The wind was cold as ever, but inside me, something burned.
As I stood before the Cage of Nightmares, every instinct in my body screamed to run. Not in fear, but in preservation. This gate was not meant to be seen by mortal eyes, let alone touched. It breathed. Not air—but memory, agony, and death. I could feel it trying to claw its way into my mind, to slip through the cracks of my will.
Aria stood at my side, pale as snow but burning from within. Her hand brushed mine, anchoring me.
"She's behind this gate," she said. "I can feel her laughing. Waiting."
I nodded. "Then we make her wait no longer."
Rhys and the others formed a semi-circle behind us, weapons drawn, eyes fierce. There was no fear among them. Only fire. We had all lost something to the vampires. Families. Homes. Pieces of ourselves. And in return, we had become something more. We had become vengeance clothed in fur and steel.
I stepped forward, my hand brushing the twisted iron of the gate. It was cold at first, but then it turned hot—blistering. I did not pull back. Pain had long since stopped being a deterrent. The chains around the arch began to uncoil, slithering like serpents awakened from slumber. A growl rumbled in my chest.
"Stand ready," I ordered.
The gate opened.
No sound. No grand explosion. Just silence so complete, it rang in our ears. On the other side was not darkness, but a valley carved in bone and mist. Crimson rivers ran through cracked stone. The sky was a dead gray, devoid of stars or sun.
We stepped through together.
The world shifted. The weight of it crushed down on our shoulders. My senses bent. My hearing muffled, my vision fractured like stained glass. Aria stumbled, but I caught her. She looked up at me, eyes glowing faintly.
"This is her realm," she whispered. "We are no longer in ours."
Vampires emerged like shadows made flesh. Their forms were indistinct, flickering in and out of the mist, fangs glinting. The Queen did not waste time. She sent her horrors the moment we stepped foot into her throne.
I howled.
The pack followed.
We clashed with the first wave beneath a spire of bone that jutted out like a fang from the earth. I tore into a creature that moved like smoke, its body reforming around my claws. But I found its heart—a cold, dead thing—and ripped it free. It let out a wail as it dissolved.
Aria burned another to ash, her fire flickering uncontrollably. Rhys took a wound to the shoulder but struck down two more with his axe. Blood—if you could call the black sludge that spilled from them blood—coated the white stones beneath our feet.
This was not a battle. It was a purge.
We pressed forward, deeper into the realm. Structures made of bone and sorrow rose around us. Towering statues of forgotten kings stared down at us with hollow eyes. The Queen wanted us to see what she had built—an empire of torment.
We came upon a broken cathedral. Its spires pierced the sky like talons. Aria fell to her knees.
"She's here," she gasped.
The doors opened on their own.
We entered.
The Queen sat upon a throne of skulls, her body wrapped in black silk, her hair a cascade of shadow. Her eyes were twin furnaces of gold. She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that could shatter hope.
"So the little Alpha brings his flame."
I stepped forward. "Your reign ends here."
She laughed. "You think this is reign? This is mercy. I could have slaughtered your kind long ago. But I let you grow. Ripen. You brought me the fire I needed."
Her gaze turned to Aria. "And you, child. You are my masterpiece."
Aria's hands shook. "You used me."
"No. I freed you. The fire was always inside you. I simply broke the chains. Now come to me, and I will make you eternal."
Aria screamed.
Her power exploded.
Flames licked the cathedral walls, burning through the Queen's illusions. The throne cracked. Statues shattered. The Queen stood, her face no longer smiling.
"Then you choose death."
She lunged.
I met her in the air, claws clashing with black steel. Her strength was inhuman. She hurled me across the chamber, bones breaking. I rolled, rose, and charged again. My pack swarmed the other vampires spilling from the shadows, each of them fighting like it was the last moment of their lives.
It might have been.
Aria fought the Queen. Fire against shadow. Light against ancient night. I could barely see them as they rose into the air, their powers colliding. Thunder cracked. The floor split.
I saw Rhys fall. A blade in his gut. But he took three of them with him.
I felt fury.
I shifted fully, my wolf form larger than ever before. Something inside me snapped free. I became more than Alpha. I became legend. My howl shook the bones of the cathedral.
I leapt.
The Queen saw me too late. I slammed into her, teeth sinking into her shoulder. She shrieked, darkness spilling from her like ink. Aria sent one final blast of fire into her chest.
The Queen screamed.
She fell.
But the ground did not hold. The cathedral began to collapse. The realm itself trembled.
Aria was falling.
I dove, caught her midair, and we rolled across the crumbling floor. Stone gave way beneath us. We plummeted into the dark.
Then silence.
I woke to ash.
Aria was unconscious in my arms. The Queen's throne was gone. Her realm was crumbling. We had done it. At a cost.
My pack was scattered. Those who lived gathered around me. Fewer than half.
We limped back through the gate, dragging the wounded, carrying the dead.
The Cage closed behind us.
The Blood Forest greeted us with silence. But the rot in the air was gone. The Queen's stench had lifted.
We had won. But the war had changed us. Forever.
And as I looked at Aria, her fire dim but alive, I knew one thing with certainty.
This was not the end. Only the beginning.