CHAPTER 223: _GARRICK

Axel’s POV

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Beta Axel Thorne.

The golden wolf of Lunaria. The Alpha king’s prized golden boy, whom he made his Beta at such a young age for his "talent".

Little did the empire know that the boy died years ago...

It all began a little over three hundred years ago. Garrick, bastard son of Alpha king Raghar Stormborn.

His father had slept with a peasant woman, resulting in his birth. But she wasn’t Raghar’s mate and had died during childbirth.

Making Garrick a shame to the Stormborn bloodline.

A fact which his father never ceased to remind him of.

"Don’t you ever call me father or I’ll banish you to the furthest reaches of the Dark Lands!" Raghar would snarl at him anytime he dared call him that word.

As if that wasn’t enough, Garrick had to pretend like he was nothing but a mere servant in his own father’s palace.

He was a nobody.

Until his Alpha blood started developing.

When Garrick awakened his wolf at sixteen, Alpha King Raghar had no choice but to elevate Garrick’s post. He made him a soldier in the Lunarian army, secretly assigning him some of the best trainers in the empire.

Garrick grew more powerful with each passing day—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted money. Authority. He NEEDED it.

Sadly, it didn’t take long for Raghar to notice Garrick’s desire for power.

The Alpha king staged a scandal implicating Garrick as a thief in the royal army. Then he had him banished, giving him up to a mercenary group known back then as the "Hand of judgement".

Garrick was supposed to die. They were supposed to finish him off.

But that’s when SHE stepped into the picture—

"Any last words, you wretched thief?" The leader of the mercenary organisation pointed a sword at his face, sniggering alongside his comrades.

They were in a dark room—a motel at the borders separating the Dark Lands from Lunaria.

Garrick was tied to a wall with silver chains and stripped of his shirt, his knees sore from all the kneeling.

His nose was stuffed with blood, making breathing a chore. Slowly, he raised his head, staring into the eyes of the man who had a sword pointed at his face.

Most of them were soldier-level wolves, but the leader was a low Alpha.

He was outnumbered. Alone. Left for dead.

Even now, with his wrists bleeding and lungs collapsing, he still hoped his father might come for him.

"I..." Garrick’s voice came out in a croak, his chest tight with pain. "I’m not a—"

He was cut off when the wooden door suddenly burst open, blasting into the room and crushing one of the men into the wall.

All heads turned to the entrance of the room, including Garrick, whose eyes narrowed.

Standing there was a figure draped in a black cloak. Shadows twisted into unnatural shapes around her and a thick white fog even emerged.

But all this wasn’t the most bone-chilling part.

That would be her crimson eyes, bleeding with a light so cold underneath her black cloak that Garrick couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

"Who the fuck are you?" One of the soldiers stretched out his arms, his claws unsheathing as his wolf snarled underneath.

However, when he seemed like he was ready to charge, the woman snapped her fingers. The motion was simple, but its effects were catastrophic.

The white fog rushed into the room like a flood, engulfing it so much that Garrick could no longer see anything else in it.

What followed were the agonising screams of the soldiers.

Laser guns blasted, claws sliced into the air... But it wasn’t enough.

"P-Please—" a voice screeched through the fog, but before he could finish, a sharp cutting sound was made.

Blood splattered on Garrick’s face and chest, making him shiver as the metallic liquid dripped into his open lips.

Eventually, when the screams died down and the fog cleared, the figure in a black cloak was the only one standing.

The soldiers, even the Alpha class leader, all littered the floor like rotten meat, their entrails and blood painting the room walls.

Garrick swallowed hard, his jaw tightening when the witch walked toward him with a calm that only added to the tension.

"Just... Just make it a quick death." He closed his eyes and looked away from those cold red eyes, accepting his fate.

But his life wasn’t over.

Instead of the sharp pain he expected, he heard the clang of metal hitting the marble floor. His wrists and the rest of his body were suddenly free.

"Child of the Stormborns." Her voice forced him to open his eyes.

His lips parted with awe when his saviour lowered her cloak, revealing a pristine face that seemed sculpted by the gods themselves.

"I’m Amara Redthorn..." She stretched her right hand forward, gesturing for him to take it.

When Garrick stared at that expectant hand in front of his face, he knew...

This woman would be the beginning of a massive change in his life.

.

.

"Amara and I went ahead to have our dear son along the line." He pointed at Kyren when he came to the end of his brief narration. "Around that time my pathetic father had a son with his mate. The one whose life I took."

He stopped there, raising his arms in mock defeat.

The room was dead silent.

Everyone gawked at him, clearly speechless.

"Anyway..." Garrick clasped his hands together. "I took control of the Hand of Justice and turned it into the Dark Hand. Our growth was slow but we soon stretched our claws throughout—"

"Wait a fucking minute..." Lucian cut him short, his silver eyes filled with disgust. "You mean to tell me all this time, not only have I been sharing my mate with my half-cousin. But I’ve also been sharing him with... With my half uncle?"

Garrick revelled in the utter terror written all over the Alpha Prince’s face.

"Technically, the body of Beta Axel has been fucking the omega." Garrick shrugged. "The pinnacle of our organisation’s body swapping experiments. I took over this body when he was only ten."

He could feel the fire burning in Kyren like a forest fire.

The Rogue king was moments away from snapping.

"You’re... You’re sick!" Aurora spat, pulling her arm out of Lucian’s grip. "Depraved! This—"

"Save the morality lectures, princess." Garrick rolled his eyes. "Things weren’t supposed to go this way. But since they have, I—"

The door suddenly creaked open, forcing all of them to swerve their heads to it.

Garrick’s lips curled slyly when he saw who it was.

Elian.