Iron And Blood Game Novels & Stories

One step. Then it backhanded him. Darius hit the wall hard, the air knocked out of him, pain lancing up his spine. Above him, fire pits loomed. _You carry the First Blood. Your daughter carries the moon blood. Together, you will open the door._ “What door?” I gasped, scrambling back, but the stone under my hands wouldn’t let me move. _The door to my prison. The door to your world’s end._ It raised a clawed hand, and the air grew hot, smelling of cinders and old graves.

“They’re here!” The words struck me like physical blows. They’re here. The nightmare we’d spent weeks whispering about in council chambers had become reality. The Ironbloods. Magic-wielding killers who had burned entire villages to ash. Malakor. The warlord. I froze. The slums had taught me how to survive. How to steal. How to fight. How to disappear into shadows. But this wasn’t another tavern brawl. This was war. Monsters. Magic. Blood. Death.

The medicine had stilled the shaking, replacing the agonizing itch with a cold numbness that made me feel like I was made of iron. The sound of engines vibrated through the soles of my boots as three black armored SUVs tore through the mist of the estate gates, skidding to a halt in a perfect, intimidating line. There was no pack crest on the doors, only a faint, embossed sigil on the lead hood of the weeping eye of the Fallen Empire. This was a mark of the True Bloods.

“Right there. In the open. Where everyone can see what happens when you cross me.” The phone buzzes again on the desk, another update coming in, and my pulse jumps. I grin. “Move everyone,” I say. “Tonight.” “Rules,” Lena asks. “There are none,” I say. “Only the hunt.” I picture Eli Blackwood boxed in by noise and lights and fragile lives, and my hands curl into fists. “I am not a coward,” I say softly. “And I do not care who dies learning that.”

Draven I was twelve again. My armor leaned against the wall looking enormous and my small dagger clenched in my trembling hand. Twelve—yes but old enough to understand what was happening. War. Outside the fortress walls of Ironfang, the howls of wolves could be heard echoing across the valley like thunder. Steel clashed against steel. And the air tasted like blood and burning oil. And fear. My father— Alpha Søren Blackthorn stood in the center of the war tent, leaning over the metal table that held the map of their territory. Even wounded, he was a mountain of a man.

The second thing I noticed was the smell. Iron. Smoke. And… sweetness, that I couldn’t just place, more like rotting fruit. And the third thing? We weren’t alone. Figures moved in the distance, silhouettes against the skyline. The very tall towers pierced the fog, and black stone bridges stretched between them and intertwined. A dark river cut through the valley far below, and was glowing faintly red under the moonlight. “This is…” I trailed off, not sure what word to use. “Ravenhill,” Davorin said simply.

The iron gates of the Bloodmoon fortress didn't just shut behind us; they slammed with a heavy, echoic finality that vibrated deep into the bedrock of the mountain. We had returned from the Meadow of the Damned covered in the dark blood of the High King's vanguard, but there was no celebration within the stone walls. The air inside the main keep was thick, heavy, and suffocatingly tense, dominated by the sharp, metallic tang of our pack preparing for an absolute siege.

Two Ashmoor soldiers dead against each other like the last thing they did was fall into the same space. The sounds hit me before the visuals fully assembled. Metal against metal. The wet percussion of strikes landing on bodies that were past defending themselves. Screaming. Layered screaming from different positions on the road, each one carrying a different quality of pain. Fresh pain and deep pain. And underneath all of it, the snarling of shifted wolves that went past strategy into pure blood fury. Felix of Ironfang was on the left flank with his shoulder torn open to the bone but still

They rolled him around until he sat on the floor, his whole body trembling from head to foot. The man—if he could be called that—was filthy, his clothes shredded and caked in dirt. His skin was too pale, almost translucent in the evening glow, and veins spiderwebbed sickly beneath it. His pupils were blown wide, giving him a feral, half-crazed look. I sniffed again and sure enough, I could sense the human... but there was something else. Something twisted and rotten like death and dark magic. It made me even tenser. “What the hell is he?” muttered Jorah, one of the Gamma’s beside me.

People around us started coming to their senses as they woke up inside the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Bloodlust Games, The final chapter” mum announced proudly. My eyes widened as the ground glowed beneath me, I tried moving out of the circle I was in only to realize that there was what looked like a force field wall which I couldn’t get past. I punched the wall twice, it glowed under the force. But that was all, I couldn’t move out of it as mum proudly explained the rules of the games.