Wolf Omega: The Lykanos Chronicles 2

Chapter Sixty-Six

Daniel's debilitated shudder of pain drew me from my stupor to rise with a burst from the floor.

"Release him!" I roared

At the sight of Duccio's talons piercing through Daniel's ribs, my body seemed to move of its own account. My wolf's protective hunger could never be tempered by sheer will now.

Finally prepared for another advance, Duccio struck out at me with his mind before I could reach him.

I screamed in agony as the blast of psychic energy landed, though I somehow kept my balance. I expected Duccio's invisible claw wanted to render me unconscious. It felt like he meant to dislodge my brain from my skull.

Stand down, he ordered me.

Without thought, I returned fire, knocking both men apart to crash back onto the floor.

Daniel's head banged loudly against the wall, and knew immediately he was unconscious, though I couldn't tell if it was the result of the concussion or the injuries Duccio had dealt him.

Taking advantage of my distraction, Duccio sent another wave of iron force that knocked me to the ground.

Stand down, I said!

I sensed his outraged at my attack, but his order only further fueled my fire. I wanted to send real fire and light Duccio aflame. But I knew it would destroy the house, and I wouldn't allow my sacred library to become ashes until I was sure there was no other choice.

Still, nothing could deter me from fighting him. Posturing to attack, I leapt forward, bent on ripping off his face.

He easily deflected my flying body and sent me head-first into the wall. I knew my physical strength was no match for Duccio's, and that I should concentrate on using my invisible hands to disable him, but I was too unsure of myself to pause and focus again.

Unwilling to cede, I turned to posture again only to receive another wave of his power.

This time, however, the psychic energy didn't strike me. Instead, my wolf shielded me from its destructive brunt.

It stunned us both to recognize that I somehow had the power to neutralize Duccio's attacks. Infuriated, he pushed back at me with the summary of his full strength. He made me understand that he fought me now without reservation or the slightest concern for what might happen to me.

It was as if the terrible energy that shot from his mind slowed, and I could see the outline of its crawling advance. Or perhaps it was I who quickened and saw the invisible force move through another frame of reference. Somehow, I perceived the wave moving with a tremulous resonance that warped the light passing through it. Before it could land on my chest, I answered with a wall of the same energy to surround and shield myself. It absorbed Duccio's mental iron without allowing me to receive the slightest injury. And from the combining, I felt doubly powerful.

All at once, I finally understood it, and that insight changed everything.

For the first time, I felt capable of exerting genuine control over the gift, which had only ever been under my dark protector's offensive authority. The power coursed through me like ocean wave, and for the first time in centuries, I felt invincible. More importantly, I understood that Duccio had no such ability to defend himself.

I reached with my invisible claw and delved past Duccio's exterior as if he had no protection at all. Pushing through his dermis and muscle, my mind touched his skeleton and seized hold of it. One by one, I shattered the bones of his legs and arms until he lost control and fell to the floor.

"Stop!" he screamed through his agony.

But I didn't stop; I couldn't. Focusing now on Duccio's heart, I took hold of it and squeezed, paralyzing its ability to pump. His shoulders and hips flailed, but he couldn't hope to mount a physical response.

As the blood stopped moving through his arteries and veins to his brain, Duccio's eyes dulled. His consciousness and fierce power disappeared.

While under my absolute control, memories of our life together flooded through me. I recalled the first day we met, when he liberated me from the garden shed where Father Piero's demented mercy had hidden me. I remembered Duccio's gentility as he transported us to Como; the way he'd comforted me when my traumatized mind became horrified of the sailors on his barge. I recalled how he welcomed me into Castello Palatino; his kindness and concern for the well-being of an abused child.

I couldn't reconcile how we'd come to this point.

But then I remembered all he'd done to bring chaos into my life. How he'd pitted my family against itself and destroyed our harmonious pack. How he'd betrayed Sempronio and scattered us into exile. I saw with jarring clarity how he'd taken the master's head. The memory had come to me from Maximo, and I paired it now with a second head, recalling the night my husband similarly lost his life at Duccio's hands.

"Enough," I screamed at myself.

It was too much to endure. I released my hold over Duccio, unable to continue, and allowed his heart to attempt a futile limp back to life.

At last, I remembered Sempronio's weathered eyes and the tears that stained them on our last night together. I had tried to comfort him, but he suffered too deeply over the fight that had led to Duccio's banishment from Castello Palatino. I was a child and had watched how Duccio's loathsome behavior had inexplicably reduced our father, the mightiest of all lycan, to a tremble of harrowing grief.

"I thought Duccio would be the one," Sempronio had whispered to me. "I believed he'd overcome the impulsive confusions of youth; that he'd grown in strength and wisdom so that the modern world could no longer deceive him. But I have failed again."

"Can't you forgive him?" I asked.

"I have forgiven him. He's my child, and nothing could bar him from my heart. But that doesn't change the inescapable truth: Duccio will not be the next omega of this house."

"But why can't you give him another chance? Surely, he's done nothing so horrible that he's beyond redemption. You always tell me that failure isn't to be feared—that I should try to fail at something every day. Failure forces us to grow. It welcomes wisdom, you insist."

Sempronio smiled through his tears, but he shook his head.

"It's not a matter of my wish or my acceptance. Duccio will not survive, Gabriella. He will not survive time itself. And that is an omega's true burden. I could forgive Duccio a thousand times, but it will not change who he is within. The odds are too against him. They will kill my boy—the Sforzas. Not directly, mind you—but by luring him to misperceive the world and time as they do. It is unavoidable."

Reverting to my lycan form, I kneeled at Duccio's side and stared at the last bits of life pulse weakly in his naked, bloodied, and broken body. I bent down to kiss his lips, feeling only the slightest whiffs of breath come.

"I forgive you," I whispered. "Once again."

I selfishly wished he could hear me, that there was enough left of his mind to feel my love and absolution, but I sensed only fragmented dissonance. My injury to his heart, its inability to pump blood, ensured his brain was now incapable of generating consciousness. The lycan I knew was gone.

Enough.

I reached to place my hand over his nose and mouth. It took only the slightest effort to stop his fragile breath from drawing. Barely a minute later, the light within him disappeared forever, and relieved tears fell from my eyes.

It was done, finally. At last, I was free.

THE END