Stolen by the Beastly Lycan King-Chapter 188: Fury

Althea looked down at her chest. There was no visible wound. Her bare skin, revealed through the tear in her clothing, showed no trace of blood. Her lips parted as her fingers brushed against her left breast, but no words came out.

There was only the sound of her ragged, shallow breaths.

To Althea, the pain was as if a blazing fire had been driven into her heart.

Her eyes narrowed, and she exhaled another cloud of black smoke. But as it surged toward Kai, his large hand sliced through it, unaffected. Without hesitation, he reached out, his fingers wrapping around her long, delicate neck with a crushing grip.

Althea let out a blood-curdling scream. Her power flared once more, a desperate, chaotic burst of energy. Yet this time, the smoke was sluggish, its colors shifting and dulling as if drained of life. Slowly, it began to fade, dissolving into nothingness.

"Lorelai!"

Rhaegar’s voice thundered through the room, piercing the haze like a crack of lightning. With a violent shove, he pushed Alim aside and darted toward his wife, catching her frail body just before it hit the cold, unforgiving marble floor.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. No, it had to be a trick.

Was this Althea’s magic? Had it finally managed to ensnare his mind?

No. The weight of Lorelai’s body in his arms was too real, too tangible to be an illusion. The unmistakable sweetness of her scent, now drowning under the sharp, metallic tang of her blood, was real too.

Yes, she was there, lying lifelessly in his arms, a gaping wound marring her flat stomach.

"Lorelai... what... why did you..." Rhaegar’s amber eyes darted to Kai, who crouched over his mother’s body, his hand still clutching the hilt of the dagger embedded in her heart. "What did you do?!"

Naveen rushed to them, yanking her wide belt from her waist, along with the glass bottles fastened to it. Without hesitation, she delivered a sharp slap across Rhaegar’s face, snapping him out of his simmering rage.

"Let go of her," she ordered, gently easing Lorelai’s body onto the cold marble floor. "I need to tend to the wound."

Without another word, she uncorked one of the bottles with her teeth and poured its dark blue liquid into Lorelai’s wound. Then, in a swift motion, she pulled out a knife and sliced the king’s forearm, guiding his bleeding arm over Lorelai’s stomach so his blood could flow directly into it.

"What is happening? What are you doing?" Rhaegar’s voice cracked, his confusion palpable. He felt like a lost soul in the midst of chaos, as if everyone around him knew the rules of a game he had never been taught.

Naveen ignored his frantic question, her focus entirely on Lorelai. She uncapped another glass bottle and sprinkled its dry, powdery contents over the wound. A sharp hiss of evaporation cut through the silence, the smell acrid and metallic.

"He made a perfect cut," Naveen muttered, still not meeting Rhaegar’s eyes. "She was smart to ask him to do it... His skinning skills came in handy after all."

Rhaegar’s gaze snapped back to Kai. The words barely registered as a whirlwind of emotions churned within him—rage, anguish, confusion. Trembling with the intensity of it all, he rose to his feet and started toward Kai, his steps heavy with the weight of his uncontrollable fury.

He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to shout, crush, break, and fight, yet an overwhelming sense of helplessness paralyzed him.

Before Rhaegar could reach Kai, the air inside the palace shifted. A slow, cold breeze wafted through the space, and in an instant, the remaining ghouls still battling his army began to disintegrate. One by one, they crumbled into piles of ash, disappearing into nothingness.

"She’s dying," Alim murmured, his golden eyes lowering to Althea’s trembling body.

Her chest heaved with desperate, ragged breaths. Still clinging to life, she rasped, "How... how did she do it?" Her voice was quiet, frail, but no one offered her an answer.

Rhaegar’s amber eyes burned with unrelenting fury.

Shoving Kai away from the dying queen, he slammed the young man against a nearby pillar, ignoring his groan of pain. Without hesitation, Rhaegar seized the hilt of the dagger lodged in Althea’s chest and drove it deeper into her heart, twisting it with merciless precision.

Althea screamed—a sound of pure agony—but to Rhaegar, it was music. He twisted the blade over and over, shredding her heart inside her chest to ensure it would never recover, never restore itself again.

But even that wasn’t enough.

With his long fingers wrapping around Althea’s left ankle, Rhaegar drew in a deep, steady breath. Then, with a surge of savage strength, he yanked her leg with such force that it tore clean off her body. Her piercing scream echoed through the palace, a final cry of torment that reverberated in the cold, hollow air.

He couldn’t stop. He ripped off her other leg, relishing the wretched melody of Althea’s agonized screams. Then, he turned to her arms, tearing them from her body one by one and tossing them aside like rancid scraps of flesh.

"Look at this monstrosity," he growled, his voice laced with disgust as he stood over her mutilated form, his chest heaving with rage. "A pathetic leech, clinging desperately to the last shreds of your miserable existence." fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

With that, he placed both hands on Althea’s head. His fingers pressed into her skull, and with a sickening crunch, he crushed it, silencing her forever.

Now, she was gone. Completely.

The palace fell into an eerie silence. Only Rhaegar’s labored breathing echoed through the cold, dark expanse, its sound reverberating like a haunting refrain.

Still consumed by fury, he turned his attention back to Kai. But what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks, shaking him to his very core.

Kai was no longer the grown man he had been moments ago. Instead, lying slumped against the marble pillar was a baby. His small, fragile body shivered in the frigid air, and the soft, white tufts of hair on his head resembled fresh snowflakes gently dusted by winter’s hand.

Rhaegar stood frozen, speechless, until Naveen stepped beside him and rested her blood-streaked hand on his tense shoulder.

"She didn’t create him," she said softly, her voice calm yet weighted with meaning. "But severing her blood magic has allowed him to return to his original form. In a way, he’s lucky. He gets to start over—this time, he can live a proper life."

With her other hand, she gripped his opposite shoulder, guiding him as if to anchor him to the present. Gently, she turned him around, directing his gaze to where Lorelai lay.

"She’s not in pain," Naveen assured him. "And she’ll be fine before long."