Knotting His Rejected Breeder

With Marcus’s strength restored, they moved quickly, forging a path through the thick, slippery slurry of mud and decaying leaves that carpeted the forest floor.

Even after a torrential downpour had washed away Garron’s main trail three miles back, they managed to skirt the ravine, swollen with black water, without losing their footing. By late afternoon, they had made up all the lost time.

They discovered the First Cairn just as the sun began to dip toward the horizon, casting long, blood-colored shadows across the mountain gap. The cairn was an ancient circular pit ringed by black basalt stones, half-buried beneath creeping ivy and withered brambles. The air within the hollow was heavy, thick with the metallic stench of stagnant water and old blood.

At the center of a slab of slate lay Destiny bound to it by her wrists and ankles with thick hemp ropes. Her clothes were soaked and her face pale and splattered with blood, yet she held her chin high, teeth bared as she glared defiantly at Garron.

Garron stood over her, a long sacrificial cleaver with a bone handle in his right hand. The Heart Stone rested on a small pedestal near her head, pulsing with a faint, angry red glow against the darkening sky.

The insistent witch bone horn was hanging on Garron’s waist, easy to reach and blow.

Frustration nicked Dane’s neck at the sight of the twelve from earlier who ensured a ring of protection against the ritual site from any unwanted intrusion, like them.

"Time is running out," Henrik whispered from the ridge. He had wedged thick plugs of grey pine resin deep into his ear canals, held in place by strips of wool to muffle the sound of the horn if Garon blew it.

Dane wedged plugs of similar grey pine resin into his ears. The world suddenly seemed muffled and distant, as if he were underwater. He glanced at Hannah, then turned to Marcus and Destiny’s mother.

Marcus was crouched in the damp brush, fully recovered. His wife knelt beside him, her skinning knife held low, her dark eyes wide and fixed on the slate altar below.

"Wait for the torch signal," Dane signalled, pointing toward the pit.

At the bottom of the hollow, Garron raised his cleaver; his voice rose in a low, guttural chant that made the stones vibrate. One of his men stepped forward, holding a pitch-soaked torch near Destiny’s chest to illuminate the target.

Hannah drew the bowstring she had taken off the cart, held her breath for a split second, and loosed the arrow.

The arrow missed Garron; instead, it struck the torch-bearer squarely in the flesh of his shoulder. The man cried out and dropped the flaming torch directly onto the pile of dry straw and oil Garron had prepared for the ritual fire. Flames erupted in a sudden, blinding orange flash.

Chaos instantly engulfed the pit.

"Now!" Dane shouted, his voice sounding muffled to his own ears, as he vaulted over the edge of the ridge.

Garron reached for the bone horn hanging at his waist, his face twisted with rage as he raised it to his lips. Henrik was sliding down the muddy embankment, but a sudden blow from a guard’s club struck him on the shoulder, sending him sprawling sideways into the dirt.

Garron pressed the bone to his lips and blew.

Despite blocking his ears, a violent, piercing vibration struck straight through Dane’s spine. His vision turned red and his knees buckled as his equilibrium shattered, sending him crashing heavily into the mud at the edge of the pit. He clawed at the stone, gasping for air.

Because Marcus’s lesser-lineage wolf blood didn’t channel high frequencies the same way pure-blood Alpha blood did, the horn’s magic caused him nothing more than a violent migraine, leaving his recovered muscles unparalyzed.

Marcus leapt down the cairn’s stone steps, a hoarse cry cutting through the roar of the blaze. Propelled by the full power of his restored body and a father’s rage, he covered the distance in three long strides.

He hurled his big heavy claws and it stuck into Garron’s shoulder, knocking him backward and tearing the horn from his grasp. The object struck the slate altar and shattered into black fragments on the ground.

The excruciating pressure gripping Dane’s skull vanished instantly.

Dane forced himself up, sprang onto the stone floor, and tackled Garron before the old wolf could recover from Marcus’s blow.

They tumbled together into the mud at the foot of the altar, rolling amidst hot ash and scattered embers.

Although Dane was temporarily stripped of his beast and possessed no supernatural strength because of the horn’s lingering effect, yet he drove a violent elbow into Garron’s jaw, feeling the bone give way.

He followed by a brutal punch to the throat.

Garron choked, his fingers slipping from the cleaver’s handle, as Dane violently smashed a large stone he had snatched from the ground against his opponent’s temple.

Garron collapsed, lifeless.

Near the altar, one guard still standing on his feet lunged at Marcus, a nasty looking blade in hand. Before he could strike, Destiny’s mother slipped inside his guard and drove her skinning knife straight into the space beneath the man’s ribs.

The guard gasped in pain and dropped his weapon just as Marcus delivered a violent blow with his sharp claws to the man’s chest, plucking out his heart, sending him crashing heavily into the mud.

Marcus tossed down the still warm beating heart with a sneer.

All around them, Hannah’s arrows pinned the last two guards against the stone wall, while Henrik resumed his run, clearing the western edge of the pit with a swing of his hatchet.

Dane hauled himself up onto the slate slab, chest heaving, his hands slick with blood. He pulled out his pocketknife and sliced ​​through the bindings around Destiny’s wrists.

Destiny freed her arms and immediately threw herself into her father’s embrace as Marcus climbed onto the altar’s ledge. Marcus held her close wrapping her in a fierce hug, while his wife encircled them both with her arms.

Dane stepped back and leaned his shoulder against the cold stone to catch his breath.

Reaching out with bloodied fingers, he grabbed the glowing Heart Stone from the altar’s pedestal and shoved it deep into his tunic pocket.

Destiny looked over her father’s shoulder, her eyes wide and glistening with tears as she met Dane’s gaze through the gloom.

"You came," she whispered.

Dane looked down at his scraped and split knuckles, then raised his gaze to the full moon emerging above the pines. "I told you I’d come."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!