The Cursed Lycan's Defiant Hidden Mate

Chynna POV:

The immense weight of the cedar log pressed into my shoulder, but my footing remained unyielding. With every step I took across the courtyard, my boots drove deep cracks into the frozen mud.

Up on the ramparts, the guards looked like they were choking on their own tongues. They stared down in wild disbelief as a supposedly weak, wolfless female carried a siege log as if it were a wooden branch.

"Is she insane? That gate is forged from solid, thousand-year black iron!" the guard captain finally screamed, his voice cracking with pure panic.

I ignored his shrieking. My amber eyes locked onto the central seam where the two massive iron doors met.

Ten paces away.

I broke into a dead sprint. My legs pumped with terrifying explosive power, launching me forward like a hunting leopard unleashed from a trap.

Three paces away.

I twisted my hips and torso with violent precision, swinging the thousand-pound log forward like a battering ram straight into the heart of the gate.

A deafening crash ripped through the mountain air, roaring like a thunderclap echoing between the stone cliffs.

The sheer kinetic force traveled back through the cedar trunk with brutal intensity. I released my grip as the massive log snapped clean in half, sending jagged splinters flying in all directions like deadly shrapnel.

The thirty-foot black iron doors shrieked as their metal hinges warped under the impossible pressure. The foot-thick locking bolt snapped with a violent metallic bang.

Both massive doors shuddered violently, tore free from their stone moorings, and collapsed inward, slamming flat against the stone courtyard in a storm of dust and flying gravel.

I brushed a few flecks of wood from the palm of my hand.

Stepping over the ruined iron gates, I strolled calmly into the courtyard of the feared Shadow Fortress.

Inside, dozens of heavily armored black-clad knights had already drawn their broadswords, their silver-edged blades forming a tight, deadly perimeter pointed straight at my throat.

"Take the assassin down!" a knight commander roared, lunging forward with a downward slash aimed to split my collarbone.

I sneered. Shifting my weight half an inch to the left, the whistling blade missed my shoulder by a hair's breadth.

Before he could recover, my right hand struck like an iron wedge, slamming the base of my palm directly into his armored wrist.

The knight grunted in pain as his fingers went numb, dropping the weapon. I caught the falling hilt mid-air, spun on my heel, and smashed the flat of the heavy blade across his chest plate.

The metal caved in, and the two-hundred-pound warrior flew backward, crashing into the stone fountain behind him.

The rest of the knights roared in fury and surged forward, their silver blades weaving an inescapable net of steel.

I reached beneath my cloak, and the flexible silver whip coiled at my waist slithered into my right hand like a living serpent.

A sharp crack shattered the courtyard air. The whip turned into a blur of silver lightning, wrapping around the ankles of the front three warriors and sweeping their legs out from under them in a single fluid stroke.

I moved through their ranks like smoke. Every flick of my wrist, every pivoting strike of my boots sent an armored knight crashing into the flagstones with cracked ribs or shattered joints.

In less than thirty seconds, forty elite fortress guards lay groaning on the ground, clutching their limbs in agony. Not a single man remained standing.

I coiled the silver whip back around my hip and cast a cold, sweeping glance across the courtyard. "Is there anyone else who wishes to block the doorway?"

The heavy double doors of the inner keep groaned open.

An overwhelming, suffocating wave of Lycan Alpha aura spilled out into the open air like a tidal wave of crushing gravity.

The temperature in the courtyard plummeted instantly. The fallen knights on the ground began to tremble violently, pressing their faces against the stones, too terrified to draw a full breath.

The rhythmic, heavy rolling of solid stone wheels broke the absolute silence.

A figure emerged from the deep shadows of the doorway.

He sat upon an obsidian wheelchair. Beneath a mane of ink-black hair was a pair of glowing, ice-blue wolf eyes that locked onto me with deadly precision.

The face that court rumors claimed was hideously disfigured was, in reality, carved with the devastating, lethal perfection of an ancient war god. The only flaw was the dark, untamed savagery radiating from his very presence.

Our gazes collided in mid-air. The tension between us crackled like dry tinder waiting for a spark, neither of us yielding a single inch of ground.

Kellen tapped his long fingers against the polished stone armrest of his chair. His voice was deep, rough, and vibrating with dark amusement. "So, you are the useless trash the Barlow pack threw away?"

I met his crushing Alpha aura with an easy tilt of my chin, a mocking smirk playing on my lips.

"Trash?" I gestured toward the ruined iron gates and the sea of moaning warriors at my feet. "It seems Your Royal Highness has a rather peculiar definition of the word."