BLOOD ON THE SNOW

The Great Hall was a chaos of fur, blood, and shattered timber. The Blight-Wolves were unlike any enemy Rhea had ever faced. They didn't fight with honor or strategy; they fought with a mindless, suicidal ferocity. They didn't feel pain, and even as they were disemboweled, they continued to snap at anything with a pulse.

​Rhea was a whirlwind of silver steel. She moved through the crowd, protecting her pack members, her movements a blur of lethal precision. But for every monster she put down, two more seemed to take its place.

​"To the courtyard!" Rhea roared over the din. "Don't let them bottle you in!"

​She felt a presence at her back. She didn't have to look to know it was Elias. They fought like two halves of a single soul—her speed and his raw, calculated power creating a perimeter of safety in the center of the hall.

​"They're coming from the kitchens!" Elias shouted, kicking a table over to create a barricade. "Rhea, we need to shift! We can't hold them in human form!"

​"Not here!" Rhea countered. "The ceiling is too low, we'll be trapped in our own bulk!"

​Suddenly, a massive Blight-Wolf—twice the size of the others—burst through the floorboards. It had three rows of teeth and skin that looked like melted wax. It lunged for Rhea.

​Elias tackled it mid-air, both of them crashing through a stained-glass window and out onto the snow-covered courtyard.

​"Elias!" Rhea cried. She vaulted through the broken window after them.

​The courtyard was a frozen battlefield. Elias was locked in a grapple with the beast, his hands buried in its throat, trying to keep those horrific teeth away from his face.

​Rhea didn't wait. She shifted. The white wolf emerged with a roar that shook the very foundation of the manor. She slammed into the side of the giant Blight-Wolf, her jaws locking onto its neck. The taste was foul—acrid and chemical—but she didn't let go. She thrashed her head, using her superior weight to snap the creature’s spine.

​The monster went limp, and Rhea stood over it, her white fur stained with black ichor.

​She turned to Elias, who was standing up, shaking the snow from his hair. He was bleeding from a deep gash on his thigh, but he looked exhilarated. He walked toward her, and for a moment, the "Wild Desires" were all that existed. He reached out and buried his hands in the thick fur of her neck.

​"Good girl," he whispered, his eyes flashing a dark, predatory grey.

​Rhea let out a soft whine, nuzzling into his palm. The "sweetness" of the victory was short-lived, however. From the dark woods surrounding the manor, hundreds of glowing green eyes appeared.

​The invasion hadn't just begun. It was already here.

​Marcus and the remaining Silver Bane warriors emerged from the hall, shifting as they hit the snow. They formed a semicircle around Rhea and Elias, their hackles raised.

​"Alpha," Marcus’s voice came through the mind-link, rough and strained. "The perimeter is gone. They're everywhere."

​Rhea shifted back to her human form, standing tall in the freezing wind. "Then we make our stand here. No one enters the manor. No one touches the pups or the elders."

​She looked at Elias. "Can you fight?"

​He drew a long sword from the snow—a blade that had fallen from a decorative display. "Until the moon falls from the sky, Rhea."

​"Then let's show them why this heart is tameless," she said.

​The first wave hit them like a tidal wave of shadow. And for the next six hours, the snow of Black Ridge turned from white to a deep, permanent crimson.