Chapter 7 – First Rogue Attack

Chapter 7 – First Rogue Attack

Ariana’s POV

The night split open with the sound of howls. Not the disciplined cadence of trained wolves, but something raw and jagged, the kind that scraped across your bones and left frost in your veins. Rogues.

I gripped the edge of the window frame so tightly my knuckles ached. Beyond the balcony, the Moonveil courtyard was chaos. Warriors clashed in a blur of fur and claws, their snarls tearing through the wind. The metallic scent of blood rode the breeze, thick and sharp, making my wolf stir restlessly inside me.

Kael was out there.

Even among the frenzy, I found him—black fur gleaming under the silver wash of the moon, a shadow made flesh. He moved with lethal grace, every strike precise, merciless. When he lunged, rogues fell like broken branches. When he roared, the night itself seemed to shudder.

He had told me to stay inside. Locked. Safe.

But standing here, useless, while my heartbeat thundered like a war drum? It felt like being buried alive.

Then I heard it a cry, high and sharp, tearing through the cacophony.

My gaze snapped toward the sound. Near the eastern wall, a young warrior lay crumpled in the dirt, his wolf form flickering weakly before giving out entirely. Blood soaked his side, dark and thick, and a rogue huge, wild-eyed closed in with a snarl that promised only one thing: death.

Something inside me snapped.

Before I even realized what I was doing, my legs were moving. The balcony railing slammed against my palms as I vaulted over it, landing hard enough to jar my bones. Pain shot up my knees, but it didn’t matter. I ran, lungs burning, earth pounding beneath me.

The rogue was almost on him.

No.

The word thundered in my skull, primal and absolute.

Heat surged through me like wildfire, searing every nerve, every vein. My vision sharpened, edged in silver light, and the night slowed to a strange, shimmering clarity.

One second, the rogue was lunging. The next, I was there—faster than I’d ever moved, stronger than I had any right to be. My fingers closed around its ruff, yanking it back mid-leap. The beast hit the ground with a bone-crunching thud, twisting to snap at me.

I didn’t flinch.

Claws burst from my fingertips, sliding out like they’d always belonged there, and I drove them deep. Hot blood sprayed across my arms. The rogue let out a strangled snarl, convulsed once, and went still.

Silence swallowed me for a beat. My breath tore in and out of my lungs, harsh and ragged. I stared at my hands—at the claws slick with crimson, the strength humming under my skin like a living thing.

What… what was this?

The warrior I’d saved stared too, his eyes wide, mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t decide if I was salvation or something far darker. “You—” he started, but the word strangled in his throat.

Another rogue lunged from the shadows.

Instinct roared louder than thought. I spun, claws flashing, and tore into it before it even touched the ground. One strike. Two. The beast collapsed, blood pooling beneath its ribs.

After that, everything blurred. I moved through the fight like fire through dry grass, faster, sharper, and deadlier than I’d ever dreamed. Rogues fell, one after another, until the world reeked of blood and smoke and something else something that tasted like victory on my tongue.

By the time the last body dropped, the courtyard was a ruin of silence broken only by laboured breathing. My chest heaved, and my arms shook, but I didn’t feel weak. No I felt electric. Powerful. Like the moon itself had poured into my veins.

And then I felt it.

Eyes.

Burning into me from across the clearing.

Kael.

He stood there, human again, dark hair damp with sweat, chest rising and falling like he’d run a thousand miles. His jaw was steel, his fists clenched at his sides, but his eyes… Saints, his eyes were molten. Gold threaded with storm.

The way he looked at me made my breath hitch. Like I was something dangerous. Something his soul couldn’t decide whether to kill—or claim.

Before I could speak, he turned away, barking orders to his warriors. Leaving me standing there, drenched in blood and questions I didn’t have answers to.

A shadow moved at the edge of my vision. I tensed, claws still out, but it was only Darius—Kael’s beta. He strode toward me, silent as smoke, his sharp eyes sweeping over the carnage at my feet.

“Impressive,” he murmured, low enough that only I could hear. Not admiration, exactly. Calculation. “The Alpha will want to know.”

I swallowed, throat dry. “I didn’t—”

He smirked faintly, already walking away, his voice carrying back to me like a whisper of steel. “You should start figuring out what you are, little wolf. Because the world just saw it.”

His words coiled around me long after he vanished into the night.

---

They gathered the captured rogues in the training yard. Four still alive, chained and snarling, their eyes feral with bloodlust. I kept to the shadows, heart drumming, trying to scrub the blood from my hands but finding it smeared into the cracks of my skin like a brand.

Whispers rippled through the warriors like wind through dry leaves.

“Did you see her?”

“An omega—moving like that?”

“No omega does that.”

And then, softer, sharp as glass:

“Maybe it’s true..”

I turned away, fighting the sick twist in my gut, and froze when Kael’s voice sliced through the murmurs.

“Bring him forward.”

Two warriors dragged one of the rogues closer, forcing him to his knees. He was bigger than the rest, his jaw scarred, his eyes wild. He spat blood at Kael’s feet, earning a sharp blow from a guard.

Kael didn’t flinch. He just crouched, his shadow stretching long in the torchlight, and lifted the rogue’s chin with one hand.

For a heartbeat, something flickered across his face—shock, recognition, then something darker.

“This rogue…” His voice was low, lethal, curling like smoke around a secret I wasn’t supposed to hear. His gaze burned into the man’s face, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to his warriors. It was to himself.

“He looks so familiar.”

The words clawed down my spine, cold and heavy, leaving a thousand questions in their wake.

And none of them felt safe.

For some reason, I also recognised the wolf.

"This rogue, I know him from somewhere." 

I said out loud without realising.