The moon hung high above the treetops, pale and watchful.
Every step I took through the dark woods stirred memories I tried to bury — the night my father fell, the roar of betrayal, the scent of burning blood.
Now, that same forest would become my weapon.
I stopped at the edge of a ravine where the mist was thickest. The ground trembled faintly — not from the earth, but from the beasts that hid beneath it. They had been waiting.
"Show yourselves," I said quietly.
One by one, shapes emerged from the shadows — half-shifted wolves with eyes glowing red or silver, each one an exile, a rogue, or a traitor in Ronan's eyes.
The first to step forward was Marek, a massive brute with scars crawling down his jaw. "You really came back," he said, his voice gravel. "Didn't think the Alpha's lost son had the guts."
I met his gaze, unflinching. "You followed my father once. You'll follow me now."
A few murmurs rippled through the group — doubt, curiosity, fear. Rogues didn't trust easily.
Marek spat on the ground. "You talk like you still have a pack. You got none. We answer to no Alpha."
I smiled, slow and dangerous. "Then I'm not asking you to submit."
He frowned. "What then?"
"Fight with me. Not as my pack — but as my brothers. Ronan thinks we're broken. Let's show him what the broken become."
The silence that followed was electric. I could see it in their eyes — that hunger for belonging, that thirst for vengeance.
A smaller figure stepped out from the mist — Selene, her white hair glinting faintly in the moonlight. Her claws were still wet with blood. "You promise us Ronan's head?" she asked, voice sharp as glass.
"I promise you the world he stole," I said.
She tilted her head, then grinned. "Then we fight for you, Shadow Alpha."
The title sent a chill through me. Shadow Alpha — a name the world hadn't heard since the night I vanished.
Marek growled low but nodded. "If Selene's in, I'm in. The rest will follow."
The others bowed their heads slightly — not out of obedience, but respect. The kind only the desperate give to the damned.
I looked around at them — killers, survivors, outcasts. The forgotten wolves of Nightshade blood.
"You've been hunted long enough," I said. "Now we hunt."
The mist swirled as I drew a dagger from my belt and cut my palm open. Blood dripped onto the soil, dark and gleaming under the moon. "By blood, we rise," I whispered.
They followed — one by one, cutting their palms, letting the earth drink their pain.
The forest trembled again, as if something ancient had woken beneath us.
Selene's eyes widened. "What did you do?"
I stared into the rising mist where faint shadows began to move. "I called them," I said. "The ones who answered my blood before."
From the darkness, the first growl came — low, deep, not entirely human. Then another. Then dozens.
Spirits of the fallen wolves — our ancestors — stepped into the light, ghostly forms burning faint silver.
Marek stumbled back. "You summoned the old pack?"
"No," I said softly. "I became them."
The wind howled through the trees, carrying my scent across miles.
Ronan would smell it soon.
And when he did, he'd know — the heir he tried to erase had returned with an army of the forsaken.