They say the pines whisper when blood is spilled.
They're right.
I smelled it before I saw it—iron, thick and sharp, like rusted metal on fire. Blood. Human blood. Still warm, fresh. I crouched low in the shadows, the wind brushing through my dark fur like a warning, my ears twitching at the faintest tremor in the woods.
Three heartbeats. Scattered. Panicked.
Then one stopped.
I growled low in my throat, and the forest responded with silence. The silence before death. That's how you know they're near—vampires. They bring a hush to the world, a terrible stillness that doesn't belong in living places. Even the birds knew better than to sing.
We were too late.
By the time I reached the clearing, the snow was stained crimson. A girl—sixteen, maybe seventeen—lay crumpled beside a tree, barely breathing. Her hand was stretched toward another body, a man I recognized. Ranger Wilkes. His neck was torn open, and his eyes were frozen wide, mouth still open in the shape of a scream.
"Kael," my Beta, Jarek, landed beside me in his wolf form, blood matting his silver fur. "Three fled south. One stayed behind, cloaked in mist. I couldn't see its face."
I padded forward, shifting effortlessly back into my human form—tall, broad-shouldered, covered in ritual tattoos and war-scars. The girl whimpered as I lifted her, her pulse faint but steady. She looked at me—green eyes glassy with terror—and whispered, "Monster…"
"No," I growled softly. "I'm the one who kills monsters."
I turned to Jarek. "Get Wilkes' body back to the station. Clean the scene. No humans can know it was vampires—not yet."
"What about the girl?"
"She comes with me."
He tilted his head. "To the pack?"
I met his eyes. "She saw what they did. She'll be hunted. And…"
I paused, surprised by what I felt. Protective. Drawn. And something else I hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
"She's mine to protect now."
We brought her to the hidden sanctuary—what the humans might call a cabin, but to us, it was a stronghold, old as the forest itself. She was unconscious by the time I laid her on the cot near the hearth. The fire cracked, casting shadows on the stone walls carved with runes older than time.
I watched her breathe.
Her name, I'd later learn, was Aria.
She was human. Fragile. Breakable. But something about her… something ancient stirred in my blood the moment I caught her scent. Like a song I hadn't heard in centuries but somehow remembered every word to.
I stood watch that whole night, even when Jarek returned with grim news.
"They drained another family. Just off the old highway. Left nothing but bones."
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. "They're getting bolder."
He nodded. "Veyran's pushing east. Testing our lines. He knows you're back."
"Good," I said, voice low with a snarl. "Let him come."
You see, it wasn't always like this.
There was a time when wolves and humans lived in peace. We protected them, kept the balance. The old ways, the sacred law. But then the vampires rose from their crypts, hungry and arrogant. They believed humans were cattle and we were nothing but wild dogs in their way.
Veyran changed everything.
He killed my father, Alpha Rhygar, in battle. Destroyed our sacred grove. Scattered our kind into hiding. For ten years, I trained in the frozen North, with exiles and outcasts. Learning to channel the primal rage, to summon the beast without losing myself to it. I returned only when the blood moon called me back—and I found my lands infested.
Now, the war had begun again.
Only this time, I wasn't a pup.
I was Alpha.
Aria woke the next morning.
Confused. Angry. Terrified. She tried to run, of course. Humans always do.
Until I stood in her path.
"You're safe here," I said. "They can't find you."
She backed away, her voice trembling. "You're one of them. I saw… your eyes. They turned—"
"Gold," I interrupted. "Not red. That's the difference."
She looked at me like I was insane. "You're a… werewolf."
"Yes."
"And you expect me to trust you?"
"No," I admitted. "But I expect you to stay alive. And I'm the only way that happens."
She looked at the door. At the forest. Then at the bite marks on her arm—where the vampire had grabbed her, but didn't feed.
"I saw him," she whispered. "He… he let me go."
I stiffened. That wasn't normal.
"Describe him."
"Tall. Pale. Silver hair. Eyes like ash. He said… I wasn't ready yet."
I cursed under my breath.
Veyran.
Only he toyed with prey. Only he marked his victims for later. And if he spared Aria, it wasn't mercy. It was ownership.
Which meant Aria wasn't just a survivor.
She was a target.
The pack met that night, deep in the hollows beneath the mountain.
I stood on the blackstone altar, looking down at my wolves. Fighters. Hunters. Survivors. They waited for orders, for blood. I gave them both.
"Veyran has crossed the sacred border again," I told them. "He's hunting openly. Feeding on innocents. We can't wait in the shadows any longer."
Jarek stepped forward. "You want to break the Treaty?"
"There's no Treaty anymore," I said coldly. "Not when they use it to shield their slaughter."
The wolves growled in agreement.
"We strike tonight," I continued. "The old chapel near Widow's Peak. That's where they're nesting. I want it burned. I want ashes."
"And the humans?" someone asked.
I looked at them, my voice steady. "We protect them. That's who we are. That's who we've always been."
Aria waited by the fire as I prepared to leave. She still wore the clothes I found her in, now cleaned and mended. Her eyes held questions she hadn't yet dared to ask.
"You're going to fight, aren't you?" she said quietly.
"Yes."
She stood, gripping the edge of the table. "Will you come back?"
I looked at her, really looked—and for a moment, I saw more than just fear in her gaze. I saw fire. Something inside her was waking up.
"I have to," I said. "You're not safe without me."
"Why?" she asked, voice softer. "Why me?"
I didn't know how to answer. Not then.
So I told her the only truth I had.
"Because when I found you… the beast inside me calmed."
I saw her lips part slightly, as if she was going to say something else. But I was already gone.
We struck at midnight.
The chapel was overrun, just as I'd predicted. A coven of fledglings guarded the outside—sloppy, fast, arrogant. We took them down in silence, claws raking through pale flesh, bones cracking under paws and fury.
Inside, it was worse.
Blood smeared the pews. A crucifix hung upside-down, dripping with gore. In the center of the altar, a woman—no older than Aria—lay bound and unconscious. Ritual markings burned into her skin.
Veyran wasn't there.
But his scent was.
And worse—his trap.
The doors slammed behind us, and out of the shadows came the Wraithguard—Veyran's elite. Silent, hooded, with fangs like daggers and no eyes—just hollows of endless black.
Jarek went down first—wounded, but not broken. I roared, shifting mid-air as I lunged at the tallest of them. The fight was chaos. Pure bloodlust. And in that frenzy, I felt something ancient rise in me.
Not rage.
Power.
The old power of the Alphas.
I tore through them like fire through paper, my wolves fighting beside me, howling into the storm. And when the last Wraith fell, choking on its own black blood, I looked at the girl on the altar—and knew this was just the beginning.
We saved one life that night. But lost three of our own.
I carried their names with me into the dawn.
And when I returned to Aria, soaked in blood and smoke, she ran into my arms before she could think better of it. I held her tightly, and for the first time in years, I felt something real in my chest.
She was more than just a human.
She was my reason now.
And Veyran had just made the worst mistake of his immortal life.
He'd touched what was mine.