House BlackWing: Awakening

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17

The transport tube split open with a hiss of light.

Lord Kael strode out as if the floor belonged to him—chin high, shoulders rolling with arrogance. But the moment his eyes found Lord Raven alive and waiting on the dais, he froze. For a breath, silence clamped down over the hall. Kael had expected a corpse. Instead, he found the BlackWing Lord watching him with the stillness of a predator.

Along the walls, the guards shifted in unison. Barrels dipped, fingers pressed tight to triggers, safeties clicked off with the metallic precision of a single body. Then stillness again. The room had teeth, waiting only for Lord Raven’s word.

Lord Raven’s gaze slid to me and Ciara. His meaning was clear without a word. I bent to her ear.

“You’re a full sub of BlackWing now. You will act like it. Understood?”

Her nails carved faint grooves into the marble. She trembled not with fear but with the feral urge to launch at Kael. Her breath shook against me, her whole body straining at the leash of discipline. Then she forced her chin down. Her voice was quiet but steady.

“At your order, my Master.”

From the far side of the dais, Gabriella rose smoothly to her feet. Her posture was tall, unflinching, regal. She didn’t speak, but her eyes locked on Kael with the cold patience of a hawk sighting prey, memorizing every weakness in his stance.

Katchina, near the guard line, leaned forward a fraction, her hand brushing the grip of her sidearm. Hunger flared in her face before discipline pulled it back.

Judy sat at the helm of the console, her face lit by the glow of shifting monitors. One hand worked the controls with steady precision. The other rested beneath the console, curled around the hilt of a concealed knife.

Lord Raven rose from the throne and started down the steps, his presence filling the hall with each measured movement. Kael’s eyes darted—first to the unopened gift tables, then back to Lord Raven. Panic began to fray the edges of his arrogance.

“What’s wrong, Kael?” Lord Raven’s voice cut like glass, edged with humor that wasn’t kind. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Kael swallowed and forced his voice louder. “I am here to demand payment to House Vulkarin for years of interference by House BlackWing!”

Lord Raven stroked his chin as though weighing it. “That’s a bold claim. And what exactly is Vulkarin’s price?”

“Earth,” Kael spat, lips curling. “A down payment. We’ll return for the rest—your gold, your subs, your weapons…hell, your whole House.”

The word detonated inside me. Blood roared in my ears.

“Like hell!” I barked, stepping forward, fists clenched, ready to break him myself.

Lord Raven’s hand sliced the air.

I froze mid-stride, the command in that single gesture slamming into me harder than a blow. My jaw locked, breath ragged, every muscle screaming to move—but I forced myself still.

Kael’s eyes flicked between me and Lord Raven, unease cutting through his arrogance.

Lord Raven turned his gaze to Ciara, trembling beneath her veil, then back to Kael.

“Kael, you wouldn’t know truth if it bit you in the ass. And this one—” his chin tilted toward her, “—just might.”

Kael puffed his chest, clinging to arrogance. “Surrender now, and Vulkarin will let you keep scraps of your past glory. Resist, and we’ll burn you to ash. You can’t win.”

Lord Raven stepped off the last stair. His gait shifted—no longer measured, but the stalk of a predator. My gut tightened. I’d seen that walk in bars back home, just before a fight turned savage. My grandfather used to say: that’s the walk of a man about to end someone’s night.

Kael saw it too. His bravado cracked. He backpedaled, palms lifting.

“You can’t touch me, Lord Raven! I came under a flag of truce!”

He jabbed at the first of the two spears he had carried in—its shaft draped with a rag of white cloth. Beside it stood the second: the crimson-and-black banner of Lord Vulkarin’s House, mounted on a heavy spear.

“A truce?” Lord Raven repeated softly. He plucked the white-flag spear from its stand, tested the weight, and in one smooth motion hurled it back into the tube.

A scream echoed from inside. The hall jolted. Ciara’s head snapped up beneath the veil. Katchina’s lips curled in a flash of satisfaction before flattening back into discipline. Gabriella’s eyes narrowed further, unblinking. Judy’s hand tightened on the knife, but her breathing stayed calm.

Without pause, Lord Raven seized the second spear—the one bearing Lord Vulkarin’s banner. He spun it once in his grip, the heavy cloth snapping like a whip, then leveled it at Kael.

“That leaves you under Vulkarin’s banner,” he said coldly. “And that’s not much of a shield here.”

The shaft swung low, faster than Kael could react. The impact shattered his legs, the banner trailing through his collapse. He hit the marble hard, his skull cracking against stone.

For a moment, no one breathed. The hall seemed to hold the silence of prey before a predator’s next strike.

Then Lord Raven reversed the shaft and rammed the blunt end into Kael’s ribs. The crack echoed in the chamber, followed by a scream that tore raw from his throat. Blood soaked into Vulkarin’s colors, spreading dark stains until the cloth clung heavy and wet.

“First lesson,” Lord Raven snarled, his boot slamming into Kael’s groin. “You don’t walk into my House with threats.”

Kael’s scream went high and broken. The banner dragged under him, streaking red across the marble.

“Second lesson—worlds under my banner are off limits.” Lord Raven’s next kick smashed across his jaw. Kael’s head snapped sideways, teeth scattering. Blood sprayed over Vulkarin’s crest, staining the black and crimson until it looked like a butcher’s rag.

By then the banner was no longer a standard. It was a shroud.

“Third lesson—” Lord Raven pressed the shaft into Kael’s chest, pinning him down against the cloth of his own House. His voice dropped to a growl. “Tell that bloated coward you serve that if he so much as looks at Earth, or this House, I’ll unleash nightmares he can’t even dream of.”

Kael coughed blood, choking, unable to speak. He only nodded, frantic.

Lord Raven yanked the banner spear away and hurled it to Sir Derek. It clattered across the floor, trailing gore.

“If this insect is still here in ten seconds, I want that banner put somewhere creative.”

Derek caught it, his grin savage. “With pleasure, my Lord.”

Kael staggered upright, shaking. The Vulkarin banner dragged behind him, bloodied and torn, soaking up every step. He spat what teeth he had left and rasped, broken:

“Y-you’ll… pay…”

Derek leveled the banner back at him, crimson dripping from its cloth. “Boy, you don’t have enough left in you to make a second threat. Now crawl.”

Kael stumbled into the tube. The doors sealed with a hiss, and for the first time in the history of that hall, Lord Vulkarin’s banner left it blood-soaked, tattered, and disgraced.

The silence that followed was thick and electric. The acrid tang of iron filled the air. The guards hadn’t fired, but their rifles stayed leveled, jaws tight. A few let the corners of their mouths curl in wolfish satisfaction.

Ciara trembled beside me, her fury restrained but violent under the veil. Gabriella remained standing, tall and steady, only then letting out a long, measured breath. Katchina rolled her shoulders back into stillness, as if sheathing her hunger for violence. Judy eased her grip on the knife beneath the console, exhaled once, and snapped her attention back to the monitors—already watching for the next threat.

I opened my fists slowly, the sting of torn skin grounding me. My own blood slicked my palms, a mirror of Kael’s on the floor. It reminded me how close I’d been to breaking, how thin the line was between restraint and violence.

Lord Raven’s voice cut through the hush like a blade.

“Sir Derek. Summon the leaders of every House under my banner. No one sleeps tonight.”