Chapter 26 — Mira Feels the Attack First

Rain hammered the eastern border, turning the forest floor into a slick trap.

Darius stood rigid in front of Mira, his body a living shield against the darkness. Behind him, Galen and Tovan spread the warriors into a tight defensive arc, claws bared and muscles coiled.

The rogues did not charge.

They circled through the downpour with an eerie, synchronized silence. Their movements were wrong—too fluid for feral beasts, yet too jerky for trained soldiers. They moved like puppets on wet strings.

Mira stared at the nearest figure. Beneath the soaked fabric of his torn shirt, a crescent scar marred his shoulder.

It was identical to the one hidden beneath her own clothes.

Terror clawed at her throat, but it wasn’t fear of death. It was the horror of recognition. These weren't monsters. They were warnings carved in flesh.

She gripped Darius’s jacket, her knuckles white. The pack had come to hunt rogues, but she was staring at mirrors of her own stolen past.

One rogue shifted his weight to the left, shoulders dipping low.

Tovan read it instantly as a frontal rush. He barked a signal, and the warriors braced forward, shields raised against the expected impact.

But Mira’s scar suddenly burned with freezing agony.

Through the invisible tether to Sera, she felt the true threat before it materialized. It wasn't coming from the ground. It was falling from the canopy above, masked by the drumming rain and heavy leaves.

“Above!” she screamed, her voice tearing through the storm.

Tovan turned, but he was half a second too late. A marked rogue dropped from the branches, claws extended toward his exposed neck.

Mira’s warning had bought him the fraction of a moment he needed to survive, proving her sense was not a theory. It was a lifeline forged in stolen instinct.

Darius moved faster than thought.

He intercepted the falling rogue mid-air, slamming the creature into the mud with bone-jarring force. Fen surged beneath his skin, dark claws emerging as he threw the attacker aside.

But the rogue didn’t stay down.

It rose immediately, shaking off blows that should have shattered ribs. Pain meant nothing to it. Mira felt that unnatural endurance echo in her own marrow, and deep within the bond, Sera whimpered in shared distress.

Darius froze for a heartbeat, staring at the creature.

The crescent scar on the rogue’s shoulder pulsed with a faint, sickly light beneath the rain. This was no ordinary fighter. It was a vessel emptied of will, animated only by whatever dark ritual had carved that mark into its flesh.

The ambush broke open into chaos.

Warriors clashed with the marked rogues between the trees, but the rain destroyed scent trails and the mud ruined footing. The enemies moved with unnatural timing, striking in perfect, silent unison.

Mira stayed behind Darius and Galen, but she was fighting her own war.

Every incoming attack registered as searing pain in her own body. A claw meant for Galen tore through her phantom shoulder. A bite aimed at Tovan’s leg cramped her ribs. A flank maneuver targeting Darius’s blind side constricted her throat.

She called out directions through clenched teeth, bleeding through warnings no one else could hear. She had no claws to defend them, so she paid for their safety with pieces of herself.

At first, Tovan had reacted to her shouts with visible suspicion.

Then Mira screamed his name a split second before a rogue lunged from the mist. He pivoted blindly and blocked the strike perfectly.

His expression shifted. Trust hadn't arrived yet, but battlefield respect had taken root.

He began repeating her warnings as tactical commands. “Left flank! Tree line! Guard the Alpha’s right!”

The warriors obeyed Tovan, not the wolfless girl cowering behind the Alpha. But the source was undeniably Mira. For the first time in her life, her voice was actively shaping the pack’s survival, even if they couldn't yet see the cost.

Then, the marked rogues stopped.

All at once, they ceased their assault and turned their heads toward the deeper forest. A crushing pressure slid through the rain, settling over Mira’s skin like a shroud.

It wasn’t Alpha command. It wasn’t rogue instinct. It was ritual control.

Her scar burned so violently she collapsed to one knee in the mud. Darius spun toward her instantly, but Mira raised a trembling hand toward the trees.

“Someone is holding them,” she whispered, the words tasting like ash.

The rogues began retreating into the shadows. One paused, glancing back at Mira. For a single heartbeat, the dullness cleared from his eyes, revealing a trapped, desperate soul.

He mouthed two words: Moon chamber.

Then he vanished into the rain.

Mira had felt the attack before it came. Now she felt something far worse. The rogues were not hunting freely. They were being called back.