Night of fire

Chapter One

THAELYNNE

The bonfire crackles in the center of the village square, sending sparks spiraling into the night sky. I stand with the other young wolves, my heart hammering so hard I think everyone can hear it. My best friend Lunae squeezes my hand and grins at me.

"Can you believe it's finally happening?" she whispers.

I shake my head because I honestly can't. Most wolves experience their awakening at sixteen. Mine came just three months ago on my eighteenth birthday, late enough that some of the elders started whispering that maybe I’d never shift at all.

But now here I stand, ready for the moonfire ceremony that’ll complete my coming of age.

Elder Wulfric raises his staff, and the crowd falls silent. My father stands near the front with my mother tucked under his arm. He catches my eye and nods, pride written across his weathered face. My chest swells with warmth.

"Tonight we honor those who have awakened," Elder Wulfric begins, his voice carrying across the square. "Tonight the moon recognizes her children and opens the sacred bond between mates."

This part makes my pulse race. Once the ceremony ends, the mate bond will activate. I’ll be able to scent my true mate. I’ve dreamed of this since I was a child listening to my mother's stories about how she knew my father was hers before he even spoke a word.

The drums start. Lunae releases my hand as we form the ceremonial circle. The dance is ancient, passed down through generations. I know every step by heart.

We begin to move, our feet following the pattern our mothers and grandmothers danced before us.

The drums beat faster. We spin and step and turn, and I’m laughing now. All the teen wolves around the circle laugh.

This is our night. This is our pack.

But then the screaming starts.

At first, I think it’s a part of the ceremony, some element I forgot. But the drums stop abruptly, and Elder Wulfric stumbles backward, his staff clattering to the ground. A wolf I don't recognize claws him by the throat.

Everything happens too fast. Wolves pour into the square from every direction, their eyes reflecting the firelight like demons. Our pack warriors shift and leap to defend us, but there are too many attackers. So many.

"Run!" My father's voice cuts through the chaos. He is already shifting, his body rippling into his wolf form. My mother screams my name.

I can’t move. My legs turns to stone as screaming erupts around me. Fear doesn't let me move. Lunae grabs my arm and yanks me toward the tree line, but I twist back to look, unable to help myself.

A huge gray wolf has my father pinned on the ground and he's fighting for his life. I choke a sob as jaws close around his throat. He makes a blood curdling sound that will live in my nightmares forever, but that's if I survive long enough to have nightmares.

"No!" The word rips from my throat, my chest heavy with grief.

My mother tries to run to him. But another wolf intercepts her, and she goes down hard. I see her try to rise, try to stretch to my father, but the wolf who has her is so brutal. He swipes her head clean in one bite.

"Thaelynne, move!" Lunae is crying, pulling me, but my body is rigid with shock, I just watched my parents die right in front of me.

A wolf pounces on Wulfric. The other dancers scatter like leaves in a storm. Some shift and fight and some run. But the attackers are too strong and too many, and soon the ground is red, soaking blood from all my pack members.

A wolf blocks our path, and Lunae shoves me behind her. She shifts mid-leap and throws herself at the attacker.

What happens next is a blur to me, but the next thing I know, she’s on the ground, her limbs in jagged angle, blood pouring from her snapped neck.

"Lunae!" I finally find my voice, but it’s choked with emotion. I should've listened to her. I should've moved sooner. She wouldn't have died protecting me.

She doesn't answer. Her body just jerks as the blood pulses out.

The gray wolf stands over her body and I see the wicked glint in his eyes. Then his gaze lands on me.

I know I should run but I can't. I can't fight yet, my untrained wolf is cowering within me, trapped by fear.

More wolves surround me, they're six of them. Their eyes glow in the darkness. My knees wobble beneath me because I know I'm trapped. One of them shifts back to human form, a man with scars across his chest and arms. He looks me up and down like I’m livestock.

"This one lives," he says. "Round up the young ones. Kill the rest."

"Please." My voice breaks, tears spilling down my eyes. "Please, my family."

He doesn’t even look at me. "Cage them."

Rough hands grab me. I fight now, finally, kicking against their hold, fighting and biting but it’s far too late. Someone hits me hard across the face, and my world tilts. My blood streams from my nose into my mouth.

They drag my squirming body toward a wagon where other survivors huddle together, most of them teenagers like me. I see Larion from the tannery; he’s crying like me, bruises and scratches all over his naked body. I see Zaera clutching her younger brother.

I don't see anyone older than twenty.

They throw me into the cage with the others. The metal clangs shut. Through the bars, I watch them burn our village, cackling within themselves. The bonfire that was meant to celebrate our coming of age has spread to the houses, the shops, and the temple.

They parade us around as they set fire to everything, and I whimper as I watch all my favorite places burn to ashes.

We watch as they stack the dead bodies of our families on a pyre.

I can see my father from here, still in his wolf form, motionless. I can’t see my mother. I hope that means she escaped. I know it does not.

My brain wants to deny the fact that I saw her die right in front of me.

Larion rocks back and forth beside me, his arms wrapped around his knees. Zaera's brother sobs quietly into her shoulder. No one speaks. What words exist for this?

Everyone here has lost their parents to these rogues.

Whimpers break out through the cages as they set fire to the pyre, on the bodies of all our loved ones. I’m full-on weeping now, and I tear my eyes away from the stack because my father is lying on top of that very pile.

Just thirty minutes ago, he was smiling down at me, pride in his eyes that I'd finally discovered my wolf.

The scarred man who ordered our capture stands near the front of the wagon, talking to another warrior.

"Alpha Ragnar is going to be pleased when he hears what we have accomplished here," the scarred man says. "We took this territory without losing a single wolf."

The other man laughs. "The mighty Silvermane pack, destroyed in under an hour. They never saw us coming."

"That is what happens when you leave your borders undefended during ceremonies. Fools."

Alpha Ragnar. I repeat the name silently, burning it into my memory. Alpha Ragnar. Alpha Ragnar.

The wagon lurches forward. I grip the bars and stare back at the flames consuming everything I have ever loved. My father. My mother. Lunae. Elder Wulfric. The sacred grove where I first shifted. The cottage where I grew up. The square where I danced tonight for the first and last time.

All gone. All destroyed by Alpha Ragnar’s army.

Alpha Ragnar, I think again as consciousness slips away from me. I won't forget. I’ll survive.

And somehow, someday, I’lll make him pay for every life he took tonight.