Mated to two alphas

CHAPTER 7: THE VANGUARD

The dust settled around me like snow.

For one heartbeat, the world was silent. The dogs howled in the distance. The hunters lay scattered across the field, thrown back by the blast.

Then they started laughing.

A big wolf in the front—scarred, arrogant, clearly the leader picked himself up from the dirt and grinned at me.

"Look at that," he jeered. "The defect learned a party trick."

Behind him, more hunters rose. Dozens of them. Shaking off the blast like it was nothing.

"The Alphas are drained," another called out. "Get them first. The girl's just a glowing freak show."

Kael tried to stand but he couldn’t. Ryker grabbed his shoulder, barely able to stay upright. They had nothing left. They had given it all to me.

The hunters charged and I stepped forward.

Not back this time. Forward.

The first wolf reached me in a heartbeat. Massive. Claws extended. Aiming for my throat.

I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just felt my hand snapped up. Silver light exploded from my palm, not in a blast, but in a whip. A cord of solid starlight cracked through the air and wrapped around the wolf's throat.

I yanked.

He hit the ground so hard that the earth cratered.

Silence.

The other hunters froze.

I looked at my hand. At the whip still crackling there. At the power humming through my veins like I had held it my whole life.

The lead hunter's eyes went wide. "What the hell—"

I flicked my wrist and the whip lashed out again—not at him, but at the weapons in their hands. Silver daggers. Steel blades. All of them ripped from their grips and scattered across the field like toys.

The hunters stared at their empty hands.

I stared at them.

And something inside me shifted.

Not the power. Something older. Something that had been sleeping for eighteen years, waiting for this exact moment.

My wolf.

She wasn't screaming anymore.

She was smiling.

Power had changed.

The hunters felt it first. Their bravado crumbled. Their knees buckled. One by one, they dropped to the ground, not from fear, but from something deeper.

Alpha aura.

Not like Kael's nor like Ryker's.

This was different. It was ancient.

I opened my mouth.

One word.

"KNEEL."

The sound that came out wasn't entirely human. It resonated in the bones. In the blood. In the very core of every wolf within a mile.

And they all fell.

Not slowly. Not gracefully. They were slammed into the dirt by an invisible force. Faces pressed into the mud, bodies trembling. Lungs struggling to breathe under the weight of what I had become.

The human dogs didn't wait. They turned and ran, whining, disappearing into the trees.

I stood there, surrounded by dozens of groveling wolves, my silver eyes blazing, my starlight whip still crackling in my hand.

Behind me, Kael and Ryker stared. They didn't move. They even couldn’t speak.

I walked through the kneeling hunters. Slowly but deliberately. My bare feet left glowing prints in the dirt.

The lead hunter—the one who had laughed, was shaking. Literally shaking. He couldn't look up, nor could he breathe.

I stopped in front of him.

"Look at me."

He raised his head with visible effort. Tears streamed down his face from the pressure of my aura.

"Tell Sterling," I said quietly, "to keep my floors clean."

His eyes went wide.

"I am coming to claim my pack."

I turned my back on him and walked away.

The moment I stepped past the last hunter, the pressure released. They gasped, choked, scrambled to their feet and ran. All of them. Disappearing into the trees like the cowards they were.

Just me, the rubble, and two Alphas sitting in the dirt, looking up at me like I was the moon itself.

I walked to them. My legs gave out halfway.

Kael caught me. Ryker caught us both.

We collapsed together in the ruins of the farmhouse, tangled in each other, breathing hard.

"The poison," Ryker whispered, his hand on my chest. "It's really gone."

I nodded, too tired to speak.

Kael's voice was rough. "Your eyes. They're still glowing."

I looked at him. At the awe in his crimson gaze. At Ryker, whose ice-blue eyes held the same wonder.

"What am I?" I whispered.

Kael's hand cupped my cheek. So gentle and different from the executioner who had roared across the Grand Hall.

"You're ours," he said. "And you're so much more."

Ryker's lips brushed my forehead. "The Lunar Anomaly isn't just a title, Elara. It's a crown. And you just claimed it."

The bond hummed between us. Not a poison this time nor a countdown.

A perfect, humming circuit of power.

For the first time in eighteen years, I felt whole.

Then Kael stiffened.

His head snapped up, scanning the tree line.

"What?" Ryker was instantly alert.

Kael's shadows flickered—weak, but there. "Something's coming."

I felt it too. A pulse. A presence.

Not hostile but powerful.

Very powerful.

From the trees, a figure emerged.

Not a hunter nor a wolf.

A woman. Tall. Regal. Dressed in silver armor that seemed to glow with its own light. Her eyes weren't wolf eyes, they were exactly like the stars.

Behind her, more figures. Dozens of them. Wolves, but different. Ancient. Wearing the same glowing armor.

Kael's voice was barely a whisper.

"The Old Guard."

Ryker's jaw dropped. "They're real?"

The woman stopped at the edge of the rubble. Her eyes found mine.

Glowing silver. Just like mine.

"We felt you awaken, little sister." Her voice was warm, ancient, and terrifyingly calm. "The Goddess sent us."

I stared at her. At the army behind her.

"You've been waiting," I breathed.

She smiled. "For a thousand years."

I looked at Kael. At Ryker. At the kneeling hunters still fleeing through the trees.

The war wasn't coming.

It had already arrived.

And for the first time, we had an army too.