What The Fox? (Completely Free!)

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

"Luna?" Daoming repeated in shock. His eyes widened, and he looked me up and down in confusion. Even as I shook my head, he stepped backward as though the ground was unsteady beneath his feet. "You are mated to the Alpha?" Daoming gasped, and his hazel eyes seemed to see me, the current me, for the first time.

"Did you think I sat and waited for you all this time without meeting anyone else?"

"I did!" Daoming stammered. "I loved you!"

"Only my human half!" I retorted, with tears flowing down my cheeks. I didn't mean to cry. I really wasn't the crying type. All my life, I was more of the killing type. Yet here I was, finally ready to admit my shame that I can never be wholly human or wholly Lángrén. To pick one would be to deny the other, and one can never really erase half of one's identity.

"Kill him," Daoming ordered his troops. "Finish off that dirty wolf." The Prince marched over to me and seized me by the wrist. His eyes were sharp as knives with fury, and his nostrils flared even. "As for you, Selene, there will be no more filthy dogs for you to romp about with. A human lover I could understand, I could forgive you for, but one of them? One of these animals? I thought you were much better than that. How could you bed a mutt when you had a Prince?"

"I-I—"

"It is okay. Say nothing, my love. I forgive you. We will never speak of this again." Daoming raised his hand at me to halt the conversation as though even just speaking of it made him want to lose the contents of his stomach.

As Daoming's men closed in around the dying Zurui, about ten giant wolves, with their hair bristling like erect shark fins, also appeared between the collapsed tents. The accidentally deployed firelances and a stray collection of a huǒyào had led to a rapidly spreading bushfire. The grassland was dry as a bone from the lack of rain. Now the fire was snaking over tent poles, into piles of wood, and slowly making its way to artillery stockpiles.

If this battle weren't ended quickly, it would reach the gunpowder, and we would all perish here — man, wolf, and even this wily former fox spirit.

"Stand down, wolves. I defeated your Alpha!" Daoming ordered as Zurui's snarling pack mates surrounded his Imperial soldiers.

"He was not there, their Alpha," a deep, seductive voice appeared from amidst them. The wolves bowed their heads and backed down as a black wolf, as big as a full-size bear, appeared behind them. "And your greasy Imperial Hands are sullying my Luna," Alix ordered. "Isn't that right, Selene? Or should I say, Luna Yue?"

"No, you mean Yue Wang Fei," Daoming hollered. Daoming lunged for his dagger, but Alix cut off his path.

"Forget the dagger. I'll kill you with my bare hands!" Daoming snarled and raised his saber at Alix's head.

As the two clashed in battle, I rushed to Zurui's side. His head had slumped over, but his hands still grasped the handle of Blacksmith Zhang's dagger. I pried his fingers off and ripped the blade from his still-warm chest.

Was Zurui dead? Or did he merely need me to remove the dagger to heal around the wound? I did not know, did not care to know.

Now, the power to decide the outcome of this battle between the leader of man and the king of wolves was in my small, powerless hands.