Bode steps up onto the DJ platform as if it were a war table. The room tightens around him — every conversation dies, every head turns. For a second he lets them watch him: the calm before the strike, the predator in repose.
He taps the mic. The sound cracks once, then steadies.
"We're at war," he says, and the three words land like iron. "They took my daughter. That makes this personal."
A ripple of noise — low growls, fists hitting palms — answers him. Someone from the crowd, a wiry man at the front, shouts, "Who's behind it? Hunters? Witches?"
Bode doesn't hesitate. "Not hunters. Not demons. It's wolves from my hometown, and a very funny witch. It doesn't matter the name. What matters is what they did. They crossed the line."
He lets that sink in, then begins to move through the plan as if reading from thought-inked pages only he can see.
"I need a line here in the city. This place, this block — it's ours. We hold it. I want one hundred men left behind to lock down the Den and the surrounding neighbourhood. No one slips in or out without my say." He points at a broad-shouldered lieutenant. "You. Take command. You know my rules — zero casuals, zero leaks. If anyone even looks like they're sniffing for us, you make an example."
The lieutenant nods, voice low. "You'll have one hundred, Alpha."
Bode's jaw tightens. "Good. Those one hundred will form the anchor. They don't follow; they don't chase. They hold."
Eyes around the room are bright with hunger now. Bode lets them feel the edge of it before he delivers the hard number.
"The rest of you — three hundred and fifty — we move tonight to Ogbomosho. We go heavy, go fast. I want teams in and teams out. I want scouts on the roads, watchers on the roofs, drivers ready. We'll surround the mansion and make sure they know we're not asking twice."
A murmur — approval, fear, excitement — rolls through the crowd.
A young wolf near the edge of the room raises his hand. "And if they try to trade? If they want to bargain with blood?"
Bode's eyes find him. He answers without flinch. "If they give us Ore and a clean path out — we take nothing more than what's needed to leave. If they double-cross us, if Ronke moves her hand any further toward that sigil, we burn the place down and every house that sheltered them. No bargaining, no mercy. This is about sending a message."
He steps down from the platform, walking through the crowd like a current cutting water. Men and women cluster around him, palms pressed to his forearms, asking small questions — who's on scout, which streets to lock, which uncle to call for safe houses. Bode answers each one with the precision of a man who's run a thousand deals and a thousand wars in the same lifetime.
He pauses by a younger wolf — Tade's trusted scout — and lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You take the lead on the east flank. Two squads under you, fast and silent. Bring me a live feed of at least two exit points. No heroics unless we signal to push. You got me?"
"Understood," the scout says, voice taut.
Bode moves to the back where his driver waits, then faces the room again. "Phones off once we leave the city limits. Radios on encrypted channels only. If you can't hold your temper, then you don't come. This is a job for disciplined hands."
He looks at them all, and something like hunger mixes with pride in his face. "We bring Ore home. That's the plan. Everything else is secondary."
The crowd answers with a howl that shakes a few glasses from their tables — the sound of a city pack coalescing into motion.
Bode climbs back into the SUV as the first of the mobilized wolves begin to gather at the door. Men check boots, tighten belts, whisper last-minute prayers or swear words. Drivers start engines. The one hundred stay behind under the lieutenant's watchful eye; the three hundred and fifty move out like a tide, black jackets and purpose, pouring into the night toward Ogbomosho.
As the convoy peels away into the city, Bode catches his reflection in the darkened glass — a man still wearing a suit, but behind the suit there is an old hunger resurfacing, a promise of retribution. He steels himself for what's coming.
"There's no turning back," he says, more to himself than anyone else. The SUV answers with the steady thrum of the engine, and they are gone.
---
The forest was unnaturally quiet.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Bode stepped through the shimmering barrier of light that surrounded the small wooden cabin. The scent of sage and burnt iron hit his nose immediately — wards. Old, powerful ones.
He stopped at the door and knocked once.
From inside came a voice, low and sharp, carrying both strength and irritation.
> "I told you never to come back here, Alpha."
Bode's jaw tightened. "I wouldn't be here if I had a choice."
The door opened slowly, revealing Asha, her eyes glowing faintly blue from the runes etched around the room. She looked exactly as he remembered — ageless, beautiful, and dangerous.
> "You always have a choice," she said, stepping aside. "You just never like the ones that cost you."
He entered, glancing around at the relics and jars that lined her shelves. Nothing in the place had changed — not even the faint scent of the oil she used on her hair.
> "Still keeping trophies?" he asked.
"Still pretending you're not one of them?" she shot back.
He sighed. "My daughter's been taken."
That stopped her. For a heartbeat, the fire in her eyes flickered.
> "Ore?"
"Yes."
She looked down, almost hiding the tremor in her hand as she poured a dark liquid into a bowl. "You always come to me when blood's involved, Bode. Never for peace. Never for forgiveness."
He looked away. "I didn't come for forgiveness."
> "Good," she whispered. "Because I have none left to give."
A moment of silence passed between them — heavy, but not hostile. Only the hum of magic filled the air.
Then she placed a charm on the table, its surface pulsing faintly with blue light.
> "This will help you find her. But you'll owe me again."
Bode met her eyes. "I already do."
> "You always did."
She turned away before he could say another word.
Asha paused at the threshold of the narrow back room — a space half shrine, half workshop where jars steamed and bones hung like wind chimes. She moved with the same quiet, easy precision Bode remembered from another life, and for a moment the past pressed between them like warm air.
From a shallow wooden box on the bedside table she withdrew a bracelet: braided silver wire threaded with a single, flat bead of black glass that seemed to drink the light. She held it up so that the glow from the calabash caught in its edges.
"Take this," she said, surprising herself by sounding kinder than she'd intended. She stepped closer, but did not touch him. She set the bracelet into his open palm.
Bode turned it once, feeling the cool weight. "What does it do?" he asked.
Asha's mouth tightened. "It's a ward — old, but precise. It dulls the pull of crafted sigils long enough for you to move through them. If what I have heard is correct and Ronke is involved, this would level the playing field."
He glanced at her, reading the careful distance in her eyes. "There's a price."
She shrugged, almost casual. "There's always a price. You know how it works: a favor owed. Something that can be called in later." Her hand hovered near the charm, not touching his, mapping old grooves and new grudges. "I won't ask you to leave your daughter to me. I won't ask you to bend your life around mine. But when the time comes, you'll find me a convenient ledger."
Bode folded the bracelet around his wrist. The metal settled like a cool promise.
"You could have given this to Ajamu," he said dryly.
Asha barked a short laugh that had no warmth. "Ajamu could buy the world and still not know how to use it. He doesn't understand the threads. You do. That's why you came."
He straightened, feeling the sudden steadiness in his gut. "If Ronke is in this, she won't see us coming."
"Don't mistake the charm for a miracle," she warned. "It gives you a window. Not an answer. And if Ronke is as clever as you fear, she'll close that window as fast as she can."
Bode gave a small, tight nod. "Then we break down the walls."
Asha returned to the bedside table, folding a scrap of cloth over a small bottle and tucking it out of sight. When she looked up again, something older than anger passed across her face — an absent, resigned tenderness.
"You always did like trouble," she said.
He let the words hang. "You always liked to fix it."
They stood for another half-breath, two people who had once been intimate with risk but had learned to keep their hands to themselves. Then Bode turned without another word and walked back into the night, the bracelet a cold weight at his pulse and a debt glowing quietly on his wrist.