Chapter 11: Blood on Snow
1008 Words
The moon was sharp and cruel that night, a white blade in the sky. Snow had fallen in the forest surrounding Hollow Creek, blanketing the trees in silence. It looked peaceful.
It wasn’t.
Luca’s breath steamed as he sprinted through the dark, barefoot and shirtless, blood drying on his ribs. His heartbeat pounded louder than his footsteps, louder than the wind, louder than the panicked voice echoing in his head:
“They’re in the Den. They betrayed us.”
Silas’s voice.
The old wolf had sent the message through the link mere minutes ago — just a flash of panic before it was cut off, like someone had severed the thread mid-thought. Luca hadn’t stopped running since.
By the time he reached the Den’s hidden entrance beneath the old burned chapel, the air reeked of smoke and blood.
His claws burst through his fingers before he even touched the stone gate.
He found two dead wolves by the tunnel mouth. One still had her eyes open — young, barely older than him, with a knife through her throat. The other had shifted mid-death, half-human, his mouth frozen in a snarl.
“Silver blades,” Luca muttered, rage building.
Behind him, Raine dropped into the tunnel with barely a sound. Her face was pale, eyes narrowed, lips tight. She didn’t speak.
They ran in silence, deeper into the Den.
The air grew hot. Smoke drifted from the far corridors. They turned a corner and found Silas — alive, bleeding, standing over the body of a man with a hunter’s sigil carved into his chest.
“You’re late,” Silas rasped.
Luca moved to his side. “What happened?”
“Someone let them in.”
Raine stiffened. “From the inside?”
Silas nodded. “They knew every exit. Every blind turn. They weren’t here to kill us. They were here to take you.”
He looked at Luca — not with accusation, but with something worse: resignation.
“They want the Alpha-Born.”
A chill ran down Luca’s spine.
“Who?” he asked. “Who betrayed us?”
Before Silas could answer, the far wall exploded.
Stone and fire rained down. A figure emerged through the smoke — tall, hooded, holding a silver-tipped spear dripping with blood.
And he was smiling.
“Gabriel sends his regards,” the man said.
The world tilted. Luca froze.
Gabriel.
His father.
The one everyone believed was dead.
Raine stepped forward, her body low and tense. “He’s lying.”
“No,” Luca whispered, his voice breaking. “He’s not.”
The man charged. Silas roared and lunged, intercepting him with inhuman speed. The tunnel became chaos — claws, silver, snarls, blood. Raine shoved Luca backward just as the spear slammed down where he’d been standing.
“Go!” she shouted. “Find the back passage!”
“I’m not leaving you—”
“Luca, GO!”
Her eyes were pitch black now — the curse awake, snarling, clawing at the surface. Her voice was a different creature altogether.
So he ran.
⸻
He found the back tunnel slick with melting snow and ash. The walls trembled behind him with the echoes of battle.
But his mind was somewhere else.
Gabriel is alive. He’s not dead. And he wants me taken.
Why?
The truth had always been fog. His father’s disappearance. The pack war. The stories of the Alpha-Born line being wiped out. But now the fog was lifting—and something dark was waiting on the other side.
He reached the end of the tunnel and shoved open the trap door into the woods. Cold air slapped him across the face. And he wasn’t alone.
A second figure stood by the tree line.
Young. Pale. Familiar.
Luca’s heart sank.
Micah.
One of the Den wolves. The one who helped train him. The one he trusted.
He stepped forward, looking ashamed.
“I didn’t want it to be this way,” Micah said. “They promised he’d be safe if I delivered you.”
“You—” Luca’s throat dried. “You were the one who let them in.”
“I didn’t know Raine would be there. I didn’t know they’d—” He stopped. “I just wanted to survive.”
Luca felt his wolf rise. His hands trembled.
“You sold me to the same people who killed your sister,” he said, voice shaking.
Micah’s eyes widened. “You don’t understand. Gabriel—he’s not who you think—”
Luca didn’t wait to hear the rest. He shifted mid-motion, bones snapping, vision blurring. He lunged.
Micah shifted too, but he wasn’t fast enough.
It was over in seconds.
Snow fell in red silence.
Luca stood over the body, panting. His paws sank into the blood-drenched ground. The golden light of his eyes flickered — and for a second, he swore he saw something else in his reflection.
Not just the wolf.
Something darker.
⸻
When Raine found him, his shift was already breaking.
She approached slowly, her silver eyes dim, a long cut down her arm. Her jaw was clenched.
“He was working for Gabriel,” Luca said quietly. “He said my father promised he wouldn’t get hurt.”
Raine didn’t speak for a long time.
Then: “Your father wasn’t just an Alpha.”
Luca looked up.
“He was the one who cursed me,” she whispered.
The world spun.
“What?”
“Gabriel. He was the one who made the deal that turned me into what I am.”
Her voice cracked, her hand pressing to her chest.
“He sacrificed part of his bloodline to gain power — and I was the consequence.”
Luca stepped back like he’d been hit.
She met his eyes. “If he wants you back now, Luca, it’s not to love you. It’s to finish what he started.”
And as the clouds passed overhead, revealing the full face of the moon, they both realized:
This was just the beginning.
- Writer
