Chapter 2 The Bloodline Claim

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The rain hadn’t let up by morning.

If anything, it was worse. It turned the village square to soup. The burial stone was slick. Alpha Doran’s white shroud was already mud-brown at the edges.

No one slept.

Kael didn’t sleep. He sat on the floor of his father’s hut, back against the wall, wrists wrapped in cloth where he’d torn himself trying not to shift. Amina’s salve stung. It helped.

The door opened.

Elder Mara came in first. Bent, white hair plastered to her skull. Behind her: Jorin, broad and scarred, Doran’s second. Then the rest. 12 werewolves. All that was left of the Oka'ru pack.

No one looked at Kael. Not directly.

"Close it," Mara said. Jorin shut the door. The hut went dark except for one guttering lamp.

For a long time, no one spoke. Just the rain on the thatch.

Finally, Jorin did. "We have three days."

"Maybe less," said Tayo, one of the younger ones. "The scouts saw torches on the ridge last night. They moved after the howling."

"The howling," Mara repeated. Her eyes, cloudy with age, found Kael’s. "That wasn’t us."

Kael shook his head. "No."

"Did you see it?"

He hesitated. Then nodded. "Big. Taller than a man. Red eyes. It watched me and then it was gone."

Murmurs. Fear.

"Rogues," spat Kemi, a woman with a missing ear. "Had to be. Thought they were all dead."

"Father said they were," Kael said quietly. "He said the last one was killed before I was born."

"Your father is dead," Jorin said. Not cruel. Just fact. "And now we need a new Alpha."

Every eye turned to him.

The weight of it hit Kael like a punch. His stomach turned. "I’m not— I’ve never shifted. I don’t know the laws. I don’t know how to lead—"

"You’re blood," Mara interrupted. "The blood chooses. It always has."

She stepped forward and took his face in her hands. Her palms were rough. "Do you feel it, boy? The pull?"

Kael did. Under the pain, under the fear, there was something else. A thread tied to every person in this room. Thin and fraying, but there.

"I feel it," he admitted.

"Then you’re Alpha," she said. "Whether you want it or not."

Jorin didn’t look happy. "Wanting doesn’t matter. Can he fight? Can he hold the pack when the hunters come? Or will he break and get us all killed?"

"I don’t know," Kael said. Honest. "I’ve spent 19 years pretending I wasn’t this. How am I supposed to be it in three days?"

"By doing what your father did," Jorin said. "Stand. Fight. Bleed for them."

"Or," said Tayo from the back, "we don’t fight."

All eyes turned to him.

Tayo swallowed. "The Capital has 50 men. Silver. Fire. We have 12. And now... whatever that thing is in the woods. We run. Tonight. Into the deep forest. Let Oka'ru burn. At least we live."

"Abandon the village?" Kemi snapped. "The humans? After everything?"

"They abandoned us when the hunters came," Tayo shot back. "They didn’t hide us. They didn’t fight. Why should we die for them?"

The hut erupted. Voices over voices. Old arguments. New fear.

Kael put his hands over his ears. It didn’t help. The noise was inside him too. The wolf wanted to snarl. To dominate. To make them shut up.

He stood instead.

The room went quiet.

Kael was tall. Taller than he’d been last week. The shift was already changing him, even in human skin. His shoulders strained his shirt.

"I’m not running," he said. His voice didn’t shake. "This is our land. My father died for it."

"Then lead us," Jorin said. "Prove it."

"How?"

Mara answered. "Tonight. You go to the forest. Alone. You find what’s making those sounds. You bring back proof, or you bring back its head. An Alpha protects. An Alpha hunts."

Kael’s mouth went dry. "Alone?"

"Alone," she said. "That’s the law."

The door banged open before he could answer.

It was one of the village boys. 14, soaked, eyes wild.

"Elder! There’s— there’s a body. By the mill. It’s... it’s not right."

Jorin was already moving. "Show us."

They followed. The whole pack, plus half the village trailing behind, whispering.

By the old grain mill, the water wheel wasn’t turning. The stream was red.

The body was what was left of Old Baba Sule. The miller.

Or parts of him.

It wasn’t torn like a wolf. Wolves killed clean. This was... pulled apart. Bones snapped. Skin peeled back.

And carved into the mill door above him, deep gouges in the wood.

Claw marks. Too big. Four of them. With space between for a hand the size of a shield.

Kael crouched. The smell made his stomach turn. Under the blood, under the rain, he caught it again. That musk. That rot.

The same thing from last night.

Amina pushed through the crowd. She took one look and had to turn away. When she came back, her face was white.

"That’s not an animal," she whispered to Kael. "That’s a message."

Kael looked at the claw marks. Then at the tree line. Then at his pack.

12 against 50 hunters.

12 against whatever did this.

He could feel the thread in his chest pull tight.

"Alright," he said. Louder now. So everyone could hear. "I’m Alpha. And tonight, I hunt."

Jorin nodded once. Slow.

Mara smiled, sad. "Then may the moon be with you, Kael Doran."

The rain kept falling.

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