Chapter 132: The Enemy Within

“You…” an elder tiger, his grey hair patchy and his arm in a crude sling, stepped forward. His voice trembled, not with age, but with a bubbling, volcanic rage. “You dare return? You dare show your face here after what you did?”

Kael stood frozen, his bare feet rooting him to the dusty ground. He held his hands out, palms up in a gesture of peace he didn’t feel.

“I know I left,” Kael said, his voice thick with remorse. “I know I abandoned you with the wolves and the elements. I was selfish. But I have returned. I will rebuild—”

Crack.

A jagged stone sailed through the air and struck Kael square in the forehead.

It wasn’t a lethal blow to a Beast King, but the shock of it staggered him more than any spear could. A trickle of warm blood ran down his temple, mixing with the sweat on his brow.

“Rebuild?” a female screamed, her eyes wild with grief. “You cannot rebuild the dead, Kael!”

“You abandoned us?” the elder scoffed, spitting on the ground near Kael’s feet. “If only you had just abandoned us! If only you had stayed away!”

Kael blinked, the blood dripping into his eye. “What… what do you mean?”

“Look around you!” the female shrieked, gesturing to the flattened ruins. “Look at the claw marks on the wood! Look at the size of the footprints in the mud! Who do you think did this?”

Kael looked.

He forced his eyes to focus on the splintered beams of the home he had built with his own hands. He looked at the deep, gouging grooves in the timber—grooves that were too wide for a wolf, too deep for a bear.

They were tiger claws. His claws.

The color drained from Kael’s face. His stomach churned violently.

“No,” he whispered, stepping back. “No…”

“You went mad,” the elder condemned him, his voice rising to a shout. “You succumbed to the Feral Madness like a weakling! An Alpha should have a mind of steel, but yours crumbled like wet clay!”

The clan began to close in. The fear in their eyes was gone, replaced by the bravery of the grieving. They shoved him. Hands—his own clan’s hands—pushed against his chest, striking his arms, tearing at his skin.

“You turned into a monster!”

“You tore Elder Juro apart while he tried to calm you!”

“You crushed the cubs’ nursery!”

“Murderer!”

Kael didn’t fight back. He stood there, a mountain of muscle letting himself be battered by the weak and the starving. Each accusation was a physical blow.

Flashes of memory assaulted him—red-tinted nightmares he had thought were just dreams. The taste of copper. The sound of screaming. The feeling of bones snapping under his jaws.

He hadn’t just abandoned them. He had slaughtered them.

“I…” Kael fell to his knees, his head hanging low. The shame was a physical weight, crushing the air from his lungs. “I didn’t know… I didn’t…”

“We denounce you!” the clan chanted, their voices a cacophony of pain. “You are no King! You are a calamity!”

Kael squeezed his eyes shut. He deserved this. He deserved every blow, every curse. He was a monster. Ren had saved a monster.

Suddenly, the abuse stopped.

The shouting died in their throats. The hands that were hitting him retracted as if burned.

A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the ruins of the village. It wasn’t the silence of peace; it was the silence of a prey animal sensing a predator far worse than the one they were currently fighting.

Kael opened his eyes.

The crowd of white tigers was parting down the middle. They weren’t looking at him anymore. They were turning around, looking back toward the center of the ruined village, their eyes wide with absolute terror. They scrambled backward, pressing themselves against the ruined walls, making themselves small to clear a path.

The ground vibrated.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from within the settlement. These weren’t the steps of a starving refugee. These were the steps of a conqueror.

Kael slowly lifted his head.

Walking through the parted crowd was a nightmare made of muscle and malice.

It was a male in beastman form, but he was massive—easily a head taller than Kael, with a frame that was thicker and broader. He possessed the ears and tail of a tiger, but they were jet black. His skin was deeply tanned, almost bronze, and marked distinctly with dark, charcoal-colored stripes that swirled across his pectorals and down his arms like tribal tattoos.

A Black Tiger King. A variant so rare and so violent they were usually exiled at birth.

Scars crisscrossed his broad chest and muzzle, telling the story of a thousand battles won. He was clad only in a dark leather loincloth that hung low on his hips, emphasizing his savage build. A heavy, magnificent cape made of grey wolf pelts dragged behind him in the dust. His presence was suffocating, radiating a dark, heavy pressure that made the air hard to breathe.

But it was who was walking beside him that made Kael’s blood turn to ice.

Vara.

The female tiger who had poisoned him. The one who had started this entire nightmare.

She walked close to the Black Tiger King, her hand resting possessively on his massive bicep. She looked pristine, fed, and groomed—a stark contrast to the starving clan around her.

She looked at Kael, who was kneeling in the dirt, bleeding and broken.

Her lip curled. It wasn’t hatred. It was pure, unadulterated disgust. She scanned his face, noting the golden eyes that had replaced the feral red, but finding no worth in them.

“Pathetic,” Vara sneered, her voice carrying clearly in the silence. “I told you he was broken, my King. He is a disgrace to his stripes.”

The Black Tiger King stopped three feet from Kael. His shadow swallowed the White Tiger King whole.

He looked down, his eyes a pale, ghostly yellow that held no warmth, only dominance.

“So,” the new King rumbled, his voice sounding like grinding stones. “This is the White Tiger King? The one who eats his own?”

He grinned, revealing teeth that were yellowed and chipped.

“Get up, little cat. I want to hear you beg before I tear your throat out.”

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