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A couple of weeks ago, the beast and I had been locked in a struggle for power. The only thing we agreed upon was Addie. She needed me to protect her from all the threats that came crawling her way. I would do it with my dying breath.
Fenrir snarled. He lashed out, claws piercing the air. The sucking sensation of his aura pulled at my fur, but Addie declared a single word:
“No.”
A soft pressure settled around me as I ducked out from under Fenrir’s hand.
“Why are you so intent on saving this world?” Fenrir’s roar made the rocky walls tremble. “It’s just as disposable as any other world. You have the power to leave it, to move on to other places and live out your lives. You. Don’t. Have. To. Be. In. My. Way!”
With each word, Fenrir grew larger and larger. It was as if he’d finally summoned the power that he’d slowly been devouring back in our world. He shook his house-sized shoulders and tossed his head so that it scraped the stalactites gripping the ceiling.
Rocks rained down. One careened towards Addie until I shoved her out of the way. The sharp stalactite scraped my flank. The impact stung, but the bone armor deflected most of the stone so that I could keep my focus on Addie.
She buried her fingers in further tufts of fur between the plates of my bone armor. I would have relished the sensation were it not for the fight in front of us. Fenrir was keeping me from the happy ending I never thought possible. Because of him, I doubted I would ever leave this underworld.
I didn’t have a human mouth to tell Addie to save herself and move on. She wouldn’t have listened if I said anything. I wanted to save her. Pressed against Addie’s body as the only thing between her and Fenrir, I realized that she wasn’t going to leave me.
We were going down together.
I shook myself. With that new knowledge, I corrected my stance. I couldn’t focus on protecting Addie. Instead, I had to make an opening for her. The chains on Fenrir flapped wildly in the air. She was the only one who could bind them and put him back in his eternal prison.
When I dove to the right, Addie ran to the left. She reached for one of the flapping chains with both hands. It was large enough that it would take her out if it hit her. Somehow, she managed to pour power into me as she ran. My paws doubled in size. The change made my gait fumbling for a split second.
By the time I reached Fenrir, I was the same size as him. I brought my paw down onto his head and sent his jaw crashing into the floor. Addie let out a surprised yelp but didn’t slow down. She wrapped a second chain around Fenrir’s muzzle before rushing back to the untethered chain on his front leg.
Fenrir tried to stand, but I shoved him back down. He bucked and nearly threw me off my feet. As he twisted to reach Addie, I swiped at him with my bone-plated tail. It knocked him upside the head so hard that I was pretty sure he saw stars all the way down here in the underworld.
If we escaped this, then life would be interesting. I didn’t know how we would go back to a normal life after this. Would our eyes meet across a room full of my human coworkers? Would we smile, knowing that we’d done more for this world than any of them ever could? Or would we wake screaming in the middle of the night?
Both seemed like valid answers.
We would only find out if we made it out of here.
Fenrir roared. He tried to use his aura to devour us, but it was of no use. Addie had us covered. However, that meant her attention was divided. Below us, she wavered. She swayed on her feet before locking one of the chains to the ground.
When the world-devouring beast noticed that one chain had been fixed, he snarled and snapped his jaw. His muzzle was bound, though. He could barely open his mouth to growl. The man was smart. He realized his predicament and pulled his head back so he could swing it at Addie like a battering ram.
I lunged and bit down on Fenrir’s jaw. He tried to tear himself away from me, but my teeth ripped through his flesh and caught on the chain around his muzzle, locking him in place.
Now was Addie’s chance. If I could hold Fenrir long enough for her to bind him in chains, then this fight would be won. Hope leapt like a wildfire in my chest. It rushed over me and consumed every doubt that I’d ever had.
Like she could read my mind, Addie rushed to Fenrir’s other limbs. He wasn’t bound yet, though. Limbs free, he kicked and squirmed. My teeth threatened to break on the chain around Fenrir’s muzzle. I bore down and slapped a paw against his ribcage to pin him down, but Fenrir noticed we were both growing weak and slow.
Fenrir’s eyes snapped back to me. His pupils narrowed threateningly. I dug my claws into the rocky earth below. Fenrir shovedintome. He split my jaw wide as he pressed me into the nearby wall. Pain rocked through my skull. Teeth shattered, though I couldn’t hear it.
The only thing I heard was Addie’s outcry.
My eyes snapped open. In his rush, Fenrir had knocked her over with his tail. She grimaced on the ground and slowly picked herself up. But her arm was all wrong. It hung limply by her side. When she tried to reach for the chains again, she winced.
The wildfire of hope turned into a blaze of fury. I planted both front paws against Fenrir’s chest and shoved until his entire body hit the ground. He and I were cut from the same cloth. Anything he could do, I could do, too.
I opened the devouring aura within me and prayed that Addie knew how to shield herself from me. Fenrir, on the other hand, didn’t know how to shield from this power. It started with his fur. It disintegrated and vanished into the air.
Fenrir’s eyes went wide. He thrashed beneath me, but I closed my jaw around his throat like he did to me earlier. My teeth were broken and jagged enough to break through his thick skin.
This was it. We were nearing the end. I pressed down onto Fenrir with my devouring power and watched great parts of him start to disappear. He whimpered and wriggled to get free. The man had hurt my mate.
Addie was far more than just my wife and best friend. She was my mate. Every ounce of me loved her. No one would ever lay a hand on her again. If they did, they would vanish the same way that Fenrir now vanished under my power.
A month ago, I would have waited for Addie to finish chaining Fenrir. I wasn’t the same person I’d been back then. My morals had slipped, but I wasn’t upset.
No one was allowed to hurt my mate.
I would punish all those who tried.
She would be safe with me, no matter what. Even if I had to get my hands dirty. Even if I had to abandon who I wanted to be. She was all that I cared about.
