Chapter 57- Spies & The Unholy Alliance

⚠️ Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, interrogation, and emotional intensity. Proceed with caution.

The morning sun had barely crested the spires of Aurealis when the castle descended into chaos.

Alarms pulsed across Sasha's interface like a heartbeat on fire.

Rhiannan stirred awake, warm in the circle of her mates, the babes tucked safely in their enchanted cribs. The peace didn't last long.

"High priority alert," Sasha's voice chimed directly into their minds. "Interrogation in progress. Serpent spies confirmed. Dungeon activity escalating."

Reyna didn't wait. Already dressed in midnight leathers, her eyes shimmered gold with power as she stalked into the dim stone depths of the dungeon. Torvax and Vaerix flanked her like the twin blades of divine judgment. Veydran immediately begins them. The serpent spies were chained to the walls, their enchanted cuffs glowing hot, their serpent eyes narrowed in fury.

"Tell me," she said calmly, too calmly. "What the fuck does your king want with my queen?"

They resisted....at first.

But Reyna's divine magic slithered around their minds, dripping truth like venom into open wounds. One choked, and then the dam broke.

"He wants her," the spy spat. "He wants to breed her. Populate the world with divine serpents. Make her his...forever."

Reyna's lip curled. "You disgusting little worms."

She turned to Sasha. "Alert Rhiannan and the royal mates. Now."

Moments later, thunder pounded through the dungeon as six furious gods among men stormed in like a reckoning.

Kaleb's eyes were pitch black with rage. Arwen had his blade already drawn. Liam cracked his knuckles, a feral snarl on his lips. Elisha's aura flared like wildfire, shaking the very walls. Azarion radiated cold control, terrifying in his stillness.

But it was Sable who led the charge...his wings already flared, eyes blazing with demonic fury.

He didn't ask questions. He just slammed one of the spies into the wall hard enough to crack stone.

"You wanted to what?" he hissed, his voice a growl from the depths of hell.

The spy coughed blood. "He thinks she'll make him a god."

"You're looking at the wrong fucking gods," Liam snapped, and then the violence began.

Steel sang. Magic hissed. The room became a blur of blood and screams as the six mates tore through the spies. No mercy. No hesitation. They broke bones, cut off fingers and gouged out eyeballs, slowly, as the serpents screams rang through the dungeon. They showed no mercy.

Sable kept one alive just long enough to squeeze every last sliver of intel from his shattered soul. Coordinates. Numbers. Hidden paths.

And then, with a final flare of demon flame, he ended him.

Silence fell.

Blood pooled.

Reyna stood in the doorway, arms crossed. "Next time, I'll rip it from their minds before they can breathe."

Azarion nodded solemnly. "We double security at once. Every entry. Every village."

Sasha buzzed. "Already done, Commander. We've got dragons in the skies and elemental wards sweeping every border. No one's getting in again."

Rhiannan was safe.

But the serpent king had just earned himself a death sentence. And the kingdom of Aurealis? Was ready for war.

The dungeon floor was slick with blood and vengeance, but Sable wasn't done.

Not yet.

He stood over the broken corpses of the spies, chest heaving, black smoke curling from his nostrils as his demon form slowly retracted, leaving behind the towering, war scarred alpha that was still every bit as terrifying.

"Sasha," he growled, voice low and ragged. "Did you get all of that?"

"Every scream, every plea, every broken bone," Sasha purred, her voice laced with digital malice. "Crystal clear. Multiple angles. I even edited it with slow motion highlights."

"Good." He rolled his neck, cracking it. "Now find him. That scaly little fuck. I want him to see exactly what happens to anyone who tries to lay claim to my mate."

"Searching global channels, sand based digital traces, serpent coded data," she chirped, all business now.

Hours passed. Sable barely moved from the war room, sitting on the edge of the long obsidian table, watching the map as Sasha scoured the corners of the world for that bastard.

And then....

"Got him."

The red dot pulsed on the map. A remote, fortified compound tucked into a canyon in the Serpent Wastes.

"Sending now."

The footage launched with a viciously gleeful ding. Sasha added a glittering overlay that read:

🖕 "For the King of Cowards – From the House of Vaelorian. Keep dreaming, dickless." 🖕

The final image? Sable holding the blood drenched head of the last spy, looking directly at the camera, fangs out, eyes glowing, and grinning like the unhinged demon he was.

Then the screen cut to black.

"Delivered."

Sable leaned back with a slow, satisfied smile curling across his face.

"Let him come," he murmured. "We'll paint the fucking sand with his blood."

Deep in the scorched heart of Vash'ra, the gilded bone throne room erupted into chaos.

The video played in full, the screams of his spies echoing off sandstone walls, their agony immortalized by a glittering message that branded itself into his vision like fire.

💬 "For the King of Cowards – From the House of Vaelorian. Keep dreaming, dickless."

Khezur the Coilborn went utterly, violently still.

His serpent eyes narrowed. A tremor ran through his tail, coiled beneath the throne like a spring ready to snap.

Then....

He exploded.

He screamed, a sound not made for mortal ears. Vases shattered. Sand blasted upward from the floor. His forked tongue lashed out as he lunged from his throne, grabbing the nearest guard and ripping his head clean off, spine and all, like plucking a weed from dry soil.

"YOU DARE! SHE DARES!" His voice pitched and cracked, maddened.

He slaughtered his staff, one after another, claws tearing through flesh, hissing like a furnace set to boil. Chambers burned. Tapestries curled into ash. Cries rang out and echoed through the compound, but no one could stop the storm of pure, unstable rage.

Some of his servants, those still sane, those still breathing, fled into the desert, clutching their children, their few belongings, whispering, "We must go to Aurealis… She'll save us. She saves everyone."

But Khezur didn't notice.

He was laughing now.

Low. Sinister. And dripping with delusion.

Smoke curled from his nostrils as he dropped to his knees before a scorched altar in the back of the ruined room.

"Fine," he hissed, dragging a bloodied hand across the cracked stone. "She wants a war? She'll have one. But not just from me…"

He smiled slowly, forked tongue flicking out, licking the blood from his palm.

"I think it's time I paid the Bone Queen a visit."

He tilted his head back, gold eyes shining with cruelty and desire.

"We'll take her together. Her kingdom. Her crown. And her divine, perfect, fertile little body…"

The fire in the hearth roared as if in answer.

He cackled.

"She will scream for me yet."

In the blackened ruins of his throne room, Khezur the Coilborn writhed with restless energy. The madness rolled off him in waves, his tail twitching and coils pulsing like a living drumbeat of obsession.

Before he could summon her....

she arrived.

The shadows thickened, twisting like oil smoke until a shape stepped through the gloom.

The Bone Queen.

Lorelei stood tall, regal and rotted, her gown stitched with sinew and sorrow. In her hand, a freshly broken femur, still dripping with gore, and her lips curled into a smirk that could sour wine.

"You reek of desperation," she purred. "And your madness sings louder than your soldiers."

Khezur dropped to one knee, pupils dilating wide. "A deal," he rasped, foam bubbling at his mouth. "You and me, Bone Queen. Burn Aurealis to ash. Chain that goddess to my bed. Let her birth a hatchling brood, ripe with divine serpent blood..."

Lorelei barked out a savage laugh, tossing the bloodied bone from hand to hand like a toy.

"A deal?" Her smile sharpened into something feral. "Then I want your soul, little snake. All of it. Down to the marrow. No soul, no covenant."

"TAKE IT!" Khezur howled, clutching his chest. "Take it, take it, take it! I have no use for it where we're going!"

The femur snapped in her hands, and a glowing gold light bled from the fracture, the ancient magic of soul binding igniting in the air around them.

The deal was sealed.

Lorelei cackled, tossing her head back as bone runes lit up the air between them, searing Khezur's skin with jagged marks of ownership.

She vanished back to her throne, still laughing, bone fragments dancing behind her.

But something stirred.

Something ancient.

Something wrong.

From the shattered femur, a pulse beat once… then twice…

And deep inside Lorelei's ribcage, where no heart should be, something woke up.

The Forgotten King.

He gripped the golden glow of the pact, tethering himself to the world through it. A new tether. A new vessel.

Khezur.

"Yes," the old god whispered, voice like grave soil and screams, "Let the fool rage. Let the serpent writhe. I'll take his body when he's broken. I'll wear his skin like a robe. And then…"

A pause.

"She will remember me."