Night had returned, but Kael didn't sleep.
He sat against the cold stone of the ruined shrine, the moonlight casting shadows over the blood-caked ground. Around him, the remains of the village still smoked. He hadn't left since the massacre. Not even when the crows began circling. Not even when the wolves began howling in the distance.
He didn't feel like Kael anymore.
Something inside him was changing. Brewing. Shifting.
The mark on his chest—once faint and dormant—now pulsed in slow, steady rhythms like a second heartbeat. It was as if something ancient had awakened within him, and it wasn't going back to sleep.
He could still feel the moment it happened. The rage. The sorrow. The power. When Lila died, it was like a chain had snapped deep inside him. He didn't remember transforming. He didn't remember killing. He only remembered the feel of it—freedom and fury mingled with unbearable grief.
Kael clenched his jaw.
This was not normal werewolf power.
This was something… more.
---
As dawn approached, Kael finally stood. He had no food. No shelter. Nowhere to go. But he knew one thing:
He couldn't stay.
Something told him others would come. And not just scavengers.
He headed north, following the forgotten mountain paths Marrek once spoke of. The Path of the Ancients—hidden trails that led deep into the Frostvale Mountains. There were ruins there. Old temples. Forgotten knowledge. If he wanted answers about who he was—what he was—that was the only place to start.
But the wilderness had changed.
The further Kael climbed, the more he felt it—like something primal was watching from the trees. Wolves didn't howl normally here. The air was too quiet. The moon too bright.
On the third night, it found him.
A pack of six cloaked figures cornered him near a ravine, flanking him from both sides like hunters with a prize. Their leader, a man with pale hair and jagged scars, stepped forward.
"Kael of the Shadowfang," he said, voice low and cold. "You wear the mark."
Kael backed up slowly. "What do you want?"
"Your blood."
No more words.
They attacked.
Kael barely had time to dodge before one lunged. Another flanked him with silver-bladed claws. He rolled under the swipe, but took a slash across the ribs—pain burst through him.
They were fast.
Stronger than normal wolves.
Trained.
He fought like a cornered animal—clumsy punches, wild kicks. He was outmatched. Blood sprayed from his arm, and his knees buckled as a boot cracked into his chest, throwing him against a tree.
The leader drew a cruel, black dagger.
"Your blood will wake the old gods. The mark belongs to us."
Kael spit blood. "You're not taking anything from me."
The dagger stabbed down—
—and stopped inches from his throat.
Because Kael's eyes burst into silver flame.
The mark flared with blinding light.
Everything inside him snapped.
Bones cracked—not with pain, but power. His spine arched, muscle exploded under his skin, claws tore through his fingertips, and his mouth stretched into a wolf's snarl—but this wasn't a full transformation.
This was warform.
A half-shifted state only legends whispered about. Man and beast fused by raw dominance.
He roared—and the forest trembled.
The attackers hesitated, just a second too long.
Kael tore into them.
He moved like a shadow on fire. His claws slashed through cloaks, his jaws crushed bone. The man with the black dagger screamed as Kael lifted him by the throat and slammed him into the ground so hard the earth cracked.
"Tell me who sent you," Kael growled, his voice layered with something inhuman.
The man coughed blood, eyes wide with fear. "The… the Crimson Alphas… They know you live…"
Kael blinked.
Crimson Alphas?
The oldest and most powerful of the surviving high-bloodline packs. Ruthless. Obsessed with domination. It was said they once tried to resurrect the Moonborn King to use him as a weapon—and failed.
Now they knew he existed.
They would never stop hunting him.
Kael dropped the dying man.
The others had fled, terrified.
He stood in the silence of the forest, his half-shifted form still trembling. The warform slowly faded, fur retracting, claws shrinking, bones resetting with crunching pops.
He fell to his knees, exhausted.
But something had changed.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't weak.
He was terrifying.
---
That night, Kael lit no fire. He sat in the dark, wrapping his wounds in silence.
The name Crimson Alphas burned in his mind like poison. They had destroyed his village. Killed Lila. Hunted him like prey. But they had made a mistake.
They thought he was weak.
They thought he was still a pup.
But Kael was no longer prey.
He was the awakening of something ancient. Something lost.
Something Moonborn.
And he
would not stop until every Alpha who touched his life with blood and betrayal knelt before his claws.
Or died screaming beneath them.