Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 78

POV: Seraphina

The absolute devastation in Damian's eyes was a fleeting, distant thing, like a star collapsing in a galaxy far, far away. It didn't touch me. He was frozen, locked in the first moment of an eternity of regret, his entire world reordering itself around the gaping void I had just created. That single moment of paralysis was all my brother needed.

"Now!" Jax's voice was a sharp, clear command that cut through the stunned silence of the clearing.

It was a signal that had been rehearsed a hundred times. Rhys, his face grim and blood-streaked, and the few remaining Thorne warriors who were still on their feet moved with a desperate, disciplined speed. They didn't retreat. They attacked. Not with blades, but with small, clay spheres pulled from their belts.

They hurled them into the center of the clearing, at the feet of Damian's shocked and disorganized guards. The spheres shattered on the stone, releasing a thick, instantaneous cloud of acrid, white smoke. It wasn't ordinary smoke. It was a potent, choking mixture of wolfsbane, silver dust, and ground moonpetal—an herbal concoction designed to assault a werewolf's heightened senses, blinding their vision and overwhelming their sense of smell with a thousand false, burning scents.

The effect was immediate and catastrophic. The clearing was plunged into a chaotic, milky blindness. The disciplined Blackwood warriors, deprived of their greatest tracking tools, were reduced to a confused, stumbling mob. Shouts of alarm and confusion erupted as they bumped into each other, their snarls turning to choked coughs as the herbal dust coated their lungs.

"You're next, Sera," Jax said, his voice urgent. He helped me over the edge, my feet finding the knotted holds on the rope. My body was weak, trembling with exhaustion, but my mind was clear.

As I began my descent into the cool, silent darkness of the ravine, I looked up one last time. Through a thinning patch of smoke, I saw Jax, a silhouette against the torchlight, turning back to face the chaos, his twin swords a gleam of silver as he prepared to cover our retreat.