Chapter Five – Fire and Blood

 

The chandeliers lay in shards across the marble, smoke curling from the gaping hole where the doors had been. Snarls and screams clashed with the panicked music of the fleeing musicians.

“Hunters! To arms!” Rufus bellowed.

But most had none. The Ball was meant for politics and pomp, not battle.

A blur of fur and teeth lunged at Sophie—then something gleamed through the smoke.

“Catch!” Johnny’s voice rang out, wild with exhilaration.

She snatched the silver sword from the air just in time to drive it through the rogue’s chest. Blood spattered her dress, hot and acrid. Johnny laughed, fighting three at once with reckless glee. “Why the hell would these idiots attack a ball full of hunters?”

Sophie had the same thought—until she looked closer. These wolves weren’t calculating. Their eyes were glazed, foam caked their muzzles, their movements uncoordinated yet vicious. Too rabid. Too far gone rogue to have planned something this bold.

Something else was at work.

She cut another down, the silver blade singing in her grip. Her gown tore at the thigh as she spun, smoke streaking her skin, the Ice Queen unleashed at last.

Around her, chaos reigned. Hunters scrambled with makeshift weapons, chairs and shards of crystal, anything they could find. Jax fought with brutal efficiency, every movement precise, merciless. Shiloh was a crimson wraith, blades flashing.

And Pandora?

Sophie glimpsed her crouched behind an overturned table, clutching her gown protectively. Not a drop of blood marred her golden silk.

Coward.

A cry split the air. Tom.

Sophie turned in time to see him fall beneath a rogue’s weight, his dagger plunging deep into its heart even as claws raked across his throat. He went down fighting, brave to the last.

“Tom!” Pandora screamed, but made no move to help him.

Sophie’s chest tightened. For all his flaws, Tom hadn’t deserved this.

The fighting spilled into the courtyard. Sophie chased them out, lungs burning, sword slick in her hands. There, through the haze, she saw the trucks.

Painted black, their insignias scratched away. To any other eye, just anonymous cargo haulers. But Sophie knew their make. Hunter army trucks.

Her pulse hammered.

This wasn’t the wolves’ doing.

Later, when the rogues lay in heaps of broken bodies, she sifted through the wreckage of the bomb that had started it all. Metal shards glinted in her palm. Not wolf craft. Human. Hunter.

An inside job.

Her face returned to its mask, ice sealing over every crack. She would say nothing. Not yet.

Inside, the hall was a ruin. Her dress hung in tatters, rips exposing her legs to the hip, smoke staining her skin. She stood among the wreckage, sword dripping, looking every inch the warrior she had been raised to be.

Johnny swaggered over, grinning through the blood spattered across his cheek. “Damn, Ice Queen. You cut down more rogues than half the room combined. Can’t wait to have you on our team.” He clapped her shoulder with genuine warmth.

Sophie blinked, taken aback—but gave only the barest nod.

Rufus, overhearing, barked out, “Then why the hell can’t she join now? War doesn’t wait for birthdays!”

Murmurs rippled through the survivors.

Lucian strode to the front, towering, his voice commanding silence. “For centuries, Hunters have lived under an uneasy truce with the Wolf Nation. We struck down rogues, and only rogues, leaving the packs alone so long as they left humans unharmed. Tonight…” His gaze swept the ruined hall. “Tonight proves that time is over. Rabid rogues could not have planned this. This was orchestrated.”

Gasps broke through the crowd.

“The Elders have convened,” Lucian continued, his voice iron. “And we declare this: The truce is broken. The Wolf Nation is our enemy. From this night forward—we are at full war.”

The hall erupted. Cheers. Cries of vengeance. The hunger for blood rising like a tide.

Lucian’s hand fell heavy on Sophie’s shoulder. “Sophie of the Original Line,” he intoned, voice carrying to every ear. “You will no longer linger in shadows. You will join Jax Kilsome’s squad. As of tonight.”

The words echoed like a sentence.

All eyes burned into her again—admiration, envy, hatred, awe.

Sophie’s spine straightened. Her mask held. She bowed her head once in acceptance.

Inside, her world shifted. A child no longer. No time left to dream.

War had come. And she had just been drafted to the front.