Noah stood at the lodge windows, straining his human eyes to see beyond the dull glow of the fae globes. Next to him, Calla waited patiently, leaning heavily on her wooden cane. His cane tapped on the ground in a nervous rhythm, and with each tap, Calla flinched at the grating noise. Howls and screams sounded off in the distance, and the horizon burned a dull orange from raging fires beyond their sight. Although they couldn’t see the flames, they could smell the smoke, and the acrid scent burned his nose and watered his eyes.
With such massive forest fires engulfing the territory, they may have no choice but to abandon the lodge and escape into the wilderness. His nervous cane tapping continued as his anxieties shifted toward his mate fighting in the forest. He would rather fight within a tornado of flames than be safe and sound and wondering who from his family was still alive. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Would you stop with that incessant tapping?” Calla snapped, her one functioning eye glaring at him.
“Calm yourself, Guardian. Showing your nerves in this way will only scare the other wolves,” he said, keeping his eyes on the patrolling warrior wolves outside. Every few minutes, they would leave his vision to circle the back of the lodge before reentering the light of the fae globes.
The creaking of wood sounded from his side as Calla gripped her cane with crushing force. “It is not nerves I am feeling. It is a burning desire to snap that stick you call a weapon over your head!”
“Don’t be ashamed, Guardian. I am feeling the tinges of fear as well. It is only natural in the moments before battle,” he said with a nod of understanding.
Hushed whispers broke out from his side, causing him to glance over at the Guardian wolf. Her wispy grey hair whipped back and forth as she engaged in a heated argument with herself. “No, no, no, you can’t kill him, Calla. He is the First Mate! Yes, but what about… No, the Alpha will be able to tell by the wounds. We’d never get away with it.”
As he watched the Guardian argue with herself, goosebumps broke out along his arms, and he casually sidestepped to his left to peer out of another window. Steadfastly ignoring the discussions of his murder, he waited for the warrior wolves to make their next round of patrols in front of the fae globes. His cane tapping slowed as the expected warrior remained absent.
Was it even possible to kill a warrior wolf before they had a chance to howl in warning? More likely, the guard must have paused his patrol to investigate something in the woods. As he waited a few minutes for the next wolf in the patrol to reappear in the light of the fae globes, his cane tapping ceased entirely. The wolf never showed, and the meadow of purple flowers remained silent and abandoned.
“Calla!” Noah croaked, turning to the Guardian as suffocating fear clamped down on his throat.
Calla stared out of the window with intense concentration, sniffing the air and listening intently with a cocked head. She must have sensed something because her head snapped to a certain spot in the tree line, and she growled with narrowed eyes at something hidden in the shadows.
“Wolves! The enemy has called, and it is time we answered,” she yelled out, already heading toward one of the swinging door panels.
The six volunteer wolves gathered around Calla, each one glancing toward the hundreds of wolves cuddled up for safety in the back of the lodge. Noah didn’t know which pups, family members, or loved ones their eyes were searching for, but they found them. Tears formed in their eyes, and wobbly smiles spread across their faces. After a moment, the volunteers wiped the tears from their eyes and replaced their loving gazes with glares of desperate determination. After a brief shimmer, the volunteers shifted and surrounded Calla, already snarling and snapping into the air.
Noah joined the undersized wolves and pulled out the pouch containing Ajax’s powder. Just as he untied the pouch, Calla placed a wrinkled hand on his arm, preventing him from emptying the contents onto the back of his hand.
“It is not yet your time, young human. I will do everything I can to injure him. Once he is weakened, it will be your job to finish him off.”
“Him?” Noah asked in confusion. With one arm, Calla flung open the heavy door panel, and the volunteer wolves bolted into the meadow. While holding the door open, she glanced at Noah with sad eyes.
“The Prince,” she whispered, sending a shiver down Noah’s spine.
As Calla released the heavy panel, Noah rushed to the window and pressed his face against the glass. He spotted Calla limping with her wooden cane until she approached the middle of the meadow. With a glance at her cane, she snapped the wood in half and, after a brief shimmer, shifted into a grey wolf of mythical proportions.
Noah gasped at the size of the Guardian, covering his mouth in shock. Now he knew Sylvie had become alpha because Calla allowed her to, and she remained alpha because Calla allowed her to. The Guardian dwarfed Sylvie and Rowan, and power radiated off her in waves. How had Calla resisted the temptation of power for so many years when none could have opposed her might?
With Calla at the head, the seven wolves waited in the middle of the meadow, snarling at the tree lines at something still hidden from his human eyes. Straining his eyes, he attempted to use every bit of the light from the fae globes to reveal the tree line. A subtle shift of movement caught his attention, and he zeroed in on it.
A dark purple figure emerged from the darkness, gliding out from behind the trees in silence. Onyx horns curled around his head, ending in razor-sharp spikes and pointing toward the wolves. Veins wriggled underneath his skin like they had imprisoned worms and snakes beneath his flesh. Pure shadows molded around his lower body, weaving trousers out of the alien blackness. A one-sided vest draped over his shoulder and covered his pectoral muscle, leaving the rest of his torso bare and displaying the inhuman muscles bunched and coiled beneath his skin. Wings of pure shadow folded into his back, shifting and dancing as if they were alive.
Noah’s pulse skyrocketed, and his heart thundered in his chest like the beats of a war drum. It was the first Prince that he had ever seen in person, and their reputation was well deserved. Calla towered above the relatively short Unseelie, but visible power radiated off of the Prince in forceful waves. A pressure pushed against Noah’s chest, and he struggled to breathe against the additional weight on his lungs.
High-pitched whines sounded out as the pressure reached the civilian wolves in the back of the lodge. With shaking hands, he clenched his cane and forced himself to glare at the Prince. He remembered this fear. It was the same hopeless fear that had enveloped him when facing Master Augustus. The fear of a prey being in the presence of a true predator.
He inhaled deeply, holding his breath for a moment before releasing it slowly. After repeating the process a few times, his rationale returned to him, and the violent shaking subsided. He was not a young slave any longer, and this time, he would fight to control his own destiny.
“Guardian, I have long heard of your legendary prowess. A she-wolf that had no equal but shied away from the alluring temptation of power. I look forward to judging if you are worthy of such myths,” the Prince said in a whisper, but somehow, his voice defied the natural order and carried across the meadow and entered the lodge.
“I will give you the honor of knowing my name before I end your journey on this plane—Prince Molochith greets the Guardian,” the Prince said, his blazing purple eyes staring down the much larger wolf.
Calla shifted into her human form and clasped her hands behind her back before addressing the Prince, “My name is Calla, Guardian of the Baleful Fiend Pack. I suggest you return to your portal, Prince. The other races and even the other princes will pounce on your weakened forces if you continue with such folly.”
The Prince chuckled, flashing his razor-sharp teeth. “I’m afraid my partner will not appreciate it if I abandoned the battlefield. Do not concern yourself with future events that you will not be around to influence.”
The Prince glanced at the six volunteer wolves behind Calla and frowned. “Hmm, I did not expect other wolves to brave my power.”
At the focus of the Unseelie leader, the six wolves flattened their ears and snarled, dripping saliva onto the ground. Roughly the size of a normal wolf, they appeared out of place on a battlefield of legends, but their courage, derived from loved ones in the lodge, allowed them to partake in this monumental battle.
Movement within the trees caught Noah’s attention as the Prince raised a clawed hand. A Sluagh and Fachan emerged from the woods, hopping and slinking until they stood just behind the Prince. The bulbous eye of the Fachan rapidly flickered to each wolf, and its long tongue, dangling from its mouth, swiped against the singular eye in a stomach-churning lick. Multiple faces and fists protrude from the Sluagh’s skin before being absorbed into its body once more. It raised its circular mouth and released fast-paced clicks across the meadow.
“Are you not powerful enough to face us alone, Prince?” Calla asked, not showing any signs of concern toward the new arrivals.
With his fangs gleaming from the purple glow of his eyes, the Prince smiled derisively at her. “I have been looking forward to this fight for many years, Guardian. I won’t allow weak strays to ruin the glory of this battle.”
With a snort, Calla shifted back into her massive grey wolf. Time seemed to freeze as the two sides glared at one another without moving. Something broke the spell as Calla and the Prince blurred toward each other, colliding in the middle of the clearing with a thundering boom. The shockwave from their blow flattened the purple flowers surrounding them and pushed the Prince back, his feet creating long groves in the soil. As the dust settled and the warriors came to a stop, Noah could see the Prince’s clawed hand holding Calla’s snout. Disengaging in a blur, the pair collided continuously across the meadow, creating small booms of thunder every few seconds.
The explosions prompted the other combatants to charge as well. At a speed much slower than the Prince and Calla, three wolves darted toward each of the Unseelie monstrosities. Both sides traded blows, with the wolves getting a few bites in and the enemy connecting with a few devastating punches.
It was clear to Noah that the civilian wolves didn’t have the experience or training to coordinate effective attacks. The Sluagh dodged their haphazard attacks with blinding speed and counterattacked with slices of its hand. The Fachan’s muscular arm swung out with punishing blows, and its foot somehow allowed it to dance circles around the blundering wolves.
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The Prince and Guardian blurred across the battlefield, throwing each other with such force that upon impacting the massive trees, loud cracks sounded out before the trees toppled to the ground in a ground-shaking explosion. These living legends created a battlefield that Noah had no business entering. Power, like the two of them were throwing around with ease, is the reason his ancestors were hunted down to near extinction. What good were mortal weapons against overwhelming might?
His knees wobbled, and his strength left his body. Against such foes, his presence wouldn’t have an impact on the battle. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his pulse raced out of control as the fear he had long wished to feel overwhelmingly returned to him.
His wild eyes darted around the lodge, searching for anything that would grant him the courage to fight these god-like beings. Toward the roots of the lodge, he searched the hundreds of civilian wolves, who quivered and whimpered upon each successive boom in the meadow. He spotted Luna and Silas huddled together, whispering comforting assurances to crying pups. A smile tilted his lips as he gazed at the scene. This is what 125 hoped Noah could find one day when he sacrificed his life, and Noah refused to disgrace that sacrifice. He would not fail!
Returning to the window, he took deep, calming breaths until his heart rate stabilized and strength returned to his limbs. A roar drew his attention, and he spotted the three wolves fighting the Fachan. One wolf limped with whines of pain, and Noah gasped when he saw the crushed and disfigured forepaw. The Fachan bled heavily from multiple claw and bite wounds, and its speed began to slow as it weakened.
Turning toward the Sluagh, Noah searched and searched but could only see two wolves fighting the creature. Overwhelming sadness filled him when he finally spotted a dark shape lying on the ground, unmoving. Black blood leaked from the Sluagh’s superficial wounds, but it was clearly dominating the fight so far.
Far off into the woods, loud booms sounded out, and massive trees slowly toppled to the ground. As far as Noah could tell, the Prince and Calla continued their fight on equal footing. He closed his eyes and toyed with the leather pouch in his hands. Should he save the wolves fighting the Sluagh and Fachan or wait to finish off the Prince like Calla had asked him to?
Indecision paralyzed him as rapid thoughts flashed through his mind. The high from the shifter powder would only last a few minutes, and if Calla couldn’t defeat or severely injure the Prince, he would slaughter every wolf in the lodge. His thoughts were disrupted as the Fachan crushed a clenched fist against one of the wolves’ skulls. The destructive force flattened the wolf into the ground, cratering the body into the soil. Noah bit his lip as he watched a wolf he didn’t even know the name of die before his eyes.
If he did nothing, the courageous volunteer wolves would die one by one, and that was an outcome he refused to sit by and watch. Summoning his own courage, he eyed the pouch one last time before placing it in his trench coat pocket. Countless humans fought the supernatural races with no shifter powder, and although they rarely lived to tell the tale, a few lucky survivors defeated the odds. Tonight, he would join the ranks of those few victorious humans.
With adrenaline coursing through his blood, he flung open the wooden panel and finally stepped out onto the battlefield. In slow motion compared to the rest of the combatants, he rushed toward the Fachan with human speed.
The two remaining wolves snapped at the monster and attempted to sink their fangs into its flesh, but it kept jumping out of range on its one leg. As he came within range, Noah fired his crossbow at the bulbous eye, striking the Fachan with an iron bolt. The poisonous iron allowed the bolt to sink an inch into the eyeball, but the lack of force ensured the wound wouldn’t be lethal. The giant eyeball rolled in its socket until the bolt dislodged and fell harmlessly to the ground. Free from the foreign splinter, the swiveling eye snapped to Noah, glaring at him in a furious rage.
With practiced ease, Noah reloaded his crossbow and tapped the enchantment on his cane. As the fae magic coursed through the metal, he pressed the hidden button on its handle, releasing the spring-loaded blade. He pointed the lightened cane at the monster, challenging the Fachan to a duel. With a roar, it hopped on its one leg, covering tremendous ground with its leaps, but unlike the Prince and Calla, his eyes could follow its movements.
He bent his knees and lowered into a crouch, toying with the handle of his cane. He had to time this right, or he would be crushed. The Fachan covered the distance in a few hops and jumped high into the air with a raised fist. It leaned forward until its eye was directly above Noah and fell toward him with its muscular arm hissing through the air.
Noah jammed the handle of his cane into the ground with months of practice allowing him to balance the cane upright. As soon as he felt the cane stop swaying, he dove as far as he could to the side, tumbling across the flowers and rocks. A thundering impact exploded from behind him, and he jumped to his feet before his tumbling body had even stopped its roll.
Courtesy of a sharp stray rock, blood dripped from a cut over his eye, but he ignored the stinging pain and gazed at the dust cloud where the Fachan had landed. The curtain of dust blocked his vision, and he held his breath as he waited to see the outcome of his daring trick.
“No,” he whispered as he pointed his crossbow at the still-standing Fachan.
Foolish ideas and desperate schemes flittered through his mind as he waited for the monster to attack, but it remained unmoving in the crater. Praying to whatever gods were listening, he cautiously crept toward the creature, searching for any signs of movement. The monster remained still as Noah circled it, and upon seeing the results of his attack, he let out a booming laugh.
Just as he had planned, the Fachan had landed eye-first on the iron blade of his cane. With the assistance of the Fachan’s weight, the iron blade had penetrated through the bulbous eye, and Noah could see the tip protruding out the back of the creature.
Snarls shook him out of his revelry as the two remaining wolves limped up to the Fachan and began biting bits of flesh off the monster. Lost in the fervor of battle, they didn’t even realize that the Fachan was already dead.
After whistling to get their attention, Noah shouted, “The monster is dead! Hurry, we must join the fight against the Sluagh!”
The wolves howled and rushed forward to assist the two remaining wolves, struggling in their battle with the Sluagh. Noah pushed at the Fachan with all of his might and toppled the creature onto its side, dislodging his makeshift cane spear. Grabbing the slime-covered cane, he rushed toward the chaos of battle. As he approached the skirmish, he winced when he saw the inexperienced wolves fumbling over one another in their attempts to snap at the Sluagh.
“You must work together to have a chance of bringing it down. One of you get its attention and focus on dodging while the others bite at it from behind. If it switches targets, switch roles accordingly,” he shouted, repeating the same strategy he had seen Sylvie, Rowan, and Alder use during the caravan battle.
With a growl of acknowledgment, the wolves clumsily carried out his commands. Using the new strategy, they bite chunk after chunk out of the Sluagh’s flesh. Black blood gushed from the creature’s wounds until it slowed enough that one wolf was able to clamp its jaws around the Sluagh’s neck. The wolf dragged the creature to the ground, and the other wolves swarmed it, tearing into the Sluagh with ferocious fury until only unrecognizable bits of bone and flesh remained. It was brutal, but brutality was a welcomed friend amongst their pack.
After felling the Unseelie monstrosity, the wolves snapped their heads from side to side, searching for their next enemy. Upon finding none, they shifted into their human forms, gazing around the destroyed meadow in a daze.
“You have defeated your enemies and protected your loved ones. Retreat to the lodge before the Prince returns,” he said, ushering the surviving wolves toward safety.
Gazing at the destroyed meadow, Noah frowned when he saw the dead bodies of the wolves. “Before you leave the battlefield, retrieve your brethren and cover their bodies. Don’t allow these empty husks to stain their loved one’s memories of them. They deserve to be remembered as the heroic warriors they lived and died as.”
Still, in a daze, the surviving wolves stumbled toward the broken bodies of their pack mates and began to drag them behind the lodge. Unused to adrenaline fleeing their body, they swayed on their feet. Spying the haunted looks in their eyes, Noah shook his head as war claimed the psyche of more unsuspecting victims.
After covering the bodies, Noah and the wolves entered the lodge to the cheers of some and the sobs of others. Nodding toward Luna and Silas, he hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a towel and wiping off goo and other foreign fluids from his cane.
Blood dripped onto the counter, and he wiped at the forgotten wound above his eye. As his adrenaline abandoned him, the cut burned, and his limbs shook with weakness, but he hurried back to the window to maintain vigilance. He couldn’t see the Prince or Calla, but he could still hear their booming collisions deep within the woods. A few minutes of calm descended upon the clearing, but it was not fated to last.
From the forest, a blur flew into the clearing, digging a trench in the soil with its body. A massive grey wolf struggled to her feet, panting so hard and fast that each puff blew away the purple flowers. Blood stained her coat from countless wounds, and she swayed back and forth, wobbling on weak legs.
Calla glared toward the tree line, growling and snarling as the Prince casually emerged. He had not remained unscathed in his fight with Calla. Multiple bite and claw marks leaked purple blood down his body, but…he wasn’t panting, and he wasn’t wobbling on weakened legs. He was smiling.
“I commend you, Guardian! My blood sings with a lust for battle that has been dormant for decades. You have proved yourself worthy of the legends that surround you. Do not despair; I will allow you to die with your dignity and pride intact.”
The Prince continued to stalk toward Calla with his arms outstretched. Purple blood dripped off of his torso and fell onto the purple flowers with a smoking hiss. Calla growled in defiance at the Prince, but her head dropped abruptly like she was losing consciousness. As if she had reached a decision, Calla glanced toward the window Noah stood at and slowly nodded her head.
With a lump in his throat and his vision blurred with tears, he tipped his hat toward the Guardian of the Baleful Fiend Pack. Without wasting another second, he took out the leather pouch from his trench coat and poured the massive mound of powder onto the windowsill. It was by far the most shifter powder he had ever snorted, and he hoped his body could withstand the strain.
Instead of settling for a safe dose, he lined up every grain of powder. Just as he covered one nostril and leaned toward the windowsill, Calla charged the Prince with a defiant howl. She feigned a bite at his neck and flipped over him, spinning in mid-air so that she landed with her fangs facing the Prince’s back.
With a shout of encouragement, Noah slammed his face against the window with wide eyes. Calla had set up this feint from the beginning of the battle, and she had taken the Prince by surprise. She lunged toward the unprotected back of the Prince with her maw wide. Her fangs glistened with saliva as she closed in on the soft flesh of his neck. As the tips of her fangs bit into the Prince’s flesh, his body disappeared, and Calla’s jaws slammed shut over thin air.
Noah’s eyes rapidly darted over every inch of the clearing, desperately searching for the Prince. He couldn’t find any sign of the Unseelie, and even Calla was sniffing the air and looking side to side. Had he teleported back to his portal?
Clapping rang out from the woods, and the Prince emerged from the shadow of a tree. “Wow! The last stand by a legendary Guardian is lethal. You took quite a few wounds to set up that feint, and it almost paid off.”
The clapping slowed until silence engulfed the meadow. “You forgot one thing, honored Guardian. Although I am not surrounded by the magic of my homeland like I would be in my territory, the shadows have not completely abandoned me—I am their master, after all.”
“Let me give you an example,” said the Prince, suddenly disappearing before materializing behind Calla in the shadows given off by the fae globes. Noah shouted as a clawed hand shot toward the grey wolf before she could even locate her attacker. The claws punctured deep into her side, ripping and slicing down her length as she attempted to jump away. In the middle of the meadow, Calla swayed back and forth with only her own shadow darkening the ground. No longer having the strength to stand, she collapsed onto the ground, and the Prince stalked toward her with unhurried steps.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Noah looked away from the horrid scene and leaned down toward the windowsill. He plugged one side of his nose and snorted the entire mound of powder with deep inhales. Overwhelming power coursed through his veins, stiffening his body until he went completely rigid. His muscles bulged and strained against the confines of his skin, seeking to rip apart their fleshly prison. Streams of blood flowed from his ears and nostrils, and his pupils grew until his eyes were solid black. With a roar that shook the lodge and caused the civilian wolves to whimper in fear, he kicked at the door panel, ripping it off its hinges and flinging it into the clearing. The heavy door flew in a blur past the Prince, who glanced up from the prone Calla curiously.
“I believe you require a new foe, Prince. I, Noah of the Baleful Fiend Pack, will be happy to oblige,” Noah said with a tip of his hat. His duty had called, and the Prince would hear his answer.