Chapter 82: The Awakening — the woman they feared

The lively hall of mocking glares and hungry eyes had now turned into one of chilling silence, everyone staring up, eyes broadened with shock as they watched the woman...that was once shackled down by the chains, now floating above the stone.

Her white hair looked like it had been set on fire, her eyes had this greyish glow to it that wasn’t there before, and her veins were glowing all over her body, like silver was now flowing through them, not blood.

The entire mountain started to shake, and dust fell from the ceiling in single, silent curtains. The moon overhead dimmed — or maybe it just seemed that way now that something brighter had filled the space.

Her presence had swallowed the whole room. As she raised her eyes, the ambient energy around her flares— a blinding storm of raw, undeniable power that could force the arrogant and powerful to their knees.

The atmosphere turned very heavy, dripping with a pressure so immense it crushed the breath from the lungs of everyone in the room.

The very people who scoffed at her now look up in sheer terror. The "fragile nuisance" they thought they could crush hasn’t just gained power—she has unlocked a force that makes their own look like flickering candlelight against a blazing wildfire.

Conan stood there, paralyzed while watching her float above the stone. He only inhaled once, and instantly regretted it.

Della only looked at him once, and he felt as if all of what made him who he was and his life force was being sucked out of his pores. The forcw was so immense that he was thrown back so hard that his back went through the walls, crumbling them to dust.

And several others.

He was shot back like an arrow, and when it finally came to a stop, he wasn’t moving anymore and piles of fallen large stones were covering him.

The Moonlight pooled on every inch of her body, and it looked like she was soaking in every bit of it. Della’s eyes held almost no emotions, cold as hell, as she drifted down the Dias, her body carried by whatever force now surrounded her.

Something unleashed inside of her was growling.

Her wolf.

Her wolf... awakened for the first time.

She came down slowly, and her feet touched the floor. She couldn’t even remember when the blindfold and the gag had left her body, and she didn’t care.

Instead, her eyes took in every single person in the room.

Selene was also paralysed on her seat, looking like someone had drained every drop of blood from her veins.

Beatrice pressed herself to leopold, vibrating like the guilty piece of shit she was, her eyes so wide open they looked ready to pop out, fear clouding every inch of it.

And Malachi...

Was standing.

There was no fear in his eyes.

Just disbelief.

Even the cold was gone.

He just stood there, looking at her like his eyes were deceiving him.

And she...wanted to strangle him.

Meanwhile, Cassian had a half smile on his face. He still stood behind a large pillar where the light in the room didn’t touch, and as bewildered as he also looked, there was this...gladness to it.

*What would you like us to do first?* A dark, primal wolf inside of her asked, her eyes still spitting fire into everyone’s in the room, *Would you like me to release more of my power and force those ungrateful, damned skulls of theirs low?! Or would you like to go straight to the point and gouge out their eyes and lips for ever looking and speaking about you?*

Della looked up at the elders, whom were all frozen in their seats too.

Especially Ravaryn.

That unmoved, sharp elderly look he always carried was nowhere to be found, and he was also standing on both feet...his staff rolling on the floor in front of him.

Whatever it was that was happening to her, he and Malachi seemed to have a clue about it.

The rest remained trembling in fear. Trembling in the presence of a raging power that they’d never experienced before.

Ravaryn’s lips parted soundlessly, "No..." he breathed.

The word barely existed.

His ancient eyes remained fixed upon the silver veins blazing beneath Della’s skin, upon the impossible moonlight that refused to leave her body.

"It cannot be..."

No one answered him. No one could, for the cave itself had become her territory, and even the candles had bent their flames away from her.

The wolf inside her purred again,

*Look at them. Look how they shake. The same mouths that mocked you...The same eyes that stripped you bare...* It paused, it’s eyes looking through hers, *Give me permission, Adelaide. One heartbeat is all I need!*

Della said nothing, then looked at Malachi instead.

The wolf snarled, *Start with him, break his neck and make him watch the others die before he follows,*

Something inside Della welcomed the suggestion.

The rage was intoxicating.

For the first time in her entire life, it looked like no one could stop her.

She took a single step forward, and the mountain groaned again. Cracks raced through the obsidian beneath her feet, and several Alphas stumbled backwards.

Some dropped instinctively to one knee beneath the crushing pressure.

She took another step forward, but instead of going to Malachi...she was heading straight to someone else.

In a single breath, she was standing in front of two people.

Beatrice, moulded into her husband’s embrace.

Della didn’t care.

She reached down with terrifying speed, and her fingers wrapped around Beatrice’s neck. The woman gasped in clutching fear, and now pain from the other woman now strangling her as she yanked her away from her husband’s tightened arms around her body.

Leopold tried to move, but he only made it an inch before Della also sent him flying somewhere in the room. He crashed straight through the walls of the cave, caving a large hole through it before he finally stopped, stones crashing down on his now limp body.

Effortlessly, she then lifted Beatrice off her feet so she was dangling from the ground, her hands clutching and clawing helplessly against the stronger ones.