The sound of the gunshot was a flat, thunderous echo in the confines of the crag, immediately followed by a sharp, terrible thwack. The silver bullet, destined for Violet's heart, struck the Shadow Raven mid-flight. The creature, a fiery manifestation of Wynona's desperate magic and maternal sacrifice, dissolved instantly into a shower of black, shimmering dust that fell like poisoned snow. In that same instant, miles away at the base camp, Wynona screamed, a silent, guttural sound ripped from her soul, and collapsed, her body seizing as if struck by an invisible, massive current. The magical link that sustained the raven was violently severed, and the resulting backlash consumed her consciousness.
Violet felt it. Not as a memory or a vision, but as a sudden, catastrophic void where warmth and guidance had been. The instinct that had been flawlessly guiding her was abruptly silenced, replaced by a cold, primal, and terrifying understanding: something had just died for her.
The silver dust settled on her black fur, tingling like tiny pinpricks of fire, but the pain was distant, eclipsed by a towering, volcanic surge of rage. She hadn't known what the raven was, only that it was good, that it was guiding her, and that it felt like an ancient, powerful extension of her protector. Now it was gone, sacrificed to save her from the one projectile she hadn't seen coming.
In the second of distraction caused by the raven's impact, Violet had already melded into the shadows, her silhouette dissolving against the jagged, dark stone. She was no longer just a panicked wolf running; the sudden, traumatic loss had ripped away the last vestiges of her human mind. What remained was the Vixen, the predatory half-succubus/half-wolf hybrid, fueled by an insatiable need for vengeance and survival. She was the shadow in the corner of their eyes, the whisper of danger in the rustling wind.
The three remaining vampires from the pursuit team were scattered, alerted by the shot but confused by the lack of a body.
"Did you get her, Four?" the lean vampire (Vampire-Head) shouted, his voice echoing in the pot-shaped valley.
Vampire-4, who had fired the shot, was already reloading the silver bolt into his antique rifle. "She vanished. The shot hit some… thing. A black bird. And now she's gone."
"No, she's not gone," the leader growled, his eyes sweeping the protrusions of the crag. His keen vampiric senses, honed over centuries, detected a difference in the air, a drop in temperature that wasn't from the cold, and a scent that was no longer just wolf, but something intoxicatingly, dangerously demonic. "She's still here. She's toying with us. She is not a wolf. She's a vixen, a succubus, or a demon in disguise. Keep formation! This thing is as powerful as the Mistress's guard!"
His warning was too late for Vampire-2, the large, brawny one who looked like he could smash a boulder.
ShaShaShaSha!
The sound of rustling grass seemed to come from directly behind the large vampire, but when he whirled around, there was nothing but stone and shadow. The sound repeated, closer now, seeming to emanate from the very air around his head.
Then, the lightning flashed. For a split second, the crag was illuminated with stark white light. In that flash, Vampire-2 saw her: a black wolf, impossibly tall, teeth bared, standing on the pinnacle of a protrusion thirty feet above them, looking down like a gargoyle.
But the light vanished, and she was gone again.
The momentary lapse in concentration was all Violet needed. She hadn't been on the pinnacle; that was the illusion woven from fear and the lightning's memory. Her real self was lower, moving at hyper-velocity along the shadowed ground.
She struck Vampire-2 from the side, a blur of muscle and black fur. Her attack was not a brute-force maul but a perfectly executed, surgical strike. She didn't use her teeth. Instead, the claws, now elongated and wickedly sharp, sliced across the vampire's throat just below the jawline. The cut was deep and clean, separating the carotid artery and jugular, bypassing the thick, protective leathers the vampire wore.
Vampire-2 didn't even have time to scream. The immense pressure loss was immediate, and his eyes glazed over as his head fell heavily onto his chest. He crumpled without a sound, his body hitting the stone with a sickening, heavy thud.
Two down. Two to go.
The sheer, terrifying efficiency of the attack paralyzed Vampire-1, who was still rushing to help "Sparrow" (Vampire-3, whom Violet had previously beheaded). He was screaming, but not in pain.
"There! " Vampire-Head shouted, trying to rally the remaining two, but Vampire-4 was already in a state of terror.
Vampire-4, the marksman, had witnessed the shadow creature's true malice. He began to shake uncontrollably, falling victim to the psychic residue of the succubus. Violet's power, when fully unleashed, wasn't just speed and strength; it was an ability to tap into the deepest wellspring of fear and despair, an inherited demonic glamour that shattered the minds of the less strong-willed.
"Sparrow!" Vampire-4 shrieked, clutching his head, a memory illusion manifesting a fresh, agonizing bite wound on his neck. "The Mistress! She's angry! We failed! We failed!"
The leader recognized the symptoms: Nightmare Manifestation. It was a high-level demonic skill, a sensory overload that drove the victim to a catatonic state or immediate suicide. He cursed, knowing that his subordinate was now useless.
"Retreat! Retreat!" he roared, abandoning the plan to capture. His initial disdain for the 'teen wolf' had curdled into pure, cold horror. He grabbed Vampire-4, trying to drag the screaming, paralyzed body, but Violet was already circling.
"You can't leave," a voice hissed, not with sound, but as a thought that scraped against the inside of the leader's skull. It was a resonant, female voice, laced with the metallic tang of rage and the silken promise of depraved ecstasy.
The leader felt his ancient, cold blood stir with a terrifying mix of lust and dread. He was forced to drop Vampire-4, who immediately collapsed into a whimpering ball of terror.
Only the leader remained.
He was one of Ken Castelli's most trusted soldiers, a vampire who had survived the Renaissance purges, the world wars, and the dawn of the digital age. He was too experienced, too powerful, to fall to a simple illusion. He spun, drawing two short, wicked-looking silver-tipped daggers—the vampire's favored weapon for quick, silent work.
"I see you, beast!" he snarled, focusing his eyes until the shadows warped around her location. He couldn't fully see the wolf, but he could feel the radiating heat of her presence, a bonfire of raw, chaotic power.
Violet responded by stepping fully out of the shadows.
She stood twenty feet away, a massive, fully black wolf. But it was not the William's shadow wolf. This one was different. This wolf was leaner, more angular, and possessed an unsettling intelligence in its blazing golden-red eyes. The moonlight that dared to touch her fur seemed to be swallowed, rendering her an absolute void of color, defined only by the terrible light in her eyes. She carried the energy of the crag, the weight of the night, and the vengeance of the slain raven.
"You took something that belonged to me," the thought-voice echoed, cold as the void left in her mind.
The leader knew he was facing an entity far outside the parameters of Ken's intelligence report. This was not a teen wolf. This was a prime supernatural, an apex predator capable of killing a full-grown vampire with a swipe. He had one strategy left: deception and distance.
He hurled one of his silver daggers not at her, but at the rock face beside her, creating a shower of sparks and a sharp clang that momentarily disrupted the air. Then, he bolted, sprinting not back towards the tunnel, but further up the crag, hoping to reach the highest point and call for aerial backup from another coven.
Violet didn't chase with brute speed. She moved with vixen-like cunning, anticipating his trajectory. The crag, which had been her fortress, now became her hunting ground. She used the sharp stone protrusions as springboards, launching herself in silence from shadow to shadow, cutting the leader's path diagonally.
He reached a narrow ledge that offered a perilous path upwards. Just as he planted his foot to ascend, a massive, muscular shoulder slammed into his flank.
The impact was brutal. The leader was thrown against the main rock face, the air exploding from his lungs. His vision blurred, and he felt the sickening crunch of cracked ribs.
Before he could recover, Violet was on him, her forepaws pinning his arms to the rock. The silver daggers clattered to the ground. She leaned in, her muzzle inches from his face, and the leader felt a cold dread that surpassed any fear of death.
"Look at me," the mental voice commanded, dripping with an authority that shook his very bones.
His vampiric eyes locked onto hers—golden-red, deep as twin furnaces. The succubus energy, raw and intoxicating, hit him like a physical wave. Instead of fear, Violet showed him the ultimate, deepest desire of his long, cold existence: the lost love he had centuries ago, a woman named Elara, whose warm, vibrant face now superimposed itself onto the terrifying, golden-eyed wolf.
Elara.
He reached out a trembling hand. "Elara… I found you…"
The illusion was perfect, paralyzing his will. In that moment of complete surrender, Violet's wolf muzzle opened, and her true weapon emerged: the succubus drain.
She didn't bite to kill. She bit the vampire's neck, just a deep, savage nip that pierced the artery. But instead of tearing, she drained. It wasn't just blood she consumed, but the raw, cold vitality of his undead life force, the energy that had sustained him for centuries.
A visible shimmer—a dark, almost black vapor—streamed from the vampire's wound and into Violet's jaws. The leader's eyes, fixed on the beautiful, illusory face of Elara, went dull, and his ancient body withered rapidly beneath her paws, shrinking, desiccating, turning from a formidable predator into a husk of brittle, dusty leather.
Violet released him. The desiccated husk crumbled into dust on the rocky ground, a fine, dark powder blowing away in the wind.
The silence returned to the crag, heavy and profound. Violet stood over the scattered dust, panting. Her limbs shook not from effort, but from the sheer, overwhelming rush of borrowed power. The hybrid energy, the lethal cocktail of wolf savagery and demonic cunning, felt like liquid lightning in her veins. She had not only survived; she had annihilated her pursuers.
She looked down at the remaining two vampires: Vampire-4 was still whimpering, paralyzed by the residual nightmare manifestation, and the beheaded body of Vampire-3. She nudged Vampire-4 with her snout. He didn't respond. He was effectively neutralized, broken beyond repair. She had done enough.
The rush of power began to recede, replaced by a profound, soul-deep fatigue. Her transformation held, but her movements became heavy, her concentration frayed. The human part of her, the rational Violet Darkwood, began to reassert itself, flooding her mind with the awful realization of what she had just done. She had killed three creatures, and psychically crippled a fourth.
William.
The thought of William, severely wounded and fighting alone against the rest of Ken's forces, cut through her shock. She had to get back to him. The adrenaline of the fight had successfully distracted her from the pain of the silver dust, but she knew she couldn't waste any more time.
She turned and sprinted back the way she came, her steps less graceful now, fueled by sheer will. She found the narrow opening of the pitcher plant tunnel and plunged back into the echoing darkness, the stench of blood and bat musk a grim testament to the battle she had just fought.
Emerging from the tunnel back into the main forest trail felt like stepping from a nightmare into a desolate reality. The forest was eerily quiet. The main path, where William had left her, showed signs of an intense, brutal fight—scrapes on the trees, deep claw marks in the earth, and a thick, metallic scent of blood that made her nostrils burn.
She followed the deepening trail of destruction and blood until she reached a small, snow-dusted clearing.
It was here she found him.
William.
He was still in his silver-white wolf form, but he was barely recognizable. His coat was matted with crimson, his flanks were ripped open, and shallow but numerous cuts crisscrossed his body. He was lying down, not unconscious, but utterly spent, his breath shallow and ragged.
And next to him, curled against his side, was a Shadow Wolf—massive, dark, and utterly still.
Violet approached cautiously, confusion momentarily overriding her panic. She nudged the still wolf with her snout. It was cold. It was dead. But as she sniffed, she realized with a strange, aching horror that the dead wolf's wounds were fresh, deep, and fatal, yet the silver wolf (William) next to it, though grievously injured, was not actively bleeding from its worst wounds.
A fragment of memory from Chapter 15 flashed through her mind, though she hadn't lived it yet: the silver wolf put its wound on the shadow wolf's wound.
She had no context for the fight William had endured, no knowledge of the Vampire-Werewolf Blood Exchange—a desperate, ancient rite where one wolf could transfer its fatal injuries and anti-coagulated blood to another to buy time, provided the recipient was either a willing martyr or already dead. In this case, William had been so desperate, so close to death, that he had performed the ritual on the nearest creature to absorb his own impending demise. It was a chaotic, last-ditch effort, and it had somehow worked.
Violet, seeing the dead shadow wolf and the nearly dead silver wolf, understood the core of the exchange with chilling certainty: William was dying.
She quickly licked William's muzzle, her tongue tasting the salt and iron of his blood.
Go. Get help. Now.
His golden-amber eyes, dull with pain, met hers. He couldn't speak, but he managed a slight, painful tilt of his head towards the tunnel she had just emerged from. He nudged her with his nose, weakly urging her away, towards safety, towards survival. He was prioritizing her escape over his own immediate well-being.
Violet shook her head desperately, a low whine escaping her throat. She couldn't leave him. But she also knew she couldn't carry him. He was too heavy, and she was too exhausted. She looked around frantically, but the clearing offered no shelter, no signal for a phone call, and the sun was nowhere near rising.
There is no choice.
She bent down, giving his face one last, deep lick—a primal promise of return—and then, forcing herself to ignore the protest of every aching muscle, she turned and bolted out of the clearing, heading back to the campsite. It was the only place with a chance of getting a signal, the only location registered on any map.
Campsite. Signal. 911. The sequence was drilled into her mind, pushing aside the fear, the rage, and the exhaustion.
She flew through the woods, her speed superhuman, the demonic energy she had consumed giving her a final, desperate burst of adrenaline. She was the Vixen, the shadow, the one who survived, and she would not let the cost of that survival be the death of the wolf who had kissed her under the moon.
The distance was covered in a terrified blur. She reached the perimeter of the campsite in less than ten minutes. She spotted the tent, the fire pit, and the familiar shape of her mother's figure.
But Wynona was not standing. Wynona was lying on the ground beside the tent, motionless.
Violet skidded to a stop, her wolf form dissolving in a flash of gold as her body hit the cold ground. She scrambled back into her human form, naked and gasping, ignoring the frigid air, and rushed to her mother's side.
Wynona's face was deathly pale. Her left shoulder was saturated with blood, a single, dark stain spreading across the teal jacket.
She had a bullet wound.
The backlash from the raven's sacrifice, the exhaustion from the ritual, and now this. A human, even one with a touch of magic like Wynona, could not survive a wound like this for long.
Violet's mind screamed in a fractured circle: William is dying. My mother is dying.
Whose life to save first? William, far in the woods, with no immediate human help? Or her mother, right here, critically wounded, but accessible to first responders if she could just make the call?
She looked up at the ridge—the only place she knew she could get a signal, a brutal, uphill run.
She grabbed the forgotten backpack, pulled out her phone, and started running toward the ridge, tears of helplessness freezing on her cheeks.
❖✜❖
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