The Summons of Blood

The parchment arrived before dawn, carried on the back of a black-feathered raven.

It landed on the stone balcony outside Kade’s chambers, talons scraping the railing as it tilted its head in a way that felt too deliberate to be natural. Its eyes glimmered with a strange, intelligent sheen, and its beak clutched a roll of blood-red vellum bound in silver thread.

The pack had seen ravens before. But this—this was no ordinary bird.

Lena felt the hair rise on her arms as she stood in the doorway, watching. Something about it chilled her deeper than the winter wind that crept through the mountain pines. She couldn’t explain why, only that it carried not just a message, but a weight—a curse dressed as duty.

Kade approached the railing in silence, his body taut with the kind of tension Lena had learned to recognize. The wolf in him hated this intrusion, this omen that dared to perch on his balcony as if it belonged here.

The raven dropped the scroll into his palm. Then, without a sound, it took wing, black feathers scattering against the dawn like falling blades.

The silence it left behind was absolute.

Kade’s eyes burned golden as he unwound the silver thread. His jaw tightened with every motion, until Lena almost couldn’t bear to see what lay inside.

He unrolled the parchment. Crimson ink stained the page—though Lena wasn’t sure it was ink at all. The words shimmered like blood under torchlight.

To Kade Wilder, Alpha of Blackwood.

The Council summons you to the Hall of Fang and Fang.

You are to stand before the Circle of Alphas on the blood moon, with your claimed mate.

Refusal is treason. Defiance is death.

Signed in the law of the Codex, by decree of the High Fang.

The letters seemed to crawl across the parchment as Lena read them over Kade’s arm. Her throat went dry, her pulse a drumbeat she couldn’t slow.

The Hall of Fang and Fang. The very name sent a shiver through her bones. She didn’t know its exact location, only the stories—an ancient stronghold carved into the spine of the northern mountains, where the Council held trials, judgments, and executions in equal measure. Wolves whispered it was built on the graves of the first Alphas, their bones woven into the stone itself.

Lena whispered the words aloud, tasting the weight of them. “With your claimed mate.”

Her stomach knotted. They didn’t just want Kade. They wanted her.

Kade’s fist clenched around the parchment until it crumpled. His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths. Rage radiated off him in waves, the kind that made the air itself tremble.

“They won’t take you,” he growled. His voice was steel wrapped in fire. “They won’t lay a hand on you.”

But Lena could feel it—that pull in the marrow of her bones, the truth she didn’t want to speak. “They already have. By summoning me, they’ve claimed me as part of this… this trial.”

Kade turned, his eyes locking on hers. For a heartbeat, she thought he’d argue, deny it, promise her safety again. But he didn’t.

Instead, he closed the distance and caught her face in his hands, rough palms trembling as though holding her was the only thing keeping him from tearing the world apart. “Then I’ll burn their Hall to the ground before I let them touch you.”

The vow was raw, untempered, dangerous. It stole Lena’s breath, not because she doubted he meant it, but because she knew he did.

Somewhere deep in the fortress, a howl rose—a mourning cry from one of the elders who had read the same summons. Others joined in, their voices weaving into a chorus of dread. The entire pack felt it: the Council’s grip had tightened around their throats.

Lena pressed her forehead to Kade’s chest, listening to the steady hammer of his heart, grounding herself in it. “So… what happens now?”

Kade’s voice was low, but it carried like thunder. “Now, we prepare for war.”

The great hall of Blackwood was filled before the sun climbed past the peaks. Wolves crowded shoulder to shoulder, warriors still bloodstained from the night’s patrols, mothers clutching their restless children, elders standing stiff-backed as though their bones remembered wars long past.

At the center, Kade stood like an iron pillar, the crumpled summons clenched in his fist. Lena stood just behind him, feeling every eye cut toward her like a blade.

“She cannot go.” The first voice rose from among the elders. Garron, his hair silver, his face weathered. “The Council’s summons is bait. They’ll put her on trial for the bond. You know what the Codex says—humans cannot be mates.”

“They’ll never see her as human,” a warrior growled. “She carries the mark. She bleeds with his bite in her blood. She is of Blackwood now.”

Murmurs rippled like fire through dry grass. Some nodded. Some sneered. And Lena felt it all—the weight of belonging and rejection, a tug-of-war that made her wolf claw beneath her skin, desperate to answer every challenge with teeth.

Kade lifted his hand, and silence struck the hall. “The Council’s decree is not a request. Refusal is treason. I will not let them call Blackwood traitor.”

“And her?” Garron’s gaze cut to Lena, sharp as a dagger. “Will you drag her into their jaws? Into the Hall of Fang and Fang, where no Alpha walks unscarred?”

Lena’s spine stiffened. She stepped forward before Kade could speak. “He doesn’t drag me anywhere. I walk with him.”

A hush spread through the hall, like the intake of one collective breath. Lena felt her pulse hammer in her ears, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t back down. Her voice carried, stronger with every word. “I’ve seen the rogues Cassian loosed. I’ve stood on this soil and bled for it. If the Council wants me to answer, I’ll stand before them. I won’t cower while others fight battles I’m bound to by blood.”

The hall erupted, some voices shouting in approval, others in anger. A young warrior howled his agreement, while an elder muttered that she was sealing her death.

Kade’s hand closed around her wrist, pulling her to his side, his eyes molten gold as they swept the crowd. “You see her courage. You hear her claim. The Council thinks to use her as a weapon against us, but they forget—we do not send lambs to slaughter.” His voice rose, a roar that filled the hall until the stones trembled. “We send wolves.”

The pack howled, voices colliding in raw defiance. It wasn’t unanimous, but it was enough.

Later, when the hall had emptied and only the fire crackled in its hearth, Lena sat beside Kade at the long table, her hand still wrapped in his. The weight of what was coming pressed down heavy, but for once, she didn’t feel crushed.

“What is the Hall of Fang and Fang, really?” she asked quietly. “Not the stories. The truth.”

Kade’s jaw worked, his gaze fixed on the flames. For a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, at last, his voice came, low and rough.

“It’s where Alphas are broken.” His thumb brushed her knuckles, absent, protective. “It is where the Council reminds us that no wolf is above their law. And it is where they kill those who forget.”

The firelight cast hard shadows across his face, and in that moment Lena saw not just the Alpha but the man—a man bracing himself to walk into the lion’s den, dragging her with him because the bond had left no other path.

But she also saw something else.

Resolve.

Fury.

And a promise that burned brighter than fear.

“If they try to take you,” he said, voice edged in steel, “I’ll tear their Hall stone from stone until there’s nothing left but dust and bones.”

Lena’s wolf pressed against her ribs, a low, answering growl humming in her chest. She met his gaze, her own voice fierce. “Then they’ll have to kill us both. Because I won’t let them take you either.”

The bond thrummed between them, hot, dangerous, unbreakable.

Beyond the walls, the ravens circled the sky, black wings blotting out the dawn.

The Council was waiting.

And the blood moon was rising.