Ursanthropy
72. End it

A/n: Last chapter everyone!

Justin

What? How?

“What did she say?” The woman from earlier ask me.

“She said that I haven’t lost my creature! But that’s not possible, I can’t feel it!” I said to her, while still holding Doreen in my arms.

“She spoke in your mind, didn’t she?” She now asked and I nodded my head. “Then I guess your genes are strong enough to have fought the gas. Your bear, it must still be there, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to hear her.” She explained and my jaw dropped.

Jack

The bastard had managed to avoid my swipes, hit me in the jaw and even threw some mud in my eyes. Some of the shifters wanted to help me catch and kill Damien, but I growled deeply when they stepped closer to us.

I don’t care how strong he is, the asshole was mine and mine alone! He had threatened Doreen, dragged her away, tranquilized her and now put a knife in her body! It wouldn’t matter how much time it would take for me to get him in between my jaws, but eventually he would end up there!

For a moment I glanced backwards and saw Vic slap Justin in his face and yell towards him. I don’t know what they are up to, but I don’t have a moment to ask about it now.

I jumped up and snapped a branch from a tree at which Damien stood upon, making him slip from the remaining stump and fall down in the dirt. He growled and winced from the pain of the impact but soon managed to stand up again.

Justin

“Use that anger and shift into your bear! If she said that it’s still there, then you better believe her! We have all doubted about her strength and wisdom, on many occasions already, but each and every time she proved us to be wrong!” The woman shouted to me. “Besides, my brother there is too stubborn to accept help from anyone, but you are the only one now that he wouldn’t fight against. So shift!” She continued her rant which only baffled me more.

But if what she said is true, than I have no other choice than to believe her. I have to believe that my bear is still inside me, I have to believe that I haven’t lost the part that I feared to change into for so long!

I let go of Doreen as I gently laid her on the ground again, and stood up.

I closed my eyes and tried to search for the same feeling that I had when I had shifted when I was young, but quickly decided that that moment hadn’t been right. That moment was because he had angered me, he had used me to unleash my strength and power upon a pack of creatures that was weak to even begin with. It wouldn’t have mattered if that pack had been alive or not now, they were no threat to his plans for the future of our planet. He just got me to shift, to make a point, to prove to me that I was feral.

Well, no longer!

I am my own, I am the Queen’s brother and a strong Alpha myself as well! I am no one’s slave or instrument anymore! A loud roar bellied out and it surprised me, knowing that it came from my throat. This time when I manage to shift, it will be because I am free!

Jack

I had managed to hit Damien in the gut, grazed the skin on his face, dislocated his shoulder and now he was in between my front paws, ready to face my wrath!

A loud roar interrupted my actions towards Damien, at which I snapped my head around to see where it came from. I quickly noticed that Vic had picked Doreen up to take her to safety, while another bear was standing right next to them.

It took just a second or two to realise that the golden brown bear, which was taller and bigger than Doreen’s, was her brother Justin! He had lost his bear due to inhaling the gas from Damien, right?! So how was this possible?!

A single stupid action from Damien pulled my attention back to him, as he tried to jab my nose. He had actually succeeded at that but it didn’t hurt me enough to flinch away. Instead, I had roared massively unto his face and was now ready to finish my task at hand. But knowing that Justin had managed to shift into his bear, probably because of his emotions that were running free now, because of realizing that Damien was the cause of the pain of his sister, my mate, I knew that he needed this. Justin needed to end this, not me.

Again, the kill was not meant for me as Dennis had been killed by Doreen, and Damien had to be killed by Justin. My pride had to be pushed away, for them to be able to heal, to process what they had gone through both. And even though Dennis had been the one to strip me from my title and for Damien to have hurt the love of my life, it was unnecessary to be selfish right now.

I sighed as I stepped away from the ignorant asshole and nudged for Justin to take the lead.

“What are you doing! Finish what you wanted, coward!” Damien yelled and it nearly didn’t make me want to leave this kill to another, but I did anyway, I had to. “Justin please, see what it does to you? You are a feral, mindless beast! You have to contain your own urges! We have to eradicate these abominations from the planet!” Damien tried again, but he didn’t respond to him either.

His big brown paws thumped the ground slowly, while growls erupted from his throat. Saliva dripped from his mouth and his eyes had blackened. For a buffed sixteen year old boy, he looked rather intimidating. I could almost feel sorry for what Damien is about to endure, almost…

Damien was dead, no matter what would happen next, and that is what is important now. Yet, what is more important is the life of my mate. I turned around as I saw that Justin was stalking towards Damien, being watched by the last remaining hunters and shifters, to make sure that he would return to his maker.

He was weakened by me and would be ended by Justin.

I shifted back to my human form and took my still bleeding mate from Vic’s arms, cradling her into my own. The soft humming of her laboured breaths was heard, as she subconsciously shifted her head to fall against my warm chest. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, as the large knife was still in her body, but at least she was alive and breathing.

Behind me I heard the last few screams of torture and pain, as I knew that Justin wouldn’t just end his tormentor in one single blow. Tearing and ripping off, assumedly several body parts, were heard in the distance as me and Vic kept on moving.

The forest became eerily silent as everything was over now and I could finally release the tension that was stuck in my shoulders.

“That must have cost you a lot of willpower, to give the kill to someone else.” Vic chuckled, as she knew that I had definitely trouble with that, but I didn’t respond to her comment with words, only growled softly. But even though I didn’t particularly liked the fact that I had to do this, I knew that Damien got what he deserved.

I couldn’t comprehend that truly everything that we had endured, the last couple of months, had finally come to an end. Both Dennis and Damien were killed, the hunters were taken care off, Doreen had somewhat unofficially become the true Queen and found herself to have a brother.

“Jack, he is still alive.” I suddenly heard Doreen say in my mind.

I quickly looked to the body in my arms, where Doreen had her eyes wide open. Fear and desperation filled those gorgeous orbs of her and I quickly shushed her. “No sweetheart, your father has been killed. Don’t worry, rest now.” I whispered to her and she could no longer keep up the energy to argue with me, even though I noticed that she did want to.

By now both me and Vic had walked towards the battlefield again, where people were being helped to cover their wounds, dead humans were being burned and dead shifters being mourned over and buried if the wish was there.

The chaos that was once my beloved pack was now a mess of scared and saddened people. Children sat with their parents or elders, all the other non-warriors helped with putting up tents and stations, food was being gathered from the other houses of my pack and what not more. Everyone, including all the Alphas, Betas and Lunas that were visiting here, were either helping or being bandaged.

As soon as they saw us coming, the whole field became silent. It took them a few moments to realize that their Queen was still alive, but harmed nonetheless, and finally the Luna that came to stand at the side of Doreen, before the battle had started, came forward and nudged for several other people to guide us to a bed for Doreen to be laid upon. They instantly hurried to gather supplies and gotten rid of the knife.

“Don’t worry my King, she will get through this.” The Luna said and I nodded appreciatively.

I dropped myself in a chair and watched how everyone got back to work. The shifters that had run with me into the forest, came back to this field now too. They even had taken the trucks with them, as more supplies had been stored inside of them, which they figured we could make use of now.

And at last one naked young man, covered in blood and with eyes stained by the horror he had just administered, slumped its way out of the treeline. I nudged for him to sit next to me, and I patted his shoulder. “Hi, I’m Jack. You alright?” I introduced myself and asked him. He didn’t say a thing, just nodded and pointed his head towards Doreen, silently asking me if she was alright. “She has suffered worse, so don’t worry.” I replied and he released the same tension I had in my shoulders, at which I nearly had to chuckle.

Justin

I know I have killed dozens of people, but this one, the killing of him, must have been the most brutal one that I have caused in my entire life. While I had my paw on his chest, I had ripped his arms and legs off with my mouth. And during this massacre I actually enjoyed the screams that he had emitted. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

As soon as he had realised that my sister’s mate had ‘given’ me the power to kill him, his eyes had grown wide in fear. The experiments that he had used upon his own body, to strengthen himself, were of no use now. He was already weakened by Jack’s black bear and all I had to do was to seal his fate.

All those years of wrongfully teaching and raising me to become his assassin, has come back to him tenfold.

And while putting the memories of my tormentor to the back of my mind, I was drifting away in my thoughts as all those people in front of me were flying and running to help every single person that required any form of help.

I’m glad that I have chosen to become part of the shifter’s club, instead of following my father’s- no… Damien’s lead. And even though I know that I have probably killed people that were a part of someone’s life here, I wouldn’t mind to suffer the consequences of it, as I always had a choice. I am guilty for being ignorant and easy to manipulate, for all these years.

So, now I’m just sitting here, completely naked and covered in blood, next to the King of shifters, waiting for my judgement while watching how the truth about being in a pack was displayed right in front of me.

Love, compassion, cooperation and teamwork. Everyone worked together as if they were one single being. A well-oiled machine, just like Doreen had said.

THE END

A/n: Don’t forget to read the Epilogue!

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