The Lunar Curse: A Second Chance With Alpha Draven - Chapter 406

Chapter 406: A Part of Them
(Third Person).

Draven straightened, his knuckles still flexing from the blow.

But just then, the air shifted. A chill rippled through the corridor, heavy and sharp as frost.

Jeffery’s head snapped up, his instincts prickling. “Alpha…” he murmured.

Before Draven could answer, a blur of black and silver movement flashed across the hall.

Brackham let out a strangled cry as something fast and unseen tore him away from the ground. In the blink of an eye, he was no longer by Draven’s boots but pinned against the far wall by a pale hand.

The vampire leader stood there—the very one Draven had delivered to Brackham as a gift.

The bullet hole on his forehead had already healed, the skin gleaming cold and perfect. His red eyes burned with pure hatred.

Two vampires appeared beside him, their fangs bared, blood dripping down their chins. The air grew thick with their scent—iron, smoke, and vengeance.

“Alpha Draven,” the vampire leader said, his voice smooth but laced with venom. “How poetic, meeting again amidst the ruins of the man you served.”

Draven’s expression didn’t change. “I never served him.”

The vampire’s smile widened faintly, though it never reached his eyes. “No,” he said, “you used him. Just as you used us.”

Draven’s silence was confirmation enough.

Brackham squirmed weakly in the vampire’s grip, gasping for air. “Please—please, don’t—”

The vampire leader didn’t even glance at him. His gaze was fixed solely on Draven. “You played your game well, wolf. But it ends here.”

Draven tilted his head slightly, his tone as calm as ever. “You think so?”

“You and your Beta,” the vampire hissed, his fangs glinting in the dim light, “are outnumbered. Do you really think I will let you walk out of here alive?”

Jeffery tensed, shifting his stance subtly. But Draven? He didn’t even blink.

Instead, a slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Do you have a choice?”

The vampire leader’s eyes narrowed. “You overestimate your strength.”

Draven took a step forward, unhurried, his presence filling the hall like a storm. “And you underestimate mine.”

For a tense moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was the distant crackle of fire and Brackham’s ragged breathing, caught between two predators who had long outgrown the concept of fear.

Then, the vampire leader’s hand tightened around Brackham’s throat, lifting him higher, but his gaze never left Draven.

“You’ve always been different from the others,” he said, his voice carrying an almost grudging admiration. “Too measured. Too calculated. Tell me, Alpha, what are you really after?”

Draven stood unflinching, his expression carved from stone. “Balance.”

The vampire’s laugh echoed darkly through the corridor. “Balance? You mean vengeance. You wolves pretend at restraint, but your hearts always hunger for blood.”

Draven’s eyes flickered, sharp and cold. “Says the creature who feasts on the dead and calls it life.”

A faint snarl slipped past the vampire’s lips, but he mastered it quickly, baring his fangs in a thin smile.

“You think yourself righteous. Yet here you stand, using us, using him—” he jerked Brackham’s trembling form forward “—to feed your own war.”

Draven’s silence was dangerous, steady, and suffocating.

Jeffery, standing at his Alpha’s side, tensed. He could feel the shift in the air; the predator in Draven was awake now.

The vampire leader tilted his head, his tone turning taunting. “Tell me, Alpha, what did you hope to gain? You handed me to this pathetic human only to bring chaos to his doorstep. Was this your plan all along?”

Draven’s lips curved faintly, not in amusement, but something colder. “I don’t make plans, vampire. I make endings.”

A small pause followed. Even the flames seemed to falter.

The vampire’s eyes narrowed. “You speak as though you control how this story ends.”

“I do.” Draven’s tone was final. “Because you’ve already played your part.”

For the first time, the vampire’s composure cracked, just slightly, his red eyes glinting with restrained fury. “You’ve got a sharp tongue for someone standing in the midst of death.”

Draven’s reply came like a blade—smooth, precise, cutting straight through the tension. “Death doesn’t frighten me. I’ve already danced with it too many times.”

The vampire leader’s crimson eyes glinted with something close to amusement as he slowly released Brackham.

Brackham fell to the floor with a choked gasp, coughing and trembling, too shaken to even crawl away.

“You are too arrogant for my liking, Alpha,” the vampire leader drawled, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. “And that makes me wonder… do your people even know that you are mixed?”

Draven’s eyes darkened. His voice came low, quiet, but edged with threat. “Mixed? In what sense?”

The vampire leader’s expression sharpened, his fangs just barely peeking as he stepped closer. “I don’t quite know how to describe creatures like you—those who carry a part of us inside them.”

Jeffery stiffened at that, his gaze darting toward Draven. But Draven didn’t move, or even try to blink.

Only the faintest flicker crossed his eyes before his tone cut through the air, steady and cold.

“And what makes you think I have anything to do with your kind?”

The vampire leader tilted his head, studying Draven as if searching for something beneath the skin. “Don’t pretend to be clueless. Have you truly never felt it?” His voice dropped lower, almost curious.

Then, slowly, he turned his gaze to Jeffery. “What about you, Beta? Have you never questioned what kind of Alpha you follow?”

Jeffery took a step forward, his tone sharp and commanding. “Enough. Stop spilling rubbish and take your prize before we change our mind.”

A slow, humourless smile crept across the vampire’s face. His eyes drifted back to Draven, lingering there like a dark promise.

“Future King of the Weres, is it?” he murmured, his tone a mocking whisper. Then, with a faint chuckle, he added, “May your reign last long, Alpha.”

And before either of them could react, he vanished, dissolving into a blur of shadow. His minions seized Brackham’s limp form and disappeared with him into the smoke and ruin.

Silence pressed down like a weight. The smell of blood and ash filled the corridor once more.

Jeffery exhaled slowly, his pulse still thudding in his ears. He turned to Draven, but he still hadn’t moved.

He stood rooted where he was, staring into the darkness where the vampires had gone, his expression unreadable.

For a moment, Jeffery hesitated, uncertain if he should speak. The vampire’s words still echoed in his mind, unsettling, but not strange.

“Alpha…” he began carefully.

Draven’s voice cut through before he could say more—quiet but resolute. “My wife has been gone for too long,” he said, finally turning.

His eyes were steady, but something beneath them burned like a distant storm. “Let’s find her and leave this place.”

Jeffery straightened at once. “Yes, Alpha.”

And with that, the two of them strode down the ruined corridor, their boots echoing against the marble, the shadows of firelight dancing across the walls behind them as they disappeared into the smoke.