Teng... Teng...
The tolling of the giant grandfather clock felt like a death knell echoing deep within Aria’s chest. Every single strike made all the muscles in her body seize up. The air inside the room suddenly plummeted, turning so freezing cold that her breath formed a thin mist as it left her mouth.
Xavier took a step forward. His fangs elongated, and black veins began to bulge around his sharp, chiseled jawline. His crimson eyes no longer held cold arrogance; instead, they flared with a wild, uncontrollable bloodlust.
Aria squeezed her eyes shut, tightly gripping her black wedding gown, bracing herself for the excruciating pain that was about to tear through her neck. ‘Mother... I’m sorry,’ she thought in utter resignation.
However, the agonizing seconds ticked past without any pain.
Instead, what she heard was the sound of a heavy crash accompanied by a choked, intensely painful groan. CRASH!
Aria opened her eyes in shock. Xavier was not pouncing on her. The Alpha was on his knees on the marble floor, clutching his own head as if his skull were being struck by a sledgehammer. His well-built frame trembled violently, and cold sweat poured down, drenching his black shirt.
"Go..." Xavier growled, his voice hoarse, warping into a low, primal canine rumble. "Hide... under the table... now!"
Aria froze. "W-What?"
"I SAID GO, HUMAN!" Xavier roared.
Groaning in agonizing pain, Xavier crawled with great effort toward a bedpost made of pure wrought iron. With trembling hands, he reached for a bundle of pure silver chains that had been deliberately placed there. Without a moment's hesitation, Xavier wrapped the wolf-weakening chains around both his wrists, locking himself securely to the bedpost.
Aria jolted backward. Her mind raced. He... he is purposely chaining himself up? Xavier didn't want to kill her. He was fighting to restrain something inside him.
Before Aria could fully process what was happening, Xavier's screams of agony shattered the silence once more. The Alpha's body convulsed violently. His eyes, which had been a fiery red, suddenly turned pitch-black—entirely black, with no whites remaining.
From beneath the shadow of Xavier’s body on the floor, something horrific began to manifest.
A dense, pitch-black smoke that reeked of sulfur billowed out from the Alpha's body. The smoke swirled in the air, condensing to form a pair of colossal shadow claws with razor-sharp talons. This was not a wolf's power. This was pure, concentrated black magic.
The shadow claws moved independently, hovering in midair as if they possessed a consciousness of their own.
Locked down by the silver chains, Xavier could only howl in sheer frustration, desperately trying to pull back the dark energy bleeding from his body, but he failed. The magic entirely ignored its host.
The pair of black shadow claws spun slowly in the air before finally detecting the presence of another living soul in the room. Slowly but surely, the claws turned, aiming their sharp tips directly at Aria, who was frozen in the corner of the room.
Aria backed up until her spine pressed flat against the wall. There was nowhere to run. The door behind her was locked beneath layers of heavy iron chains from the outside.
"Run... Aria... Run!!" Xavier screamed with the last shred of his consciousness, uttering her name for the very first time.
But it was too late. The black shadow claws lunged, tearing through the darkness of the room, hurtling straight toward Aria’s throat with lightning speed.
