Chapter 1: The Night I Smell Death

- RAVENA

I smelled of death before I saw my mom, before she even spoke.

And I knew that the world was gone before she dragged me away to our secret chamber.

I was leaning my back against the chilly rock of the secret niche, and my body trembled so that I thought my bones would clatter.

The fragrance of dried lavender and hearth smoke was no longer on my mom's hands, but I only sensed panic. It was the final heat. Then her shivering fingers were cupping my face, and I was rooted once more, before she shoved me back in the crevice behind the bookshelf.

"Stay put, Ravena," she hissed in a cracking voice. "Whatever happens, whatever you hear, never come out."

"Mom....” I stammered, but she shook her head desperately.

"Swear to me," she said, lightly tracing the pendant that had been mine since the day I was born. “You gotta stay alive and hide your true self. When you manage to escape, always keep your pendant. One day, when the time is right, it will show the world who you truly are."

"Alright. I swear, Mom," I said, but the words got stuck in my throat, and I grabbed her sleeves. “But there’s more room here. Hide with me. They won’t find us.”

Her eyes flicked to the door as the terrifying noises were becoming nearer. I heard glass smashing, someone yelling for my dad, and boots stomping.

My mom swung around and spoke to me with a broken voice.

“No,” she whispered fiercely. "They will tear this place down and hunt us to the ends of the earth when they discover that we are all gone. Hide, and stay hidden, sweetheart. It's the last possibility you get to survive this night. Some of us must stay alive to tell what happened to the Moon Goddess."

When she touched me, I felt her trembling hand run down my cheek, and her words sank like stones in my chest. And before I had spoken more, she kissed my hair and mumbled, "Forgive me, my little wolf."

Then she closed the secret door, and the world swallowed her down.

She was gone, and may the spirits be with me. I obeyed as screams ripped all the way through the house like a thousand blades.

It began in the great hall, where my dad and brothers would have had dinner. Screams of protest were snatched off in damp, nauseating chomps in my mouth.

I was the daughter of a Beta, born soft, not hard; destined to be peaceful and warm, not bloodthirsty and warlike.

I was not supposed to be here, but at the gathering hall with the other Beta heirs. But I had pleaded with my mother that I could remain and hear the bards speak of Alphas and glory.

The Valecrests were my family, always faithful, dependable, the mainspring of the pack, but in that particular night, the hearts of the Valecrests, even the most faithful and reliable, were silenced one after another.

Now I would have rather been anywhere but here. Anywhere but hearing out my end of the world.

The fighting grew closer. Shouts turned to pleas. A scream of a female voice I recognized as my elder sister, Valeria, was choked off in a gurgle.

It would have been minutes or hours. There was no time with such fear.

My sister has screamed a voice I did not recognize, a cry of desperation and violence.

I covered my ears with both hands and bit hard to keep the sob shredding up my throat.

I even tasted blood as my teeth sank into my skin, but that could not drown out the noises outside.

With every scream, every cry, a knife-stroke cut still deeper, and I counted them like heartbeats, one, two, three... until the horror just stopped.

Then I heard some thunderous footsteps thundering through the passages.

One after another, the doors were kicked open.

Boots on broken glass, bodies dragged on the floor, furniture crashing against the floor.

Floorboards were creaking over my hiding place. The footsteps paused directly in front of my hiding-place.

My heart beat surged against my ribs as I choked, believing that the light beneath the door was going to reveal to them precisely where I was.

The low and rough voice shook through the floorboards, into my bones.

“Find the other ones! Check every room!”

“Don’t leave anyone breathing!”

“Move your ass. Now!”

Each word was like a death sentence. I heard them coming nearer, the rattle of weapons going on, the snarl of wolves shifting form.

Then came another, who said coldly, "All gone. We have slaughtered every one of them. Let’s go!”

My breath hitched.

The words twisted in my head. They killed my entire family?

My eyes were clouded with tears.

Every last one? And did they stand there counting them one by one without knowing I was not among them?

I could not think of that without my stomach turning.

I was cowering in the dark, as the loud footsteps faded away and the silence continued.

I had no idea how long it took, but at last, the noise had disappeared. The house was horribly quiet now.

I couldn’t take it any longer. Still barefoot, trembling, I dragged myself out of the dark.

The smell of death struck me as a fist to the stomach.

Something sharper burned in the back of my throat. The air was filled with the sour, overwhelming odor of wolfsbane, crushed and burned, like a stench of poison gas. Under it was the earthy, medicinal scent of bitter hemlock and nightshade, a pharmacist of death they would inject into our minds before they ripped into our skin and flesh.

And then I saw it.

The large hall was a slaughterhouse.

The place was a total wreck. The floor was wet and sticky with a pool of blood.

My scream was choked in my throat. Tears streamed down my face, blurring the scene into a crimson nightmare, but I couldn't look away.

I lay my forehead on the floor, trembling so violently that I thought I should have smashed.

I was left alone, having lost my entire family.

My dad had been bent down over the large table, his throat ripped open, his blood mingling with the spilt red wine.

I laid my hands on his cold chest and tried to detect something, anything. But he was gone.

My brothers were lying on their backs with their chests open, and their eyes still open and wide with horror.

Their throats were brutally cut open. They had their ribs crushed, their bones sticking out in the wrong places under their torn shirts as though someone had stepped on them and kicked them again and again to ensure that they never rose again. Their hands remained in a sort of grip, as though they had tried to protect one another until the last, and didn't make it.

My sister lay upon her back on the marble floor, her clothing torn, her body broken in such a manner no human being, no wolf, could suffer.

Her legs spread, and the blood poured out of her pussy. Her hair was thickened with blood, her face had been frozen in a half-cry, so that even the agony of death could not restrain her. I could not imagine how she had to suffer when those animals had brutally raped her to death.

My knees got weak, and I crawled over the blood to my mom, who was lying close to the fireplace.

I believed she had vanished as had the others, but then her chest made a shallow, broken gasp. Her fingernails weakly darted against the floorboards, in an attempt to grab something that was not there.

She struggled, and her eyes looked up in terror. Her lips moved without sound, in despair to breathe. Blood had soaked her ribs, and with every breath, it rattled like it was ripping her open.

“Mom…” And my voice melted and fell in shatters, and my trembling hands outstretched. “I’m here. Please, hold on....”

I attempted to shut the shutters of her eyes, but my hands seemed frozen in the air. I could not do it when she was in pain, still alive, and I knew that she was waiting for me.

Her hand twitched. She touched my arm with her fingers, smearing blood.

"Sweetheart..." and her lips were trembling. “Stay alive... Run… as far as... you can.”

“Who? Who did this?”

Her mother’s breath hitched. The light in her eyes faded, but she managed to say one word, one name.

“Alpha Roderic... Find him.”

And then she drew her last breath, and her head fell to her side.

I was sitting, holding her in my arms, and rocking back and forth as the world fell around me. That's when I heard a great many feet coming my way.

The door slammed open.

Alpha Cian Thornecrest, the golden boy of Crimsonridge Pack, stood at the entrance, flanked by half the pack.

His gaze swept the room, landing on the carnage, then on me. On the blood smeared across my hands, my face, and all over my clothes.

His expression hardened.

“By the moon…” he muttered. Then louder, to everyone behind him, “She did it.”

“What?” I choked out. “No. Alpha....”

He stalked forward, fury and disbelief twisting his face. “How could you, Ravena? Your own family?”

“No, I didn’t.” I crawled to my feet, stumbling backward as the guards advanced. “I found them like this! I swear on the Moon Goddess, I...”

"Enough!” His voice cracked like thunder. “The scent of blood clings to you. You're the only one who's still alive without any injuries. You expect us to believe otherwise?”

“I was hiding. Mom told me to. Please, you have to believe me!” I shrieked, but the pack was already closing in, their eyes filled with the kind of hatred reserved for monsters.

But I saw it then, the flicker of disgust in his eyes.

“You killed them all,” he said quietly. "You killed your own blood for their secrets.”

“No,” I muttered, but my voice was silenced. My wolf whimpered weakly inside me, terrified and confused, fading fast under the weight of their hatred.

“Take the kinslayer,” Cian ordered, his voice devoid of the warmth I had once cherished.

The guards grabbed my arms, holding me fast. I screamed and fought, but their grip was unbreakable, like iron.

“Alpha Cian!” I called out, reaching for him, as they dragged me out through the blood of my family. “Please! I didn’t do it! You know me. You know I could never....”

He ignored me completely, remaining silent and refusing to look at me. He just gave the guards a single, curt nod to proceed.

But as they threw me into the back of the iron transport cage and the heavy grates began to slide shut, his eyes finally flicked to mine with malice. He looked at me as if he wasn't looking at a traitor, but at a target that was supposed to have died with the rest of the Valecrests.

He knew exactly what had happened. And he was terrified I would survive long enough to tell the world.