An Alpha's Forbidden Mate-Chapter 41: Mirage Of The Mountain 2

Chapter Forty-one:

The air in the subterranean bunker was thick, tasting of recycled oxygen and the sharp, metallic tang of cold blood. Isaac stood in the center of the corridor, his silhouette a jagged shadow against the flickering emergency lights. His eyes were no longer the eyes of the man who had sat on his sofa weeks ago; they were hollowed out by a singular, burning purpose. Every time he blinked, he saw the image of Stephanie—not as his bright, laughing daughter, but as a biological harvest, her veins tapped like a tree for the sake of an experiment she never asked for.

The rage didn’t make him loud. It made him silent. It made his grip on the twin blades so tight that the leather hilts groaned.

George, held firmly against Liam’s chest with a blade pressed hard against his carotid artery, felt the terrifying heat of the man’s aura. "Just... just calm down," George stammered, his voice cracking as the cold steel bit into his skin. "We can settle this peacefully. There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt."

Liam’s voice was a low, guttural vibration that seemed to come from the floorboards themselves. "Settle this peacefully? You people came into my house. You took my flesh and blood while she slept. You drained her life blood into jars. If I hadn’t been fast enough to rescue her from that cage, she would have died in this hell hole."

George tried to force a relaxing, diplomatic tone, though his knees were shaking. "But she didn’t, did she? She’s alive. We can still talk about—"

"SHUT UP!" Liam’s roar was a physical shockwave.

A few yards away, hidden behind the heavy iron geometry of the ventilation shafts, Zareth and Bennett watched. They were ghosts in the machinery, their breathing shallow. Yet, Liam’s head suddenly tilted. His senses, honed by decades of Ki cultivation, felt a ripple in the environment. He adjusted his grip on George, pulling the boy closer to his chest as a shield.

"If you don’t come out," Liam shouted toward the seemingly empty shadows, "I’ll make the boy’s head roll right here."

Bennett, crouching low, whispered to Zareth in disbelief, "How did he notice us? We haven’t made a sound."

Zareth’s eyes were narrowed, fixed on the red aura pulsating around Isaac. "Interesting. I didn’t know he was that skilled. Most Ki users can only transmit their energy into their weapons to cut deeper. But a master who has trained for decades... they can transmit Ki silently, like sound waves. He’s using his energy to map the room. He knows exactly where we are standing, there is no use hiding."

Zareth didn’t wait to be flushed out. She stepped into the corridor with a calculated, rhythmic grace. Bennett, realizing the game was up, followed her out into the open.

Liam’s gaze was lethal. "You don’t look like soldiers. Who are you people?"

"I am a business partner to Phillip," Zareth replied, her voice smooth and devoid of any human warmth.

"What business?" Liam asked. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Drop the boy first," Zareth said slowly, her eyes locking onto his. "Then we’ll talk."

"I ain’t negotiating with you," Isaac spat, the Red Ki flickering along his blades. "Where is Phillip?"

"I don’t know," Zareth lied. Internally, her mind was racing. This man is too much of a variable. He is an anomaly in the equation. We cannot let him leave this mountain alive.

"If you don’t tell me where he is, I’ll kill the boy," Liam declared. He began the count, his voice sounding like a funeral bell. "One."

Bennett looked at George’s terrified face and then at Zareth’s cold profile. I don’t think the witch cares if George lives or dies, she thought. But if Isaac kills him..

"Two."

"If you kill him, you’ll lose your only leverage," Zareth challenged.

"Three."

"He’s in the box where they kept your daughter!" Bennett shouted, her voice echoing off the iron walls.

Zareth spun around, her eyes flashing with a violent, purple light. "What are you doing?" she hissed. She knew Phillip was still recovering from the brutal encounter with the werewolves; his thigh was a mess of torn muscle and bandages. If Isaac reached him now, the Phillip wouldn’t stand a chance. I can’t let him through. If he kills Phillip, all of our years of planning will turn to ash.

Liam didn’t wait for a second confirmation. He tried to "zoom"—a high-speed Ki dash—but his body suddenly felt as if it were encased in lead. His muscles were stiff, unresponsive to his will. He looked toward Zareth, whose hands were outstretched, her fingers twitching as she wove a telekinetic web around his frame.

"Witch," Liam growled.

He forced his Red Ki to explode outward. The air in the corridor turned a hazy crimson as he fought against her invisible grip. Zareth’s face contorted with effort; the man’s physical will was like a tidal wave crashing against her mental dam. Finding him too difficult to pin down, she threw her hands sideways.

The force of the telekinetic gust sent Isaac flying. He slammed into an iron wall with a thunderous clang. Before he could slide to the floor, Zareth clenched her fist. The very metal of the wall began to groan and warp, the heavy iron plates bending to her will like paper. They wrapped around Isaac’s limbs, twisting and strangling him, pinning him against the bulkhead in a suit of jagged steel.

Bennett let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. "I guess that’s over."

But Zareth was still struggling. She could feel the iron vibrating. Suddenly, a series of blinding red slashes tore through the thick metal. Shring! Shring! Isaac exploded out of the iron casing as if it were nothing but thin foil.

As he landed, he flicked his wrist. A silver needle hissed through the air toward Zareth. She deflected it with a casual wave of her hand, but it was a trap. Hidden in the wind shadow of the first needle was a second, darker one coated on in a green liquid.

The second needle didn’t target the witch. It struck George—who was still reeling from the release of Isaac’s grip—directly in the center of the chest. The boy gasped, his hands flying to the wound. Almost instantly, his veins began to pulse with a sickly, emerald green.

" Witch, you still have time to save him," Liam said, his eyes cold. "But not enough to save him and capture me."

Liam didn’t waste a second. He vanished into the ventilation shaft, making use of the absolute chaos.

Zareth looked down at George, who had collapsed, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. Bennett rushed to the boy, her eyes wide with panic. "You’re a witch! You can save him!"

Zareth didn’t even slow her pace. "The only reason I tried to save him was for Phillip’s sake. Now Phillip is in real danger. I don’t have time for petty distractions like this." She stepped over the dying boy and sprinted after Isaac.

George’s hands were stained with his own darkening blood. Tears filled his eyes as the poison began to shut down his nervous system. "I’m scared, Bennett," he whispered, the bravado of the soldier completely gone. "I don’t... I don’t want to die."

Bennett felt a lump in her throat. She had seen much in the Association, but the sight of the boy she had known for so long dying in a pool of green-tinged blood was too much. "It’s over, George," she whispered, her voice cracking. "You can rest now."

George coughed, a final spray of blood hitting his chin. He looked toward the ceiling one last time. "Tell... tell Uncle Phillip... it’s been fun working for him."

His eyes glazed over. The life went out of him.

In the containment wing, the silence was suffocating. Phillip stood in front of the empty glass box, his hands shaking with a rage that threatened to consume him. He had arrived too late. The girl was gone, and the ruse of the drone jet had worked perfectly.

"If only I got here a little faster," he whispered to himself, his blackened blade held loosely in his hand.

CRASH!

The glass-reinforced ceiling above the containment area shattered into a million diamond-like shards. A figure descended through the dust, wreathed in a pulsating, terrifying red aura.

Liam landed directly in the middle of the broken glass box, the very place where his daughter had been tortured. His blades were already humming with the frequency of death. He looked at Phillip, and for a moment, the temperature in the room seemed to drop to absolute zero.

"You die here, Phillip,"

The two men stood at opposite ends of the containment chamber. Phillip, the wounded General of the Hunter Association, and Liam, the father who had come to claim his vengeance. The air between them crackled with clashing Ki, red and dark blue energies swirling like a storm before the first strike.