A/N: Sorry for the delay! Finally got around to finishing this chappie... Enjoy, those of you who are still following.

Chapter 13:

Bloodshed Multiplied

"They've attacked the carriage bearing the heiress and the Barma valet."

Those dreaded words, spoken with utmost urgency, sent chills down Break's spine. As if the Dark Ones hadn't done enough already; now they had done this? Break leapt to his feet, forepaw sending a sharp pain all the way up to his spine, but he didn't care.

"What are we doing here, then!?" In one fluid motion, he swept past Gianaval and tore across the snow-laden meadow.

"Xerxes!"

Skidding to a halt, he impatiently looked back at the older wolf, narrowing his eye. "What!?"

"You don't even know where!" Gianaval nodded to the young red wolf beside him – the one who had delivered the dreadful message. "Gaius will show you the way. Take a squadron with you!"

Mere seconds past before Gaius, Binde, and a score of wolf warriors all set out from the wolf's peak. Break ran among them, feeling the snow fly from his feet, his claws scrape against hidden frozen ground beneath the white powder. They flew with the wind at their backs, as one – for once, none of them heeded footprints. They blazed through the woods, set on one destination alone: wherever the young red wolf at the front led them.

They burst through the trees onto an open road, lined with two long ruts worn by carriage wheels. The pack turned to follow, away from the estate, toward the open countryside. Over the sound of panting breath, and harried strides, Break caught a voice on the wind that made his heart sink.

A scream. Men shouting, wolves baying and snarling. Gunshots. Chaos.

They rounded a bend and came upon the sight. The pairs of horses that had each been hooked to the two separate carriages lay slaughtered on the ground, blood pouring from gouges in their necks to stain the snow. A man lay near, having befallen the same fate. The survivors were in the carriage boxes with the doors shut. The windows had been broken out, and gloved hands tried to shoot into the warping, twisting pack of black mongrels. No black wolves had been felled yet.

Yet.

The warriors moved as one, and like a wave, they crashed over the Dark Ones. Break dove at the throat of the first one he came to and, feeling the windpipe collapse under his teeth, threw the body aside and jumped on another one.

The men from within the carriages yelled out over the fray, and the shooting came faster, harder. A burning pain skimmed over Break's shoulder blade even as he slew his next unfortunate foe. He clenched his jaw, and looked up to see Liam's frightened face staring right down at him.

"For crying out loud, Liam-san, you'd think you'd know the cavalry when you saw it!" Break paused to grip a Dark One by its neck and throw it to the ground. Unsurprisingly, from the corner of his eye, Liam made no reaction, and proceeded to reload his revolver.

Snapping his prey's neck, Break took the moment to brace his forepaws on the door of the carriage, looking up into the cab. "You shoot me, you'll regret it. Then you'll really have a reason to go to my funeral. My real one, that is."

He looked past the men, who scrambled for their pistols, to a familiar face that huddled behind them, furthest from any window. Sharon stared up at him with wide, fearful magenta eyes – those lovely magenta eyes.

How could he reach her? Was there any way he could let her know everything was all right? That he was here? When he spoke, all they heard were grunts and growls and barks.

A pitiful whine stretched from his throat, and he grimaced. Oh, that was the last thing he'd intended! A sign of weakness, blast it all. A pistol cocked, and he turned, his nose nearly hitting the barrel pointed straight at him. Liam's hands trembled, and Break locked gazes with him a moment before ducking his head, and pulling away from the carriage.

They didn't know him.

He bore into the nearest Dark One with a ferocity that startled even him. Somewhere, in the recesses of his chest, something called a heart had begun to finally ache, and he despised the feeling. He'd lived far too long, seen far too much to feel what most humans referred to as emotion. It was a waste of time and breath and energy. Not worth his time, which he usually spent protecting those he'd sworn himself to. His loyalties were all he could really feel anymore.

So then why did the very idea that those he was protecting could not see him, and now they were out to see him dead, make something ache?

He felt like a ghost.

He crunched the neck of another black wolf, felt the lifeblood seep onto his tongue, and like a lightning strike, an energy bolted through his body. That taste… Like a narcotic, it filled his senses, taunted him, tempted him deeper. To taste his prey's blood… He pulled away, and dragged another monster to the ground, snapping at its throat.

~*Guardian*~

"Keep the guardian and Light warriors busy… Slip away, and infiltrate the mansion… Kill who you must."

At long last, he had been given a mission, a task by the great black lion. Perhaps, by achieving this, he could redeem himself. He blinked, and felt the wound, stiff and swollen, on his neck strain as he grimaced. Yes, he would redeem himself. And soon.

Most of the human agents had accompanied the young heiress to the guardian's 'funeral', that much was obvious from the utter, somber silence of the halls in which he tread unhindered. Two females in servants' clothes had already stumbled upon him, and he had been forced to halt their screams before they started with a quick twist of his jaws and a snap of their necks. Humans were so easy to kill.

His paws made no sound on the carpeted corridors, and as he rounded another corner, he spotted another human coming directly toward him – tall, blond, dressed in black. Breoc froze in his tracks.

The hunter.

The human stopped as well, mismatching eyes locked on him. He was the intruder after all. And this man was famed for his marksmanship; Breoc didn't move a muscle as the stare down continued.

Still, after several minutes, the hunter did not reach for his pistol. Breoc, daring to proceed, stepped forward one paw, and then another. The human did not react. Slowly, the wolf crept down the hall to pass the human by, and even as he walked mere feet from him, the hunter still did not move, beside turning his head to watch his every step. At the human's side, Breoc paused, and stared into the strangest pair of eyes – one gold, one crimson.

A kindred spirit stared back at him.

A grin tilting his lips, Breoc moved on, suddenly unsurprised when the human let him pass. No, this human would not be troubling him. Not this night.

He smelt the air, sniffed at the carpet, searching for one smell above all others: sickness. There was sickness in the house, and he needed to find it. Or at least, the core of it. The mother. He detected a faint bitterness to the air, and followed it onto the second level of the house. It was on the last stretch – the smell had grown until it was nearly overwhelming in its strength – that he met one of the remaining agents. The man got only two shots off before Breoc had tackled him to the ground, and disposed of him. Then, at long last, there stood before him the door.

With a single thrust of raw power, he splintered the door in, sending it swinging violently on its hinges to slam into the wall behind it. The woman took a whole half-minute to react, sick to near-death, turning her head with the speed of an aged moose. And like all prey he had ever taken down, he let her look into his eyes. For in his eyes, she would see her end. Her doom. Her death.

He stalked forward upon his prey, slow, deliberate. She did not flinch at his approach; she knew what he had come for, he saw it in her own eyes. Her face, paled by fever, did not pale further, and she did not quake in fear. Like most of the old or frail ones, she knew she could not fight. Not in her condition. In this, there was no question that he would be the victor.

He came to the bedside, and with a shove of his hind legs, he jumped onto the bed, and prowled over the sickly woman. She stared back at him with the unnerving gaze of a martyr who knew her time had come. A chortle escaped his lips as he bared his ivory fangs.

Then, swiftly and mercilessly, his iron jaws descended upon her throat.