Page 126 of The Hyena’s Guardian

That was the first thing that cut through the noise, the blood, the collapsing bridges, and the ache of the partial shift still burning through his body.

Pure hatred twisted across the First King’s expression, and every bit of it aimed straight at Theron.

Matt moved before thought could catch up.

The bridge cracked beneath his claws as he launched himself toward the center span, placing his body between Theron and the throne before the King could take another step. The movement sent several corrupted wolves scrambling backward across the stone, but Matt barely registered them.

His world narrowed to a single realization. The King had looked at Theron like property waiting to be reclaimed, not as a person or even as blood, but as something owned and meant to lose itself completely.

Matt’s growl rolled out of him low and violent enough to make the closest wolves flinch. He could feel the hyena beneath every inch of his skin now, fully awake and furious, but he was not lost inside it. He knew exactly who he was, exactly what he was doing, and exactly who he was protecting.

Behind him, Theron’s voice came rough. “Matt.”

Matt did not look back. “I know.”

“You don’t.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, flexing claws against the broken stone beneath him. “I really do.”

Across the bridge, the First King watched him with narrowing gold eyes. The amusement was gone now, along with the absolute certainty that had defined him since rising from the throne. Hatred still burned there, but something else had surfaced beneath it for the first time. Confusion.

Confusion was dangerous. Matt intended to make it fatal.

Vale shouted from somewhere to his left. “Baptiste, status!”

“Western stabilizer set!” Baptiste called back. “I’m moving to the eastern anchor!”

A fresh crack split across the bridge between Matt and the throne, widening fast enough to send chunks of black stone tumbling into the abyss below.

The King lifted one hand.

Every corrupted wolf in the chamber turned toward Matt.

Matt smiled again.

It felt different in this shape. Sharper. Meaner. Full of teeth.

“Come on, then,” he said.

They came. The swarm hit him from three sides at once.

Matt met the first wolf head-on, driving one massive clawed hand through its chest while his other arm caught a second creature across the throat and hurled it over the edge. A third slammed into his side hard enough to skid him backward several feet, claws tearing through fur and skin.

Pain tore through his side, and laughter rose from somewhere deeper than thought.

Matt twisted, caught the creature by the back of the neck, and drove it face-first into the stone until the bridge cracked beneath its skull.

Behind him, Theron moved.

Matt felt it before he saw it.

The bond snapped tight between them, and suddenly Theron was there at his side, not behind him where Matt wanted him, but beside him where Matt should have known he would be.

Of course he would not stay back, and of course he would choose the most emotionally inconvenient time possible to become noble and terrifying.

Theron’s claws tore through a corrupted wolf lunging for Matt’s blind side. He moved with lethal precision, still mostly human in shape but carrying the speed and violence of the ancient wolf beneath it.

For one impossible second, they fought together without speaking, moving around each other like they had done it a thousand times before.