The great hall doors exploded inward.
Wood splintered. Iron hinges shrieked. The massive oak doors that had stood for generations crashed to the stone floor.
Armored soldiers poured through the opening like a flood.
They wore crimson and gold. The Alpha King's colors. But these weren't ceremonial guards with polished breastplates and formal bearing.
These were killers.
Their armor was battle-worn. Scratched and dented. Stained with old blood that hadn't quite washed clean. Silver weapons gleamed in their hands.
For one frozen heartbeat, the feast hall went silent.
Then chaos erupted.
"Attack!" someone screamed.
Guests scattered in every direction. Tables overturned. Platters crashed to the floor. Wine spilled like blood across the stones.
The first wolf shifted mid-run. A visiting Beta, his formal clothes shredding as his body transformed. Gray fur. Snapping jaws. He leaped at the nearest soldier.
The soldier's blade caught him mid-air.
Silver flashed. The wolf's howl cut off in a gurgle. He hit the ground and didn't move.
More wolves shifted. The hall filled with snarls and screams.
"Selene!" Her mother's hands grabbed her shoulders. "Isolde! Come with me now!"
Lady Elara dragged them backward, away from the main doors. Away from the flood of soldiers.
But more were coming through the windows. Glass shattered. Soldiers dropped into the hall from every side.
They'd surrounded the manor.
This wasn't a raid. It was a massacre.
"Protect the children!" Lord Matthias's voice boomed across the chaos.
Selene watched her father tear off his formal coat. His body rippled. Bones cracked and reformed. In seconds, a massive gray wolf stood where the Beta lord had been.
He was beautiful. Powerful. His wolf form was twice the size of a normal wolf, all muscle and fury.
He launched himself at three soldiers at once.
His jaws closed on one man's arm. Bone crunched. The soldier screamed. Lord Matthias threw him aside and went for the next.
Claws raked across armor. Teeth found flesh. The soldiers fell back.
For a moment, Selene felt hope. Her father was strong. He could protect them.
Then she saw the silver blades.
One soldier swung low. The blade kissed Lord Matthias's flank. Where it touched, fur sizzled. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Her father's howl was pure agony.
"Matthias!" Lady Elara screamed.
But she didn't stop moving. She pulled Selene and Isolde toward the servant passages. Toward escape.
Around them, the battle raged. Wolves fighting soldiers. Claws against silver. Teeth against steel.
The visiting Omega girl from dinner went down under two soldiers. They didn't kill her quickly.
Lord Varion shifted and ran for the windows. A coward fleeing. He made it three steps before a silver spear took him through the chest.
Servants tried to hide under tables. The soldiers found them anyway.
This wasn't battle. This was slaughter.
"Mama, I'm scared," Isolde sobbed.
"I know, flower. I know. Just keep moving."
They reached the corridor that led to the kitchens. Lady Elara shoved them forward.
"Run to the kitchen passage. You know the one. It leads to the gardens. Run and don't look back."
"What about you?" Selene's voice cracked.
"I have to help your father. I have to..."
A roar echoed from the great hall. Lord Matthias's wolf voice. Still fighting. Still alive.
Lady Elara's face crumpled with fear and love and desperate courage. She kissed both daughters quickly.
"I love you. Run. RUN!"
She shifted before the word finished. Her clothes tore away. A sleek silver wolf took her place, smaller than their father but fast and deadly.
She raced back toward the great hall.
Toward the fighting.
Toward death.
"No!" Selene tried to follow.
Isolde grabbed her hand. "She said run! We have to run!"
They ran.
The corridor was chaos. Servants fleeing. Soldiers chasing. Blood on the walls.
A maid Selene had known her whole life stumbled past, clutching her stomach. Red seeped between her fingers.
"Help," she whispered.
Selene tried to stop but Isolde pulled her forward.
"We can't help! We have to go!"
They burst into the kitchens. The great ovens still blazed from cooking the feast. Pots of soup boiled over. No one tended them now.
A soldier stood by the kitchen passage, blocking their escape.
He saw two children and smiled. A wolf's smile. All teeth and no kindness.
"Well, well. Little pups running from the fire."
He raised his sword. Silver blade. It would burn. It would kill permanently.
Wolves could heal from most wounds. But silver poisoned the blood. Silver killed what shouldn't die.
Selene pushed Isolde behind her. Her wolf surged inside her chest, desperate to emerge. But she was too young. The shift wouldn't come.
She had no claws. No fangs. Just a child's body and a child's fear.
The soldier stepped closer.
"Which one of you is marked, I wonder? Hard to tell under all that terror."
"Marked?" Selene's voice shook. "I don't know what you mean."
"The Alpha King wants the marked girl dead. Says she's dangerous. A prophecy or some such nonsense." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me. I'll just kill both of you to be sure."
He raised the blade.
A shape slammed into him from the side.
Alaric. Her brother. He'd shifted into his wolf form. Dark brown fur. Lean and fast.
He tore into the soldier's throat. Blood sprayed. The man went down choking.
Alaric shifted back to human, naked and covered in blood. He grabbed Selene's arm.
"Kitchen passage. Now. I'll cover you."
"But Mama and Papa..."
"Are fighting. And they told you to run. So RUN!"
He shoved them toward the passage. Behind them, more soldiers burst into the kitchen.
Alaric shifted again and threw himself at them. Buying seconds with his body.
Selene and Isolde ran through the passage. It was narrow. Dark. Built for servants to move unseen.
They could hear fighting behind them. Alaric's snarls. Soldiers cursing. The clash of steel on stone.
Then a sound that made Selene's blood freeze.
A howl from the great hall. Her father's voice.
But not fighting now. Not fierce.
Agonized.
Dying.
"Papa," Selene whispered.
"Don't stop," Isolde begged. "Please don't stop."
They kept running.
They burst from the kitchen passage into the rose garden. Smoke choked the air. The east wing blazed.
"The wall!" Selene pulled Isolde toward the outer wall. If they could climb it...
A roar shook the night. From inside the manor. Her father's voice.
Not fierce anymore. Not fighting.
Dying.
Selene stopped running. Turned toward the sound.
Through the shattered windows of the great hall, she could see shapes moving. Her father's gray wolf form surrounded by soldiers.
Three of them. All with silver blades.
One thrust forward. The blade sank deep into her father's side.
His howl split the air. So full of pain that Selene felt it in her bones.
She screamed.
Lord Matthias's wolf form collapsed. Mid-fall, his body shifted back to human. A man again. Naked and bleeding.
He hit the stone floor hard. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading fast.
Too fast.
His head turned. Even from the garden, even through smoke and distance, his eyes found Selene's.
Found her and held.
His lips moved. She couldn't hear the words but she knew them anyway.
Run.
Protect.
Your sister.
Then the light went out of his eyes.
Just... gone.
Like snuffing a candle.
Her father was dead.
"Selene!" Alaric grabbed her arm, bloody and limping. "We have to move! NOW!"
But Selene couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at her father's empty eyes.