Chapter 77: Chapter 77: WHAT ARE YOU?

VALORIA WILDEROSE

“I thought you killed him!” I half-scream, trembling from terror once the creature sets its blood-thirsty eyes on me.

Azrael gets over his surprise and frowns.

“Trust me, I did. I don’t make mistakes.”

“Then what’s happening?”

“It seems your ex-boyfriend is a Lycan.”

Now I look at Azrael like he’s gone insane too. Bat-shit crazy.

“What? No… Ronan—Ronan is a wolf!” I argue, thinking back to all the times he had shifted and howled at the moon and shared traditions only a wolf would. How unimpressive he thought his wolf was, and his inferiority complex about it. “He was born a wolf.”

“No, I believe you. I also don’t recall making a bastard like him either,” Azrael comments with words I don’t understand.

Before I can ask, Ronan 2.0 lets out a terrifying screeching howl that shakes the walls and instills fear in every living creature around us.

I shiver, closing my ears and screaming in agony as my eardrums threaten to explode and raw fear is injected into my blood.

“YOu wIlL diE toDaY, LyCan kInGG,” he croaks with a broken voice, speaking while still in full transformation.

Azrael chuckles to himself, but it sounds anything but delighted.

I can feel his rage bubbling over as the right corner of his lips lifts up. Something just as vile and sinister lights up in his eyes.

He clenches his teeth. “I’d love to see you try.”

He rolls up his sleeves, walking forward to face Ronan again, flexing his neck and back muscles and rolling his arm.

Ronan throws the first blow; Azrael blocks, commencing the second brawl. It’s blow after blow afterwards—an endless show of strength.

The faster and more unhinged Ronan fights, the more brutal Azrael becomes. The more Ronan’s broken body regenerates itself, the faster Azrael rips him apart, as if testing the limits of his self-healing factor.

Until it shifts from a fight to a bloody beatdown.

Ronan doesn’t last long before that smugness turns into terror, sensing his imminent end even with his fractured mind.

It turns gory with the way Azrael moves efficiently, no moves wasted, digging into him bare-handed and bloodied.

Ronan decides to make a run for it—severed hand and hole in his gut—but Azrael pulls him back, offering no mercy.

He lets out another wail heavy with agony as Azrael finishes him off, dropping his limp and barely breathing body on the wooden floors with a loud thump.

Azrael breathes hard standing over him. The room is engulfed in a cold, chilling silence that is both gut-wrenching and terrifying even for me.

And just when I think it’s over, it’s not.

“Who created you?” Azrael asks in a chilling tone.

Ronan lets out a groan of pain and exhaustion, unable to utter a single word. It’s a miracle he’s still breathing. Somehow that response angers Azrael even more.

Suddenly, the air in the room begins to turn and stir, igniting with mystic power that sends instant chills down my spine. I realize he’s using magic.

He begins chanting words in a language with a thick accent I’ve never heard before as the wind picks up.

Ronan roars one last time, struggling to fight back against whatever force is being summoned, but it’s too late for him.

Darkness begins to ooze out of his flesh and every orifice he has, just as his beastly body begins to shrink and shrivel, morphing back into human form forcefully. All of it going into Azrael.

Like he’s taking in his life force.

Until Ronan is completely bone-dry and turns to stone that crumbles into ash and dust at Azrael’s feet, killing him for good.

Another silence follows—more terrifying than the first.

I’m frozen in place from what I’ve witnessed, and I shiver the second he slowly turns toward me with his eyes hidden underneath messy hair, hiding his facial expression.

I suddenly realize for the first time how truly terrifying the man in front of me is.

That he isn’t just called a devil because of his cruelty; it’s always been much more than that. He’s more terrifying than the rumors describe him to be.

“W-W-What did you d-do?” I find myself stuttering and shaking uncontrollably.

Terrified of him—just like the first time we met—from the way he stands there drenched in blood and watching me silently, like a predator hungry for more.

“Di-Did you j-just eat him?”

Am I next?

What else don’t I know about this man?

He takes steps toward me, each one making my heart pound faster, tempting me to run. I close my eyes and bite my lips, bracing myself for what comes next. He’s finally going to kill me.

But then I’m lifted from the bed into warm hands—albeit bloody—like an egg on the verge of shattering.

“Are you okay?” His voice is gentle again, calm but distant.

I open my eyes slowly, looking up at him—meeting the Azrael I know again—staring down at me intently with gentle blue eyes that leave me speechless.

Luckily, he doesn’t wait for an answer.

He carries me away from the room filled with blood and gore, down the hallway, up the stairs of the chillingly quiet house, until we’re standing just outside our room and the door opens on its own for us.

The house is too quiet. Too still. No maids scurrying about, no sisters lurking around corners, no Father’s booming voice echoing through the halls.

It’s as if everyone has vanished—or is hiding.

Maybe they heard the fight. Maybe they felt the surge of dark magic that made even my bones tremble.

Or maybe they’re smart enough to know that when the Lycan King is angry, you stay out of his way.

He sets me down on the bed gently, his movements careful and deliberate, like he’s handling something precious. The contrast between the man who just absorbed another being’s life force and the one tucking me into bed is jarring.

I don’t know which one is the real Azrael. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

He turns to leave the next second, and panic flares in my chest.

My hands reach out and hold onto him on instinct, not caring about the blood anymore; I’m already covered in it from being in his arms.

“Where are you going?”

I have to ask. A bad feeling swirls around in my chest.

He pauses, and for a moment I think he might stay. Might explain. Might offer some reassurance that everything will be okay.

But the look in his eyes tells me otherwise.

“I’ll be right back,” is all he says with a cold look in his eyes before he disappears—fizzling into a cloud of smoke that dissipates almost instantly.

I stare at the empty space where he stood, my heart still racing, my mind still reeling.

Whatever he’s about to do… I’m not sure I want to know.

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