Episode 4 – Fire in the Blood
By Speciallymade
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The woods were too quiet.
Even with the Pack behind her, Aria felt the weight of something shifting—something invisible, but powerful. She could feel it beneath her skin, a pulse in the air that hummed with tension.
The attack on Maeve's house hadn't just been a threat.
It was a message.
The Hollow Ones weren't hiding anymore.
---
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Lucien asked, falling into step beside her.
Aria didn't answer immediately. She could still see Maeve's face—blood trickling from her scalp, fingers shaking from burns. All because of her.
"I can't hide anymore," she said, her voice flat. "They brought the fight to me."
Lucien studied her, eyes narrowing slightly. "This isn't a game. Once you cross this line—once you go after them—you don't get to go back to who you were."
Aria turned to him. "I already lost that girl. Whoever she was… she died the night I first shifted."
Lucien didn't argue.
Instead, he shifted.
A ripple of shadow and bone, and in seconds, he was the massive black wolf again, eyes glowing under the moonlight.
One by one, the rest of the Pack followed.
And Aria—without fear this time—let go of her human skin.
She didn't scream. Didn't cry.
She embraced the shift.
The silver wolf that emerged ran with fury in her blood.
---
Their target was an abandoned hunting lodge deep in the eastern edge of the forest—old territory long lost to the rogues. The Hollow Ones had taken it weeks ago, Lucien had said, and used it to gather and stalk.
They were growing in number.
Organized. Vicious. Hungry.
It had been decades since the last Pack war.
But tonight might start the next.
---
They circled the lodge in silence, sticking to the shadows. Aria crouched low beside Lucien, her wolf senses heightened—ears twitching, nose catching every trace of rot and ash.
"Five inside," Lucien murmured through the mind-link they shared in wolf form. "One guarding the north entrance. The others sleep."
Aria responded, her mind laced with iron.
> "We don't wait. We end it."
He gave the signal.
And then the forest exploded.
---
Lucien tackled the guard with one brutal lunge, snapping bone before the rogue even howled.
Aria and two others crashed through the side, tearing through splintered wood and rusted metal. Her claws found flesh. Her teeth sank into muscle.
One rogue shifted mid-air and lunged at her, jaw open wide.
She rolled beneath him, came up behind, and bit deep into his hind leg. He screamed.
But this time—she didn't stop.
---
When it was over, the lodge was burning.
The Pack stood in a loose circle around the ruins, breathing heavy. Ash floated in the air like snow. The bodies of the rogues lay still, some mid-shift, their twisted forms caught between man and beast.
Aria's chest heaved, her silver coat streaked with blood.
"Why were they here?" she asked, back in human form now, clothed in a spare hoodie and jeans.
Lucien approached one of the bodies and pulled something from its neck.
A pendant. Crescent-shaped. Just like hers.
But inverted.
"What is that?" Aria asked.
Lucien's voice was low. "It's a mark of the Fallen."
---
Back at the Pack's camp, Aria stared at the pendant as it lay on the stone table in Aldric's hut. The Alpha examined it with narrowed eyes.
"This hasn't been seen in years," he murmured. "It was used by the rogue sects after the last Moon Rebellion."
"Moon Rebellion?" Aria echoed.
Aldric looked up at her. "Your father never told you?"
She shook her head. "He left when I was twelve. I barely remember him. He said… he said he had to protect us."
Aldric's mouth tightened. "He didn't protect you. He abandoned you. Just like he abandoned the Pack when it mattered most."
"What do you mean?"
Lucien spoke this time. "Your father was one of the generals in the last bloodline war. When the Hollow Ones rose, he was supposed to help stop them. Instead… he vanished. Took your mother and disappeared into human life."
Aria's voice was cold. "He ran."
"Yes," Aldric said. "And because he ran, the Hollow Ones lived."
---
That night, Aria couldn't sleep.
She lay curled beneath a thick wool blanket in a small cabin built by the Pack. The silence was unbearable—so she slipped out, barefoot, into the woods.
Lucien found her near the stream.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
She shrugged, staring into the moonlight reflected on the water. "Everyone thinks he's a coward. But part of me wants to believe he left to protect me. Maybe he thought… I wouldn't turn. Maybe he hoped the curse would skip me."
Lucien crouched beside her. "Maybe. Or maybe he knew what was coming. And chose fear over fate."
Aria looked at him. "Do you think I'll be like him?"
Lucien didn't hesitate. "No. Because he ran. You're fighting."
There was silence for a moment. And then…
"Thank you," she whispered.
He looked at her, his gaze intense, unreadable.
"You don't have to thank me. I didn't come to this town for kindness. I came to make sure the last Blackwood didn't die before her first full moon."
"But I didn't die," she said, voice barely audible.
Lucien's voice dropped. "No. You burned."
Their eyes locked.
And for a moment, the air between them tightened.
But before anything could pass between them, a howl shattered the night.
A warning.
---
They shifted instantly.
Aria's wolf sprang through the woods, following Lucien's black shadow, their paws silent but swift.
The howls came again—this time mixed with snarls.
A Pack member lay wounded near the edge of the training grounds, blood spilling across the grass. Another rogue stood above him, teeth bared.
But this one… wasn't like the others.
It was huge. Twice the size of the one from the lodge. Its fur was shadow-black, eyes glowing deep red.
And carved into its chest was a familiar symbol—
The inverted crescent.
Lucien growled. > "This one is marked. High rank."
> "Let's finish it," Aria replied.
They lunged together.
---
The rogue was fast. Too fast.
It ducked Lucien's first strike and slammed into Aria, sending her flying into a tree. She hit the bark hard, ribs cracking. But she got up, eyes glowing, fury flooding her system.
Lucien bit deep into the rogue's flank, but it howled and kicked him off.
Aria leapt for its throat, her jaws aiming for the kill.
But the rogue vanished.
One second it was there. The next—it dissolved into mist.
Aria skidded into the clearing, panting.
"What the hell was that?" she growled.
Lucien shifted back, his face grim. "It was a Shadowborn."
---
The next morning, Aldric gathered the Pack around the fire pit.
"The Shadowborn haven't been seen in a generation," he said, voice grim. "They're faster. Smarter. Tainted with dark magic."
Lucien tossed a branch into the fire. "This means the Hollow Ones are not just regrouping. They're evolving."
Aria stood, fists clenched. "We need to find out where they're coming from. Where they're hiding."
Maeve—still bandaged, but recovering—stepped forward. "Then we need to go deeper into the forest. Past the Veil."
Several Pack members stirred.
"The Veil's forbidden," one muttered.
"It's not forbidden," Maeve said. "It's just forgotten."
Lucien looked at her. "You've Seen something."
Maeve nodded. "In my dreams. There's something in the ruins. Something waiting."
Aria's voice rang clear. "Then we go."
---
They left at dawn.
Aria, Lucien, Maeve, and two others moved as a unit through the dense trees, past the boundary where the normal forest ended and something older began.
Here, the trees twisted higher, darker. The air shimmered faintly, like it was laced with static. The birds were silent. The sky seemed farther away.
"We're in the Veil," Lucien said quietly.
Maeve's eyes glowed faintly. "This place remembers blood."
---
It took hours to find the ruins.
They stumbled into a stone courtyard overtaken by roots and vines. Old archways leaned sideways, half-crushed by centuries. Carvings lined the stones—symbols of the moon, wolves, and a tree burning from the inside out.
"This was once a sacred ground," Lucien said.
Maeve touched a broken pillar. "The Hollow Ones defiled it."
Suddenly, Aria gasped.
The mark on her wrist burned—searing hot.
And in the center of the courtyard, something glowed beneath the leaves.
She knelt and brushed the dirt away.
It was a pendant.
The right way up. Silver. Bright.
Hers.
---
Maeve whispered, "It belonged to your mother."
Aria picked it up. It pulsed in her hand like a heartbeat.
As she held it, a voice echoed—faint and familiar.
> "If you find this, it means I failed. But you won't, Aria. You have the fire. You are the fire."
Tears welled in her eyes.
Lucien touched her shoulder. "What is it?"
She turned to him, breathless. "My mother left it for me. She knew they were coming."
Maeve's expression turned serious. "Then we need to find what she hid."
---
Night fell as they made camp near the ruins.
Aria sat beside the fire, staring into the flames.
Lucien joined her, his body warm against the cold.
"I saw you fight tonight," he said. "You didn't hesitate."
"I can't afford to."
"No," he said. "But I want you to know—you're not alone in this."
She looked at him. "A week ago, I didn't know any of this. Now I feel like I was born for it."
"You were," he said.
Then, softer: "And maybe… so was I. For you."
Their hands brushed.
And this time, neither pulled away.
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TO BE CONTINUED