CHRISTIAN’S POV
In my ti as Alpha, I had commanded Nightfang through many wars.
Territorial disputes. Blood feuds. Rogue incursions that tested the borders and the strength of our pack.
I had seen fear before.
I had seen hesitation.
I had seen n break under pressure, then rise again under an Alpha’s command.
But what I witnessed that night was sothing else entirely.
Before he left, Kieran entrusted Nightfang to with enough context to understand the scale of what we were facing.
What were the odds that Nightfang being attacked by rogues on the very night they went to confront Catherine was a coincidence?
Zero.
As if that wasn’t enough, young Daniel had had a prophetic dream during his nap earlier that afternoon, and urgently warned of an attack.
Most would dismiss it as a child’s wild imagination, but knowing who his mother and father were, I took it seriously and imdiately arranged for him and Leona to be taken to a safe house.
By the ti the first howl tore through the western periter, we were ready for it.
Beside , Gavin was already moving, his pace matching mine as we crossed the courtyard without wasting a single word between us.
We did not need to speak to understand what was happening; the call had been clear, and its urgency left no room for doubt.
The mont we reached the edge of the western line, the scent hit .
Fresh blood, thick enough to coat the back of the throat.
It was followed almost imdiately by the sound of conflict, the deep, violent rhythm of bodies colliding, of snarls tearing through the night, of warriors calling out to one another as they fought to hold the line.
We broke through the last stretch of trees and stepped into chaos.
Nightfang’s warriors had already ford a defensive arc along the breach, their bodies positioned with practiced precision as they pushed back against the incoming rogues.
Under normal circumstances, I would have felt a asure of confidence at the sight. Our pack had never lacked discipline, had always thrived under pressure, and with Gavin coordinating alongside , a rogue assault—even a large one—should have been manageable.
At first, it appeared that way.
The rogues ca in waves, their movents aggressive but contained, their attacks t with equal force as our warriors held their ground.
Steel flashed in the moonlight, claws tore through fur, the sharp scent of violence and blood thickened with every passing second.
‘Push them back!’ Gavin barked through the mind-link as his wolf, Xander, drove one of the rogues off balance with a well-placed strike. ‘Do not let them past the line!’
I stepped forward into the fray without hesitation, only half-shifting.
My presence alone was enough to shift the imdiate space around as I intercepted a lunging wolf and drove it into the dirt with bone-crushing force.
The impact sent it skidding across the ground, but it recovered quickly, twisting with unnatural speed as it ca at again.
I ended it before it could reach .
For several minutes, the battle held its shape.
We absorbed the impact.
We countered.
We advanced in controlled incrents.
Under normal circumstances, it should have stayed that way.
But then sothing changed.
A hesitation out of place.
A shift in posture that did not align with instinct.
A mont—brief but unmistakable—where one of our warriors faltered when he should have struck.
My gaze sharpened as I took in the battlefield to find the cause.
A rogue in human form burst through the front line, lunging at a young fighter who should have deflected the attack easily.
Instead, the boy froze, his stance collapsing.
I moved on instinct, intercepting the rogue before he could land a killing blow, but as he twisted beneath my grip, his eyes t mine.
Recognition hit like a physical force, and if I were a lesser wolf, I would have frozen in shock, too.
Because I knew that face.
Not as an enemy.
As one of my own.
The scar that cut across its shoulder had been earned during a border skirmish two sumrs ago.
I had been there when it happened. I had comnded him for holding the line when others would have retreated.
Six months later, I had stood at his funeral pyre and watched the flas take him.
And now he was here. Alive.
Just like Aaron.
The recognition was obviously not mutual.
He snarled, snapping human teeth at with no sign of recognition, no hesitation, no trace of the man I had once known.
Behind , I heard a voice stutter, “D-dad—?”
Another cut off mid-sentence.
“It can’t be—”
I turned sharply, scanning the battlefield again, and what I saw made sothing cold settle deep in my chest.
It was not just this one.
It was several.
Familiar faces, familiar pack mbers.
Who should all be dead.
There were not enough of them to dominate the field or turn the tide based on the confusion they had caused.
But they were enough.
Enough for our warriors to recognize them.
Enough to make them question what they were seeing.
Enough to break rhythm.
The rogues sensed it imdiately.
Their attacks sharpened, their movents growing more aggressive as they pressed into the hesitation, exploiting the fractures forming along our line.
‘Stay focused!’ Gavin snapped, but even he could not fully mask the tension that had crept into his voice.
A warrior to my left staggered back, his expression twisted with sothing dangerously close to disbelief as he faced a friend who had once stood beside him in training.
“I saw you die,” he said, the words barely audible over the noise. “I saw—”
The rogue lunged.
I moved again, driving it back before it could reach him, but the hesitation and confusion in our ranks kept spreading.
This was not a normal assault.
Catherine.
The na surfaced in my mind with such clarity that there was no room for denial.
This was her work.
Whether she had truly brought the dead back in so twisted form or had created sothing that rely wore their faces did not matter in that mont.
The effect was the sa. She had turned mory into a weapon and sent it straight into the heart of my pack.
Rage flared, sharp and controlled.
‘Listen to ,’ I sent the ssage down the mind-link. ‘They are not who you rember.’
Another rogue lunged, and I ended it with decisive force before continuing, my gaze sweeping across the line.
‘They are not your brothers and sisters. They wear familiar faces, nothing more.’
So of them heard .
Many didn’t.
The hesitation lingered, clinging to the edges of their movents, slowing reactions by fractions of a second that could an the difference between life and death.
We were still holding.
But the line was no longer as clean.
Victory was no longer as certain.
Beside , Gavin drove back two attackers in quick succession before glancing toward , his expression grim.
‘If this keeps up—’
‘I know.’
I drew in a slow breath.
There were monts in leadership where strategy mattered, where careful planning and asured responses dictated the outco.
And then there were monts where none of that was enough.
This was one of them.
I let my power rise—the authority of an Alpha that had commanded this pack long before most of these warriors had taken their first breath.
It surged through , ancient and absolute, as I fully shifted.
‘Enough!’
This ti, the command carried. It struck every mind on the battlefield.
‘You will hold,’ I said, my voice resonating in their minds with a force that left no room for doubt. ‘You will fight.’
The effect was imdiate.
The hesitation shattered.
Instinct reasserted itself. Loyalty anchored it.
Our warriors moved as one again, their formation tightening, their strikes regaining the brutal precision that had defined Nightfang for generations.
Xander exhaled beside , tension easing enough to be replaced by focus.
We pushed forward with renewed cohesion.
The rogues t us with equal ferocity, but the advantage they had gained through confusion began to slip as our line stabilized.
Still, the cost had already been paid.
I saw it in the bodies that lay unmoving on the ground.
In the injuries that slowed even our strongest fighters.
In the way so of them avoided looking too closely at the fallen rogues, as though afraid of what they might recognize.
We drove them back step by step, reclaiming ground that had been nearly lost.
And then, just as suddenly as the assault had intensified, it shifted again.
The rogues disengaged in a manner that was neither chaotic nor driven by fear, but precise, deliberate, and unmistakably coordinated.
They pulled back as one, their movents controlled as they withdrew toward the treeline, leaving behind only the aftermath of what they had done.
Xander cocked his head. ‘That’s it?’
‘They were never here to take the pack,’ I said quietly.
He turned to . ‘Then what was the point?’
I looked out over the field.
At the wounded.
At the fallen.
At the warriors still catching their breath, their expressions shadowed with sothing deeper than exhaustion.
The last of the rogues disappeared into the forest, their presence fading into the night as though they had never been there at all.
But the damage remained.
Not in the ground torn by the fight.
Not in the blood that stained the earth.
But in the questions they had left behind.
In the seeds of confusion they’d sown.
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