CHAPTER FOUR — THE SOUND OF BLOOD

ADRIAN POV

The first explosion hit just after midnight.

It rolled through the valley like thunder, deep and long, shaking the stone walls of the fortress. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then chaos followed.

“Alpha!” Kai burst through the door, breathless. 

“West wall’s been hit!”

I was already grabbing my armour. “How bad?”

“Smoke, fire and we can’t see the source. Scouts say it’s rogues.”

“Rogues don’t use explosives.” I was halfway down the corridor before he could answer.

The fortress was alive; alarms ringing, boots slamming against stone, wolves shouting orders over the noise. My heart was already in battle rhythm, cold and steady.

“Get the outer patrols in,” I said. “No one fights alone.”

“Yes, Alpha.” Kai jogged beside me, keeping pace.

 “Elder Silas wants you in the war room.”

“Tell Silas he can wait.”

We reached the main gate. Smoke was already seeping in through the cracks. The guards were pulling open the heavy doors, and the moment I stepped outside, the night air hit me, it was clouded with fire, and the metallic scent of blood.

Torches burned along the walls. From the ramparts, I could see dark shapes moving through the mist below.

“Positions!” I barked. “Archers on the towers! Shift if you have to!”

Wolves shifted, armor and flesh twisting under moonlight. The air filled with the sound of bones cracking and growls rising like a storm.

Kai pointed toward the west. “There! Movement by the tree line!”

I followed his gaze. Shadows were darting through the fog, and they were fast….and many.

“Hold,” I said. “Don’t fire until we see—”

Something slammed into the outer wall with enough force to shake the ground. The sound of stone breaking tore through the air.

“Damn it.” I turned. “Get the healers ready. And find out what the hell that was.”

Kai shifted before I could stop him, his fur shone black under the moon, and leapt off the rampart into the chaos below.

I drew my blade, it was silver-lined, forged by my father years ago. The weight of it felt right in my hand.

“Open the gate!” someone yelled.

“Do not open that gate!” I shouted back. “We don’t know what’s out there!”

Too late. The gate crashed inward, splintering. A body flew through the opening, landing hard against the courtyard stones. 

One of ours.

I dropped to one knee beside him. His eyes were wide, his throat torn open viciously. Whatever hit him wasn’t a regular rouge.

And then the air changed. A hint of unfamiliar magic.

“Form the line!” I called.

A dozen wolves moved into position, with their weapons drawn.

Then the rogues came.

They weren’t like the usual ones; these were bigger, their eyes glowing a sickly orange, their skin marked with black veins. They moved like shadows that forgot they used to be wolves.

“Rogues?” one soldier muttered.

“No,” I said. “These are different.”

The first one lunged. I met it halfway, my blade flashing through its chest. It didn’t even scream, it just collapsed, hissing like steam.

“Keep them out of the fortress!” I yelled.

Arrows flew. The air filled with howls and the clash of metal. I moved without thinking, my years of training taking over. Each strike, and block, was muscle memory. But for every one we cut down, two more appeared from the mist.

“What the hell are these things?” Kai shouted as he slammed one into the wall.

“They’re unnatural,” I said. “Like death.”

“They’re rogues, just mutated,” he grunted, driving a knife through another one’s spine.

“No,” I said, kicking a body off my blade. “This is Eion magic.”

“That can't be possible, it was banned years ago”, he paused looking at me with stern seriousness.

The wall to the left cracked again, louder this time. Fire spilled out, painting the courtyard in gold and red.

“Fall back to the inner gate!” I ordered.

As we moved, a young warrior stumbled beside me, bleeding from the shoulder. “Alpha—one of them was inside. It— it looked like—”

“Like what?” I demanded.

He didn’t finish. His eyes went wide, and something yanked him backward into the smoke.

“Kai!”

“I see it!”

He leapt, dragging the creature down. It wasn’t a wolf anymore, its limbs were too long, its mouth filled with rows of jagged teeth.

I grabbed a torch and drove it into the thing’s chest. It shrieked and let out an unholy sound that rattled my skull, before crumbling to ash.

The ground shook again.

This wasn’t a raid. This was an invasion.

The fortress gates wouldn’t last another hit.

“Kai!” I barked. “Get the civilians to the tunnels. Now!”

He hesitated. “What about you?”

“I’ll hold the line.”

He growled low, torn between obeying me and staying by my side, but nodded and ran.

I turned back to the field, scanning the dark. More figures moved beyond the flames, dozens, maybe hundreds. And through the noise, through the battle, I heard something else.

A voice.

It wasn’t spoken aloud. It was inside my head, soft and distant.

Lena.

My chest tightened.

She was in danger.

“Alpha!” one of the elders shouted from the wall. 

“The east side’s falling!”

I looked toward the mountains, the direction of Moonfang territory. Fire glowed faintly on the horizon.

Two attacks.

Same night. 

Same hour.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Pull everyone back!” I shouted. “Seal the fortress! Now!”

A horn sounded from the far tower, three short blasts. The emergency code.

Kai’s voice carried over the chaos. “We’ve got movement at the rear gate!”

“Who?”

“I don’t know!”

The answer came seconds later. The rear gate exploded inward, scattering debris.

Through the smoke, a figure stepped out, not a rogue, or a wolf. Taller and hooded. His eyes glowing white.

Every instinct in me screamed.

The figure raised a hand, and the fire nearest to him dimmed.

“Adrian Holt,” he said, voice echoing like metal scraping stone. “The Moon’s balance is broken. And you helped break it.”

The air around me dropped to ice.

Kai stared, his weapon shaking slightly. “What is that?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Before I could speak, the figure lifted its hand higher….and the world went white.