The lost Alpha

chapter 3 the first attack

The outpost was silent.

That was the first thing wrong.

Outpost Seven sat on the eastern ridge, forty wolves strong. Even on a quiet night, there should be the sound of patrols shifting, the crackle of the watch fire, the low growl of a wolf scenting the wind.

Tonight there was only wind. And blood.

Kael dropped to a crouch at the treeline, Selene a shadow beside him. Her bow was already half-drawn, an arrow nocked without a sound.

“Thirty minutes dead,” she muttered. “Maybe less.”

Kael didn’t answer. He could smell it, the copper tang of fresh blood, the sour stink of scorched flesh, and underneath it all, the cold, rotten scent he hadn’t smelled in ten years.

Vampire.

The gates hung off one hinge, torn open like paper. Bodies lay scattered across the yard. Not torn apart like a wolf kill. Drained. Skin pale and waxy, eyes sunken, necks marked with twin punctures.

Selene swore under her breath.

Kael moved first. He stepped over the threshold, senses stretched wide. Every instinct screamed that this was a trap. Vampires didn’t leave witnesses unless they wanted someone to find the bodies.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

“Like hell,” Selene replied. “I know this place better than you do.”

She was right. He’d been gone a decade. She’d been running these borders for three years.

They moved through the outpost in silence, checking each building. The barracks were empty. The supply shed was burned. The armory was stripped of silver and iron.

“They came for weapons,” Selene said, her voice tight. “And they took them.”

Kael stopped at the command tent. The flap was torn, blood smeared across the canvas in a pattern that wasn’t random.

Symbols.

Old ones. The kind his father had banned from the pack library. The kind that made elders cross themselves and whisper about the First War.

Kael’s jaw clenched. “They’re marking territory.”

“Or summoning something,” Selene said.

A sound movement behind them.

Kael spun, claws out, but it was only one of the outpost’s scouts. Or what was left of her.

Mira leaned against the tent post, her hands pressed to her throat. Blood ran between her fingers in slow, steady pulses. She was barely twenty. Kael had taught her to track when she was fifteen.

“Kael?” Her voice was a wet whisper.

He was at her side in two steps, kneeling, pressing his hand over hers. It didn’t help. The bite had severed the artery.

“Mira, hold on.”

“Too late,” she said, and coughed blood. Her eyes were glassy, but focused. “They… they came from the ravine. More than twenty. Leading them… was a man. Pale. Eyes like ice.”

“Vampire lord,” Kael said.

“He asked for you,” Mira whispered.

Kael froze. “What?”

“By name,” Mira said. “He said… ‘Tell Kael Blackthorne the Moonfang bloodline ends tonight.’”

Before Kael could answer, her body went limp.

Selene knelt beside him, hand on his shoulder. “Kael.”

He stood slowly, fury burning through the numbness. “They knew I was coming.”

“Lucien told them,” Selene said. It wasn’t a question.

“Only if he’s working with them,” Kael said. “And if he is…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

A growl rolled through the trees behind them.

Kael moved without thinking, shoving Selene behind him as three figures dropped from the trees. Vampires. Fast, pale, eyes burning red with hunger.

The first lunged.

Kael met it mid-air, slamming it to the ground and driving his knee into its chest with enough force to c***k bone. It hissed, claws raking across his shoulder. He ignored the pain, grabbed its jaw, and twisted until the neck snapped.

The second came for Selene.

She didn’t panic. She rolled, came up with an arrow already loosed. The silver-tipped shaft hit the vampire in the eye. It screamed, clawing at its face as the silver burned through flesh and bone.

The third was smarter. It went for Kael from behind.

Kael felt the air shift and dropped, sweeping its legs out from under it. He was on it before it hit the ground, fangs bared, and tore out its throat. The taste of cold, tainted blood hit his tongue and he spat it out with a snarl.

When it was over, the yard was silent again.

Selene was breathing hard, an arrow nocked and aimed at the treeline. “More coming.”

“How many?” Kael asked, wiping blood off his mouth.

“At least ten,” she said. “And they’re not running.”

Kael looked down at Mira’s body, then at the symbols on the tent. This wasn’t a raid. This was a message.

“They want me to chase them,” he said.

“Then don’t,” Selene said.

“I have to,” Kael replied. “If they’re taking silver, they’re planning to hit the stronghold next. We have to slow them down.”

Selene cursed, but she was already moving, pulling a flare from her belt. “We hold them here. Buy time for the main pack to mobilize.”

“You’ll die,” Kael said.

“So will you,” she shot back. “Unless you have a better plan.”

He didn’t.

“Fine,” he said. “We hold.”

They took position behind the overturned supply cart, backs to each other. Kael could hear them now, fast, light footsteps, the soft rasp of breathing that wasn’t quite human.

The first wave hit a second later.

Five vampires burst from the trees, moving in a blur. Kael met two of them head-on, claws flashing. He fought like a wolf who’d spent ten years without rules, brutal, efficient, merciless. One went down with its throat torn out. The second lost an arm before Kael crushed its skull against a rock.

Selene was a blur of motion beside him. Her arrows didn’t miss. Each one found a heart or an eye, silver burning through vampire flesh. When her quiver ran dry, she drew her knife and fought in close, moving like a dancer who’d learned to kill.

For three minutes, they held.

Then the flare went up.

Red light exploded over the outpost, visible for miles. A signal to the main pack. Help would come. If they lasted.

A larger vampire stepped out of the trees. Taller than the others, pale skin stretched tight over sharp bones, eyes like chips of ice.

The one Mira had described.

“Prince Kael,” the vampire said, voice smooth and cold. “It’s been a long time.”

Kael stepped forward, putting himself between the lord and Selene. “You know me?”

“I know your blood,” the lord said. “It’s old. Powerful. The kind that makes my kind drool.” He smiled, showing fangs too long to be human. “Your brother was kind enough to tell us you’d return. He said you’d be angry. Predictable.”

Kael’s blood went cold. “Lucien made a deal with you.”

“A temporary alliance,” the lord said. “He gets the throne. We get the Moonfang lands. And you… you get to die screaming.”

The lord moved.

Kael barely had time to react. He caught the vampire’s wrist, but the force of the blow drove him back a step. The lord was stronger than any vampire he’d fought before. Older.

They crashed into the tent, claws and fangs tearing at each other. Kael felt teeth graze his throat, felt claws dig into his ribs. He slammed the lord’s head into a post, felt bone c***k, but the thing just laughed.

“You’re strong,” the lord hissed. “But you’re alone.”

Kael headbutted him, breaking his nose, and drove his knee into the lord’s gut. The vampire doubled over, and Kael took the chance to grab a silver dagger from Selene’s belt and drive it into the lord’s shoulder.

The lord screamed, a sound that wasn’t human.

“Run!” Kael shouted to Selene.

She didn’t argue. She grabbed Mira’s body and dragged her toward the treeline as the rest of the vampires closed in.

Kael held them off, fighting in a controlled fury. He didn’t kill recklessly. Every strike had a purpose to wound, to m**m, to slow. He was buying time.

The lord pulled the dagger out with a snarl and threw it aside. “You’ll regret that.”

“So will you,” Kael said, and charged.

They hit the ground together, rolling through blood and dirt. Kael got on top, hands around the lord’s throat, squeezing with all his strength.

The lord smiled.

“You can’t kill me,” he whispered. “Not here. Not now.”

“Watch me,” Kael growled.

Before he could finish it, a crossbow bolt slammed into his shoulder.

Kael roared, rolling off as pain exploded down his arm. One of the surviving vampires had a weapon.

The lord seized the moment, kicking Kael off and rising to his feet. “Enough playing. Kill them.”

Kael forced himself to his feet, blood running down his arm. Selene was twenty yards away, still dragging Mira, surrounded by two vampires.

He wasn’t going to make it.

Then the horn blew again.

Closer this time.

Wolves poured out of the trees—Moonfang warriors, led by Garrick. Twenty of them, armed and angry.

The vampires hesitated.

The lord bared his teeth at Kael. “This isn’t over.”

“It is for tonight,” Kael said.

The lord vanished into the trees, his remaining forces following.

Kael dropped to his knees as the adrenaline faded, pain hitting him all at once.

Garrick was at his side a moment later. “You’re alive.”

“Barely,” Kael said.

Garrick looked at Selene, at Mira’s body, at the c*****e around them. “What happened here?”

“Vampires,” Selene said, her voice flat. “Led by a lord. They knew Kael was coming.”

Garrick’s eyes narrowed. “Lucien said you’d bring trouble.”

“Lucien’s lying,” Kael said. “He made a deal with them.”

Garrick didn’t answer right away. He just looked at Kael, really looked at him, for the first time since he’d returned.

“Get him to the healer,” Garrick said finally. “We’ll talk after.”

Kael let himself be helped to his feet. As they left the outpost, he looked back at the symbols burned into the tent.

The war had started.

And Lucien had fired the first shot.