CHAPTER FOUR
1216 Words
The night erupted in howls.
Elara and Lucian sprinted into the courtyard, her mercenaries already shifting. Kieran roared orders from the lodge steps, warriors surging toward the breach.
Silver arrows rained from the tree line.
“Flank left!” Elara yelled, ducking as an arrow grazed her arm. Lucian’s wolf form, tawny and massive, crashed into three rogues, bones snapping.
Darius fought beside Kieran, blades and claws flashing. “They’re targeting the nursery!”
No. Elara’s blood iced. They’re herding us.
She broke away, weaving toward the nursery wing. Lena’s terrified scent flooded her nostrils.
A rogue tackled her from the shadows. They rolled, teeth snapping at her throat. She jammed her dagger into its eye.
Thwip.
An arrow slammed into the rogue’s chest. Black fletching. Silver tip. The same arrow that killed the messenger. Elara scrambled up, scanning the rooftops. A shadow melted behind the chimney.
Got you, she thought to herself.
Elara chased after him as fast as she could as a human, she could no longer turn to a wolf since that night. She scaling the wall. The figure fled across the thatched roof, leaping to the next building. Elara followed, boots slipping on frost.
Below, the battle raged. Kieran’s snarls cut through the night. Lucian howled her name. The figure paused at the edge of the armory roof hooded, face hidden.
Elara drew her dagger. “Who are you?”
The figure didn’t speak. Just raised a bow. Not aimed at her. At the courtyard below, where Kieran fought back-to-back with Darius, unaware.
No.
Elara lunged.
The arrow loosed.
Time slowed.
She collided with the shooter as the shaft flew, not toward Kieran, but toward Lena, who’d darted from the lodge.
“No!”
Elara’s scream tore the night.
The arrow struck Lena’s shoulder, a glancing blow that tore fabric and skin. She stumbled but didn’t fall. Blood bloomed crimson on her nightgown.
“Lena!” Kieran’s roar shook the courtyard. He ripped through two rogues, surging toward her.
But Lena stood unnervingly still, her mismatched eyes fixed on the tree line. “They’re coming,” she whispered, voice chillingly calm.
Elara’s blood turned to ice. “Run! Now!”
The child didn’t move.
From the shadows, a dozen more figures erupted, eyes blazing silver, fangs dripping venom. They moved with unnatural speed, flanking Kieran and Darius, cutting them off from Lena.
“Protect the Alpha!” Darius shouted, but his blade wavered as a rogue slammed into him.
Lucian’s tawny wolf tore out a rogue’s throat, snarling at Elara. “Get the girl!”
Elara vaulted off the roof, landing hard on the courtyard stones. She sprinted toward Lena, dagger flashing. A rogue lunged and she severed its hamstring, kicked it aside. Another came with silver claws raking her arm. She gutted it mid-leap.
“Lena, move!” Elara screamed, blood dripping from her wounds.
The girl knelt instead, pressing her small palms into the blood-soaked earth. Her voice cut through the chaos, soft but absolute: “Stop.”
A ripple of invisible force exploded outward.
The world stilled.
Every silver-eyed rogue froze mid-step with teeth bared, claws extended, arrows nocked. Then, like puppets with cut strings, they collapsed. Lifeless.
Lena swayed, her eyes rolling back. She crumpled to the ground.
Kieran caught her before she hit the ground. The child’s skin was ice-cold, her breath shallow. “Lena!”
Lucian crashed to his knees beside them, tearing off his cloak to staunch her bleeding shoulder. “What did she do?”
“Did our freaking jobs apparently,” Elara snapped, pressing fingers to Lena’s throat. The pulse weak, but there.
Darius limped over, his sleeve torn, face ashen. “Sorcery. Unnatural.”
Elara’s dagger was at his throat before he blinked. “Say that again and I’ll show you unnatural.”
Kieran shoved her blade aside. “Enough! Healer! Now!”
The Healing Ward – Hour Before Dawn
Lena lay unconscious on a cot, herbs packed into her wound, her skin pale as milk. The healer, a wizened woman with kind eyes, frowned. “The arrow was poisoned. Wolfsbane and something… darker. Slower acting, but deadly.”
Kieran’s fists clenched. “Can you cure it?”
“I can slow it. But the antidote requires moon bloom petals. They only grow in the Shadow fen.”
Darius scoffed. “The fen’s crawling with rogues. It’s suicide.”
“Then we go at dawn,” Kieran growled.
“We?” Elara leaned against the wall with arms crossed. “You’ve got wounded warriors, a poisoned child, and traitors in your walls.” She nodded toward the window where the dead rogues lay piled. “That shooter knew exactly where to aim.”
Kieran’s gaze hardened. “You think this is an inside job.”
“I know it is.” She pushed off the wall. “The arrow that hit Lena? Same black fletching as the one that killed the messenger who warned us about Blackthorne.”
“What messenger? Kieran asked with raised brows.
“Well, the research was not the only reason we accepted your contract. Few days ago, some rogues attacked us and a dying rogue told us you were next.” Lucian explained.
“And I am sure your beloved Beta was the last one holding that contract before we got it.” Elara spat out.
Darius stepped forward, eyes blazing. “You dare…”
“I dare,” Elara hissed. “Because while you were ‘fighting’ rogues, I was chasing the shooter. He didn’t smell like forest. He smelled like soap and steel. Like your guardhouse.”
Kieran turned to Darius, his voice dangerously quiet. “This can’t be true, right?”
Darius spread his hands. “She’s twisting facts! I handed the guards the scroll unopened.”
“Convenient.” Elara’s smile was razor-thin. “Tell me, why did the rogues target the nursery? Not the armory. Not the grain. The child.”
Silence thickened. Lena moaned in her sleep, her small fingers twitching.
Kieran stared at her Lena, the little girl he adopted few months after he banished his own mate and Luna to exile, she reminded him of what he lost and she meant everything to him.
He remembered how Darius had brought her in from the orphanage and helped him to take care of her all these while. But for some reason this Ghost has been attacking him since she got here.
He sighed deeply, “I trust Darius completely, if it is an inside job, I know some other betas who hate me and I will take care of that later. Now the fen,” he rasped, tearing his gaze away from Lena. “I’ll lead the team.”
“You’ll stay,” Elara said. “Protect what’s left of your pack. I’ll get the petals.”
Lucian stepped from the shadows. “Like hell you will. It’s a death trap.”
“All the more reason.” She met Kieran’s stunned gaze. “We are being paid remember.”
Kieran nodded, then he looked around and muttered “Where the hell is Selene?”
Elara turned to leave. “Have the money ready. And a shovel. You’ll be burying a Beta by sundown.”
- Writer
