Chapter 4
Halfway down the corridor, another muffled scream tore through the concrete wall, accompanied by desperate, frantic words of protest. Ross accelerated, already convinced that a nightmare was unfolding on the other side.
Only a few meters away from the heavy metal door, a barrage of heavy, synchronized footsteps echoed behind him. Ross turned his head. Six bulky men had materialized in the hallway, blocking his exit. They brandished a lethal assortment of weapons—steel chains, thick wooden batons, hunting knives, and baseball bats.
Ross glanced back at the metal door, a dark scowl settling over his features, before locking his eyes onto the syndicate. As a werewolf, he could tear through a half-dozen humans without breaking a sweat, but it would take precious time. Seconds he didn't have.
Judging by the predatory, murderous glints in their eyes, whatever Brad was doing inside that room was nearing a point of no return.
"Derion, we have a problem. I think Vanika has been abducted," Ross initiated a telepathic mind-link, his voice sharp with urgency before he pivoted fully to face the threat.
"What do you think you are doing?" one of the thugs barked, stepping forward.
Ross tilted his head to the side, his expression chillingly calm. "I should be asking you that. What do y'all think you are doing?"
The casual disrespect instantly infuriated the speaker.
"Look here, young man," another thug quipped, shifting his grip on a heavy bat. "I will advise you to leave this place as quietly as you came."
Ross let out a cold, dark scoff, his muscles coiling like a spring. "Or what?"
With that, the hallway exploded into a brutal brawl.
Derion sprang to his feet the exact millisecond Ross’s telepathic warning hit his brain. He snatched his jacket off the sofa and moved with speed in the direction Vanika had gone. Catching her scent, it took him mere seconds to navigate the labyrinth and reach the desolate corridor.
"Where is she?" Derion roared straight into Ross's mind.
Ross slammed an opponent’s skull violently against the concrete wall, fracturing the bone before answering. "The last door!" Ross hissed internally a second later as another thug managed to graze him, burying a knife into his shoulder.
Derion didn't even blink at the carnage around him. He marched straight through the combat zone, entirely unbothered by the flying bats and spraying blood, his focus locked onto the single door at the end of the hall.
But one unfortunate human made the fatal mistake of stepping into his path, blocking the entrance. The man swung a heavy aluminum baseball bat directly at Derion's skull the moment the Alpha breached his radius.
Derion caught the swinging bat mid-air with one hand, completely neutralizing the momentum. Before the human could even process the supernatural strength, Derion delivered a front kick with such catastrophic force that the impact against the metal door handle instantly shattered the man's spine. The back of his skull fractured as it slammed into the steel plating.
The man was knocked out cold before he could even register the pain. Without letting the body slide to the floor, Derion channeled another burst of kinetic force through his shoe, using the human's limp body like a battering ram to splinter the door frame and burst the room wide open.
The moment he stepped over the threshold, his Alpha aura blazed into a blinding, suffocating furnace of rage.
Brad was pinning Vanika against the wall. Tears cut tracks through the makeup on her face, fresh drops spilling down her cheeks. Derion’s eyes tracked the swelling finger marks marring her pale skin, then dropped to her dress, which had been violently torn, exposing her body.
Vibrant, blood-red streaks began to bleed into Derion's silver irises, discoloring them as Griffin fought like a rabid animal to take total control of their vessel. The remaining syndicate guards in the room surged forward to protect their boss, but hesitated, their instincts screaming at them to flee as they witnessed his eyes shift to a demonic, unnatural red.
Derion did not hesitate.
He moved like a phantom, closing the distance between himself and the guards in a fraction of a second. He dropped them one after the other, rendering two instantly unconscious with single, bone-shattering punches. He didn't stop there. Grabbing the next two by the hair, he violently slammed their faces into the floor, shattering the ceramic tiles underneath their skulls. The last two stepped into his grasp, and Derion snuffed the life out of them in a singular motion, snapping their necks like dry twigs.
Vanika unleashed a fresh, piercing shriek, witnessing a level of violence she never dreamed existed in the real world. Her entire frame began to vibrate with violent tremors, her eyes wide as she took in the horrific sea of blood and lifeless bodies painting the floor.
Within seconds, all six guards lay completely dead on the concrete tiles. Only Brad remained standing, frozen in absolute shock, his hands still trembling against Vanika as he stared at how effortlessly his entire security detail had been slaughtered.
Derion hung his head low, letting his hair shadow his face as he desperately tried to suppress the wolf and normalize his eye color. But the beast inside was thrashing against the leash, completely furious as Brad’s filthy hands were still touching Vanika's skin.
Brad stared at his slaughtered men with widened eyes before his gaze snapped back to the monster standing before him. Something broke in his mind. Driven by pure panic, he shoved Vanika toward the corner where the captive girls sat and pulled a jagged dagger from his waistband.
Without a second thought, Brad charged, raising the blade and aiming a lethal strike directly at Derion's throat.
Derion stood perfectly still, keeping his gaze trained on the floor until the human was within striking distance.
In one seamless, blinding reflex, without even lifting his head, Derion’s hand shot out and clamped around Brad's throat, instantly halting his momentum. With his free hand, he caught the wrist holding the dagger, twisting it backward with a sickening, crunch of splintering bone. The dagger clattered harmlessly against the bloody tiles.
Despite the agonizing screams erupting from Brad's throat, the man continued to thrash, raining useless blows with his one free hand against Derion's chest. The strikes felt like rain against a mountain, Derion didn't even flinch.
When Derion finally lifted his head, his eyes, which were back to their original color, locked onto Vanika.
She was staring back at him, her eyes massive and her body convulsing with terror, looking at him as if he were a demon she had never seen before.
"Leave." The command vibrated with a cold malice that struck pure terror into her soul.
Vanika’s body reacted before her brain could even process the command, driven entirely by a primal urge to survive.
She scrambled to her feet, frantically clutching the torn edges of her dress to cover her chest. Her legs propelled her toward the shattered exit, but the muffled, desperate whimpers of the bound women in the corner pierced through her panic, forcing her feet to slide to a halt.
Turning around, she looked back at the captives. Her heart wrenched at the sight of their silent, tearful pleas. Then her eyes drifted back to Derion. She parted her lips to speak, but her throat was completely dry. No words came out.
Seeing the stubborn hesitation in her eyes, Derion gritted his teeth, a low growl rattling his ribs. He was exerting every ounce of his willpower just to hold the beast back so she wouldn't have to witness the horrific execution he was about to unleash.
Left with no other alternative, Derion wrapped his fist into the collar of Brad’s shirt and violently dragged him out of the room, nearly colliding with Ross, who was just stepping through the shattered threshold. Derion could have easily hoisted the man in the air like a rag doll, but doing so in front of Vanika would raise questions he didn't want to answer.
Ross stepped aside to clear the doorway. He silently watched as his Derion hauled the whimpering human down the corridor until they vanished into an adjacent, empty room.
Ross let out a heavy, exhausted sigh, a deep scowl settling on his face as he surveyed the hallway one last time. He had meticulously scrubbed the corridor, ensuring not a single trace of blood remained from his own skirmish. Satisfied that their tracks were covered, he stepped fully into the vault.
The first sight that greeted him was dead bodies anchoring the floor, followed closely by Vanika, who was frantically using a dropped blade to saw through the ropes binding the captive women.
Without needing the details, the grim tableau told Ross everything he needed to know. Brad was a human trafficker—a slave trader who abducted young girls and auctioned them off to the highest bidder.
The only burning question left was how on earth Vanika had managed to wander straight into his web.
By the time Vanika sliced through the last binding, the freed women had scrambled to their feet and bolted down the hall. She turned around to follow, only to freeze. Derion was already back in the room, leaning against the wall with a cold scowl. The dead bodies were completely gone.
Biting her lower lip in a fit of pure nerves, Vanika clutched her torn dress tighter against her chest and quickly averted her eyes, staring desperately at the open doorway.
Derion tracked her every micro-movement with icy detachment. After strangling the bastard who dared lay hands on his mate and draining him dry until his veins were empty, Griffin had finally settled down into a low, satisfied hum.
Seeing the lingering tremors wracking her body, Derion felt a violent urge to demand how the hell she had gotten herself mixed up in a slave ring. But he refused to speak to her.
If it weren't for the persistent, suffocating pull of his wolf, he would have walked away from her long ago and never looked back. He loathed the kind of power she held over him, a power she didn't even realize she possessed.
"Damn it, Griffin," Derion cursed silently in his mind, clenching his jaw as he remembered how all these began.
