried, nothing happened.

She didn’t know why.. She could hear the rhythmic hum of insects leagues away; she could smell the sour, acidic sweat of the intruders over the scent of ancient pine and damp earth. Her Saint’s Trait, once her greatest asset, was now merely the foundation for something far darker and more acute.

She raised a hand, her fingers splayed. "Quiet."

The Alphas froze mid-stride. Magnus, a slim, white-haired warrior with eyes like chips of frozen sea, leaned in close. "How many, Lord Raven?"

"Thirty," Luna whispered, her eyes half-closed as she mapped the clearing ahead. "I can hear their hearts—heavy, frantic beats."

She tuned into the vibrations of the air, filtering out the wind. Voices drifted through the brush, crisp and clear as if they were standing right beside her.

"Sir, why didn’t you just kill the beast?" a young soldier asked, his voice trembling with the high-pitched vibration of pure terror. "What if he warns the pack? We’re sitting ducks out here."

A heavy thwack echoed—the sound of a gauntleted hand hitting a helmet.

"If we’d killed him, they’d hunt us to the city gates before nightfall," a gravelly voice replied. This was Phillip,"We can take on a werewolf in the woods, George—but what about the innocent humans back home?"

"These things hide in plain sight. They wear our skin like a suit of clothes."

"Besides, I didn’t let him go. I just underestimated his strength, and he slipped through my fingers."

"Killing him would have invited a massacre."

Luna felt a sharp prickle of disappointment in her chest. She had hoped for black-hearted monsters, the kind of men she could butcher without a second thought to feed the Wolfmort’s eternal hunger for souls. Instead, she found a veteran trying to keep his men alive.

"Listen," Luna told her Alphas, her voice a cold sliver of ice. "They are close. Kill only if absolutely necessary. Do not draw more than forty percent of your power—your bodies are not yet tempered for the surge. If you go beyond that, your hearts will burst from the pressure. Lucien, circle the rear. Darius, Magnus, take the flanks. I’ll take the front."

In a blur of shifting fur and snapping bone, they transformed.

The transformation was terrifyingly efficient now, no longer the agonizing ordeal it had been. Magnus became a beast of pure winter—an Ice-Crest wolf with fur like frozen needles that shimmered with a pale blue light. Darius shifted into an Earth-Crest, his brown fur layered with jagged plates of natural stone that clattered like armor. Lucien, the quietest of the three, became a Lightning-Crescent, his dark blue fur sparking with arcs of static electricity that hissed against the damp leaves.

They vanished into the shadows. Luna walked straight into the light.

She stepped into the soldiers’ clearing with the slow, rhythmic grace of a pendulum. Phillip snapped to his feet, his blade singing as it left its scabbard, the steel gleaming with a cold, hungry light. His men followed, a sea of steel and nervous eyes.

"It’s just a girl," George, the young nephew, said. He stepped forward, his expression softening into something like pity. "What are you doing out here, miss? This isn’t a place for someone like you."

Phillip caught the boy by the shoulder, his eyes locked on Luna’s face. "Back away, George. That’s no girl. Haven’t you been listening? These beasts wear our faces to get close enough to rip out our throats."

Luna stopped ten feet away, her hands clasped behind her back. She stood perfectly still, a stark contrast to the twitchy, sweating men before her. "You keep calling us beasts," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr that seemed to vibrate in their very bones. "As if we are ravenous animals with no mind of our own. If anyone is a beast here, Phillip, it is the human who brings steel into a home that does not belong to him."

"We don’t want to hurt you," Phillip said, though his hand slightly on the hilt of his long blade. "Turn back. Leave now, and we’ll forget we ever saw you."

Luna let out a soft, melodic laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. "That’s funny. I should be saying that to you. Except... I want to hurt you. I want to see if your blood is as cold as the iron you carry."

"You think you can take thirty trained men alone?"

"What makes you think I am alone?"

As if the forest itself were answering, the ground began to groan. From the shadows of the surrounding trees, three monstrous shapes emerged. They were terrifying in their size, their heavy paws shaking the earth with every rhythmic step. The soldiers scrambled, their formations shattering as they looked up at the massive, elemental wolves that towered over them like titans.

Phillip’s face went pale, a cold sweat breaking out across his brow. How did I not notice this aura? he thought, his mind reeling. The pressure... it feels like the air is turning to lead.

"Tell me why you’re here," Luna said, stepping closer, her presence expanding until she seemed to swallow the light in the clearing. "Tell me, and I might let you live, despite the blood you spilled on my warrior."

Phillip gritted his teeth, his eyes darting to his heavy leather satchel. Inside lay the Mandrake Root—a gnarled, twisted thing pulsing with a sickly, rhythmic green light. Its vein-like filaments twitched against the leather, seeking a heartbeat to latch onto. They had searched the forest for weeks for this single, cursed ingredient.

"George! Go! Take the men and run!" Phillip roared, his voice cracking with desperation.

"Sir, what of you?" George cried, his gun shaking in his hand.

"Just go! I’ll hold them!" Phillip turned back to Luna, his face a mask of grim resolve. "We were sent to retrieve a relic. I have a picture of it here... if you’ll allow me to show you, perhaps we can negotiate."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a folded piece of parchment. Luna watched him, her nose twitching. She could smell the spike of adrenaline, the sharp, acidic scent of a trap being sprung. When he unfolded the paper, it was blank—a mere distraction.

In a flash, Phillip lunged. His blade whistled toward her throat with a veteran’s precision. Luna didn’t even blink. She spun on her heel, the steel missing her skin by a fraction of an inch, and lashed out with a kick aimed at his ribs. Phillip moved with surprising skill, catching her shin on the flat of his blade to deflect the blow, though the force of it sent him skidding back across the dirt.

"Well," Luna said, settling back into her stance, her eyes narrowing. "That was stupid."

The soldiers scrambled, fleeing into the brush as the Alphas growled, their elemental forms crackling with power.

"Let them go!" Luna barked, her voice echoing with the authority of the Raven. "Don’t follow. It is a trick to separate us and lead you into an ambush. We’ll have to focus on this one."

She pointed a clawed finger at Phillip. He stood alone now, a man surrounded by monsters, but the fear in his eyes was being replaced by something far more dangerous—a dark, suffocating resolve. He raised his long to his face, his lips moving in a silent prayer or a curse.

Suddenly, a coating of dark blue ki wrapped around the steel. It didn’t just glow; it hissed, the energy crackling like a dying star and smelling of ozone and ancient malice. The pressure in the clearing doubled, the blue light reflecting in Phillip’s desperate, wide eyes.

" let’s see if you have what it takes, girl?" he hissed, his voice dropping an octave as the power surged through him. "Come and try and kill me. I’ll burn your forest to ash."

Luna smiled, her own aura beginning to leak from her skin like black ink in water.

"Interesting," Luna whispered."

The clearing went silent, the only sound heard was the crackle of blue lightning and auras clashing.