Chapter two: Night of the wolves

Ash rained like black snow over the clearing, and the once-boisterous festival lay in ruins—tents reduced to cinders, laughter replaced by sirens, fire, and the scent of blood in the soil. Aaliyah crouched behind a crumpled food stand, chest heaving, hands still trembling from the transformation.

She had never seen a massacre up close before—not like this.

Shelly was curled beside her, hands over her ears, rocking as if she could shut out the horror with motion alone. Her dress was torn, blood that wasn’t hers smeared across her collarbone. Her cinnamon-colored hair clung to her sweat-slick face, and her eyes were wide and vacant.

“Shelly,” Aaliyah whispered, touching her shoulder. “We have to move. Now.”

Shelly whimpered but nodded.

They shifted again—painful this time. Their bodies protested, worn raw from the earlier escape. Aaliyah’s wolf form was smaller than most but fast, agile. Her paws barely touched the earth as they bolted through the burning brush, leaping over shattered benches and broken bodies.

The scent of the attackers still lingered in the air,unfamiliar wolves, strangers to their packlands. Not rogues. Organized. Deadly.

From the treetops, a chilling howl echoed. Not theirs.

They weren't alone.

The path to the cliff was narrow, framed by jagged rocks and mossy logs. The river roared below, a long way down—but if they could reach the ridge, they might find the old tunnel. It was their only chance.

Aaliyah slowed as a shape emerged from the smoke. A wolf, no, a man.

Chris.

He stood in the clearing, human but bloodied, eyes glowing with his inner beast barely restrained. His dark clothes were slashed across his chest, exposing deep claw marks. He didn’t flinch when she skidded to a stop.

Shelly shifted back instinctively, breathing hard. “Chris?”

He nodded grimly. “You can’t go back.”

“What are you talking about?” Aaliyah snarled, her voice hoarse. “My father—he’s waiting for us!”

Chris didn’t blink. “He waited, Aaliyah. For you. Right until the fire reached the council house. He fought them off… but they didn’t come for him.”

Aaliyah’s stomach twisted. Her knees gave way, the weight of those words dragging her to the dirt.

No. It wasn’t possible. Her father—Alpha Darius—was a mountain. Untouchable. Eternal.

“He sent me to find you,” Chris added, softer now. “Said if I didn’t bring you home, he’d haunt me himself.”

Aaliyah’s laugh cracked like broken glass. “Then why the hell aren’t we going back?”

Chris’s jaw clenched. “Because home doesn’t exist anymore. They’re taking territory. The Alpha Council’s been hit. They’re not just raiding—they’re purging.”

Shelly let out a quiet gasp, covering her mouth.

Aaliyah stared at the burning sky, the air thick with soot and the coppery tang of blood. Everything felt unreal. Like a fever dream. A hallucination brought on by carnival sugar and adrenaline. But the pain in her lungs was real. The ache in her muscles. The sour taste of death on the wind.

“Come with me,” Chris said, extending a hand. “We don’t have long. They’ll double back once the flames die down.”

Aaliyah hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to turn around, to go back to the place where her father’s scent still lingered on the porch, where her bedroom windows faced the trees, where her life had—until tonight—felt like her own.

But her father was gone.

And home was burning.

She took Chris’s hand.

They ran, the three of them—Chris in front, Aaliyah behind, Shelly trailing like a ghost. The trees thinned, revealing a beaten-down car hidden beneath a tarp. Chris ripped it free, tossing it aside, and flung open the door. They piled in, breath ragged, limbs shaking.

The engine roared to life, coughing like a wounded beast. Tires spun on gravel. The forest swallowed them.

For a long time, no one spoke.

Aaliyah stared at her reflection in the window, but all she saw was someone else's face. Eyes too wide. Skin too pale. Her hands, clenched in her lap, had blood beneath the nails. She couldn’t remember when she’d last breathed properly.

Chris drove like a man possessed, eyes locked on the road, knuckles white against the wheel. His usual bravado was gone. Only tension remained.

“Where are we going?” Shelly whispered eventually.

Chris didn’t look back. “Someplace they won’t expect. Old Watch territory. Abandoned after the treaty wars. No patrols. Just ghosts and weeds.”

Aaliyah turned to him. “And after that? What—what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Chris didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “Survive.”

The word felt small. Insulting. Survival wasn’t enough.

“I don’t want to just survive,” she snapped. “I want to fight. I want to find who did this—why they did this. I want to make them regret it.”

Chris’s eyes flicked to her in the mirror. “That’s exactly why I’m keeping you alive.”

Silence returned. But it was different this time—charged. The grief was still there, thick and raw, but under it, something else had begun to rise. Not peace. Not acceptance.

Resolve.

Aaliyah closed her eyes.

She saw her father, tall and fierce, his laugh echoing through the old pack lodge. She saw her home ablaze, the stained-glass window shattering under the heat. She saw Shelly’s frightened face. Chris’s grim determination. And the faceless wolves who had taken everything from them.

She swore then, as the car raced toward exile, that they wouldn’t get to keep it.

Not the land.

Not the legacy.

Not her future.

The moon watched from above, its silver eye cold and unblinking.

And somewhere in the night, another pack—unknown, unseen—was already preparing to strike again.