Chapter 7 — Assassins in the Dark
1208 Words
The night breathed uneasily.
A heavy mist clung to the palace grounds, coiling between towering stone pillars and silver-leafed trees. The moon hung low, swollen and crimson, casting long, distorted shadows across the royal wing.
Ivy lay awake.
Sleep refused to come.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Rowan falling to his knees. Felt the c***k of power ripping through her veins. Heard the echo of Mireya’s words.
Your blood is older than the first Alpha.
She lifted her trembling hands, staring at her palms in the dim glow of the moonlight. They looked the same. Small. Soft. Weak.
Yet buried beneath her skin was something ancient.
And deadly.
A soft knock sounded at her chamber door.
Ivy’s body stiffened instantly.
Her senses flared without conscious thought a sudden sharp awareness blooming inside her chest. The air shifted. The scent of iron and foreign wolves drifted faintly through the room.
Danger.
Her heart pounded.
Another knock came, quieter this time.
“Ivy?” a familiar voice murmured. “It’s Elara. The maid.”
Relief washed through her but only briefly.
Her wolf snarled.
Wrong.
Elara always smelled of honeyroot and soap. This scent was bitter, edged with blood and rot.
Ivy slid silently from the bed, bare feet ghosting across the marble floor. She reached the door, pressing her palm against the cold wood.
“Come in,” she said softly.
The handle turned.
The door creaked open.
And a dagger flew straight for her throat.
Ivy twisted instinctively. The blade sliced through a strand of her hair, embedding itself deep in the wall behind her with a violent thud.
The door burst inward.
Three figures lunged through the opening, cloaked in black, faces masked. Their eyes glowed faintly red Shadow wolves.
The world seemed to slow.
One assassin went for her legs. Another aimed for her heart. The third leapt high, claws extended, poised to tear out her throat.
Ivy screamed not in fear, but in raw instinct.
Something inside her snapped.
Power surged.
The room exploded.
An invisible force hurled the first attacker backward, smashing him through the far wall. Stone cracked. Dust billowed. The second was slammed into the ceiling so hard the impact shattered bone.
The third assassin twisted midair, landing in a crouch.
Too fast.
Too skilled.
He rushed her.
Ivy barely had time to raise her arm.
His blade plunged downward.
She caught it.
Barehanded.
The metal shrieked in protest as her fingers closed around the dagger. Energy rippled through her veins, racing up her arm, flooding her chest.
The assassin froze, staring in disbelief.
“No omega”
She twisted.
His wrist snapped.
The dagger clattered to the floor.
Ivy drove her palm into his chest.
Power detonated.
He flew across the chamber, slamming into a marble pillar. The stone cracked like thunder. His body crumpled, unmoving.
Silence crashed over the wrecked room.
Ivy stood shaking at the center of the destruction, chest heaving, eyes glowing faint silver.
She had done that.
Her gaze dropped to her hands still humming with residual energy.
Terror flooded her veins.
“I… I didn’t mean”
A wet sound cut her off.
The assassin she’d thrown through the wall was dragging himself back into the room, blood pouring from his mouth. His eyes burned with fanatical devotion.
“For the Shadow King,” he rasped.
He lunged again.
This time, Ivy didn’t think.
She simply moved.
Her body blurred.
One moment she stood at the center of the chamber.
The next, she was behind him.
Her hand pierced his chest.
Warm blood flooded over her fingers.
The assassin gasped, eyes wide with shock.
Ivy stared at her hand buried inside his body.
A sob tore from her throat.
She ripped her arm free.
The man collapsed at her feet, lifeless.
Her knees buckled.
She fell among the wreckage, shaking violently, bile rising in her throat.
She had killed.
Not in self-defense alone.
But with horrifying ease.
The chamber doors burst open.
Warriors flooded in, weapons drawn, wolves snarling. Rowan stormed in behind them, his face ashen, eyes wild with fear.
“Ivy!”
His gaze swept over the destruction the shattered walls, the fallen assassins, the blood soaking the marble floor.
Then he saw her.
Collapsed. Bloody. Trembling.
He crossed the room in seconds, dropping to his knees before her.
“Are you hurt?” His hands hovered, afraid to touch her. “Tell me you’re not hurt.”
She stared up at him, tears streaming down her face.
“I killed them,” she whispered.
Rowan swallowed hard.
“They came to murder you,” he said softly.
“I know.” Her voice cracked. “But I didn’t just fight them. I. I destroyed them.”
Her hands shook violently.
Rowan gently wrapped his cloak around her shoulders, drawing her into its warmth. She stiffened for a heartbeat, then sagged against him, exhaustion and shock crashing down all at once.
The hall erupted with chaos.
“They breached the royal wing!”
“Shadow assassins how did they get past the wards?”
“They’re inside the palace!”
Mireya appeared at the doorway, her face grim.
“They were testing her,” the witch said quietly.
Rowan lifted his head. “Testing?”
Mireya nodded. “Measuring her power. Her instincts. Her limits.”
She knelt beside Ivy, examining the faint silver glow still lingering in her eyes.
“And now,” Mireya murmured, “they know she is real.”
A cold dread settled in Rowan’s gut.
“How many more will come?” he demanded.
“Until they succeed,” Mireya replied.
Rowan’s jaw tightened.
“Then move her,” he ordered. “Somewhere safer. Double the guard.”
Mireya shook her head slowly.
“There is no safe place left for her within pack territory,” she said. “The Shadow Pack has agents everywhere. Anyone she trusts could already be compromised.”
Rowan looked down at Ivy.
Her breathing had steadied, but her face remained pale, haunted.
“She can’t stay alone,” he said quietly.
Mireya met his gaze.
“No,” she agreed. “She can’t.”
A charged silence stretched between them.
“You will guard her,” Mireya said.
Rowan stiffened. “Me?”
“You are the strongest shield she has left,” the witch replied. “Even without your Alpha power, your presence anchors her. Calms the storm inside her.”
Rowan’s chest tightened.
“She hates me.”
“Perhaps,” Mireya said. “But her wolf does not.”
Ivy stirred faintly, her fingers clutching at Rowan’s cloak.
His breath caught.
For the first time since the rejection, he allowed himself to hold her.
And in that fragile moment, surrounded by blood and shattered stone, something irrevocably changed between them.
But far beyond the palace walls, deep within the cursed lands of the Shadow Pack…
A throne carved from bone and obsidian pulsed with dark energy.
The Shadow King leaned forward, crimson eyes burning.
“So,” he murmured, a slow, vicious smile curving his lips, “the Primordial heir awakens.”
He rose to his feet.
“Send more.”
His laughter echoed through the darkness.
- Writer
