Marcus's POV - Two Weeks Later
St. Catherine's Orphanage stood on a quiet Boston street, its brick facade weathered but maintained. Children's laughter echoed from the playground behind the building—a sound so innocent, so human, that it made my wolf stir uncomfortably.
"You feel it too?" Raven stood beside me, her golden eyes fixed on the building. "The wrongness of being here. Among humans. After everything."
"I feel it." I adjusted the collar of my jacket, hiding the fading scars Marcus—no, Daemon—had left. "But Kael died so his daughter could live. The least we can do is check on her."
We'd spent two weeks tracking down Sarah Moore. Two weeks of dead ends, false leads, and the creeping horror that maybe she'd been moved, maybe Elena had lied, maybe—
But the matron who answered the door confirmed it. Yes, they had a Sarah Moore. Three years old. Dropped off as an infant by a woman who'd paid five years of care in advance and never returned.
Elena.
"You're relatives?" The matron—a stern woman named Sister Margaret—studied us with shrewd eyes. "Sarah's never had visitors before."
"Distant cousins," Raven lied smoothly. "We only recently learned of her existence. Family matters are... complicated."
"Aren't they always." Sister Margaret gestured for us to follow. "She's in the playroom. But I should warn you—Sarah is... special."
My wolf perked up. "Special how?"
"She doesn't play with the other children much. Not because she's unfriendly, but because..." The matron paused at a closed door. "See for yourself."
She opened the door.
The playroom was large, filled with toys and colorful murals. A dozen children ran around, shouting and laughing. But in the corner, sitting alone with a picture book, was a little girl with dark hair and—
Amber eyes.
Kael's eyes.
My breath caught. She looked exactly like the childhood portraits of Kael I'd seen in Daemon's study—the same sharp features, the same serious expression, even the same way she tilted her head when concentrating.
"Sarah," Sister Margaret called. "You have visitors."
The girl looked up, and those amber eyes locked onto me and Raven with unnerving intensity. For a three-year-old, her gaze was far too knowing, too aware.
She stood and walked toward us with careful, measured steps. Not the clumsy toddle of a normal child, but the controlled movement of someone much older.
"You're wolves," she said in a clear, high voice.
The room went silent. Sister Margaret's face went white. "Sarah, what did we say about your imagination—"
"It's not imagination." Sarah's eyes never left ours. "I can smell it. You smell like the forest. Like the moon. Like..." She tilted her head. "Like family."
Raven and I exchanged glances. This wasn't normal. Even wolf children didn't manifest their senses this young, didn't know what they were until first shift at thirteen.
Unless—
"She's Primordial," Raven whispered, too quiet for human ears. "Kael's bloodline is strong in her."
"Can we speak with her?" I asked Sister Margaret. "Privately?"
The matron looked torn between curiosity and caution. Finally, she nodded. "Five minutes. In the garden. And I'll be watching from the window."
The garden was small but peaceful—a patch of grass surrounded by iron fencing. Sarah sat on a wooden bench, her little legs swinging, watching us with those unsettling amber eyes.
"You knew my father," she said. Not a question. A statement.
I nearly stumbled. "How—"
"I dream about him sometimes." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "A big man with sad eyes. He tells me to be strong. To be brave." She looked down at her hands. "But he never tells me his name. Why won't he tell me his name?"
Raven knelt in front of her. "Because he can't, little one. Your father... he's gone. He gave everything to protect you. To protect all of us."
"Did he love me?" Sarah's voice was small now, childlike. "Even though he never met me?"
"More than anything." My voice cracked. "He died making sure you'd have a chance to grow up. To be happy. To be free."
Sarah processed this with the gravity of someone far older than three. "The other children think I'm weird. Sister Margaret says I have too much imagination." She looked up at us. "But I'm not imagining you. You're real. And you're like me."
"Yes," I confirmed. "We're wolves. And so are you, Sarah. When you're older, when you're ready, you'll understand what that means."
"Will I be strong?"
"You'll be powerful beyond measure," Raven said. "Your father's blood runs through you. The oldest, strongest blood in our world. But power means nothing without wisdom, without compassion." She took Sarah's small hand. "We came to make sure you were safe. To check on you."
"And to give you this."
I pulled out a small wooden box from my jacket. Inside was Elena's pendant—the one she'd worn that night at the wedding. The silver crescent moon with the Eclipse seal.
"Your mother wanted you to have this," I said. "She loved you very much. They both did."
Sarah took the pendant with reverent care, her small fingers tracing the engraving. "Will you come back? Will you visit again?"
"We will," I promised. "And when you're older, when you're ready to know the full truth, we'll tell you everything. About your father. About your heritage. About the world you come from."
"And the world I'll return to?" Those amber eyes gleamed with something ancient. "I can feel it calling me. The moon. The hunt. The pack." She looked directly at me. "I'm not meant to stay here, am I? Among humans."
"No," Raven said gently. "But you're not ready to leave yet either. You need to grow. Learn. Become strong enough to protect yourself."
"From what?"
From the monsters who would use you, I wanted to say. From the wolves who would see your Primordial blood as a weapon. From the legacy of violence and betrayal that destroyed your father.
But I couldn't tell a three-year-old that.
"From the world," I said instead. "It's not always kind. Not always fair. But your father gave you something more valuable than power, Sarah. He gave you a choice. To be what you want to be. Not what others expect."
She smiled—the first real smile I'd seen from her. "I'll make him proud. I promise."
"You already have."
Sister Margaret appeared at the garden door, signaling that our time was up. We stood to leave, but Sarah grabbed my hand.
"Wait. I need to tell you something. Something important."
"What is it?"
Her expression turned serious again. "The man with the broken smile. He watches me sometimes."
Ice flooded my veins. "What man?"
"I don't know his name. But he comes at night, stands across the street, just... watching. He smells wrong. Like death and old blood." Sarah's grip tightened. "And yesterday, he smiled at me. His teeth were too sharp."
Raven and I locked eyes. Someone was watching Sarah. Someone who knew what she was.
"Did he approach you?" I asked urgently. "Did he try to talk to you?"
"No. But I think he will soon." Sarah's voice dropped to a whisper. "He smells like you. Like pack. But twisted. Broken."
"Describe him," Raven demanded. "What did he look like?"
"Old. Gray hair. Scars on his face." Sarah touched her own cheek. "Like someone burned him. And his eyes..." She shivered. "His eyes were red."
My blood turned to ice.
Red eyes. Burns. The smell of death.
"Daemon."
Raven's POV
We left the orphanage at a run, ignoring Sister Margaret's protests. Once we were three blocks away, in an empty alley, Marcus grabbed my arm.
"It's not possible. The Council executed him. I watched Aldric drive the silver stake through his heart."
"Did you see him burn?" I asked. "Did you watch the body turn to ash?"
Marcus's silence was answer enough.
"He escaped." The realization was horrifying. "Somehow, the bastard survived and now he's stalking Kael's daughter."
"But why?" Marcus paced like a caged wolf. "His power is gone. The ritual failed. What could he possibly—"
"Revenge." I closed my eyes, thinking. "And opportunity. Sarah is the last living direct descendant of Kael. If Daemon could somehow tap into her Primordial blood, use it to—"
"Reconstitute his power." Marcus's face went pale. "He's planning another ritual. A smaller one. Using Sarah as the catalyst."
We had to act. Fast.
"I'm calling the Council," I said, pulling out my phone. "We need guards, wards, protection—"
"It'll take them days to mobilize." Marcus was already shifting, his wolf form erupting through his clothes. "Sarah doesn't have days. If Daemon knows we found her, he'll accelerate whatever he's planning."
He was right. Damn it, he was right.
"Then we do this ourselves," I said. "You guard the orphanage. I'll track Daemon's scent, find where he's hiding."
"Raven, you can't face him alone—"
"I won't be alone." I pulled out the obsidian communication stone Kael had given me in the tomb—the one I'd kept as a memento. "I'll call in every favor Eclipse still has. Every ally, every old pack bond, every—"
The stone began to glow.
Not with the pale blue light of its normal activation.
With amber fire.
"What the—" The stone burned hot in my hand, but I didn't drop it. Couldn't drop it. Because through the fire, I felt something impossible.
A presence.
Familiar. Powerful. Lost.
"Kael?" I whispered.
The stone pulsed once in response.
"That's impossible," Marcus breathed. "He was erased. The Goddess said—"
"The Goddess said he'd be erased from existence. From memory. From history." I stared at the glowing stone. "But she also said a piece of him would endure through Sarah."
Understanding dawned in Marcus's eyes. "The father-daughter bond. It's stronger than any magic, even divine erasure."
"He's not fully gone." I could feel it now, through the stone. A fragment of consciousness. A sliver of soul that refused to die. "He's... scattered. Barely coherent. But he's aware enough to know his daughter's in danger."
The stone pulsed again, more urgently.
"Can we reconstruct him?" Marcus asked desperately. "If there's even a chance—"
"Not without a vessel. And not without massive amounts of Primordial power to anchor his essence." I hated saying it. "It would take months of preparation. Ritual circles. Sacred grounds. Maybe even another Blood Moon."
"Then what good is knowing he's still out there?" Marcus's voice was anguished. "What good is feeling him if we can't—"
The stone exploded with light.
Not figuratively. Literally. Amber flames burst from the obsidian surface, racing up my arm, burning but not harming. The fire spread across my body, then leaped to Marcus, connecting us.
And through that connection, I felt him.
Not whole. Not complete. But present.
Kael's voice echoed in both our minds, distant and fractured like a signal from across the universe:
"Protect... Sarah... Daemon... plans... full moon... three days..."
The connection cut out. The flames vanished. The stone crumbled to dust in my hand.
But we'd heard enough.
"Three days until the next full moon," Marcus said. "That's when he'll strike."
"Then we have three days to prepare." I looked toward the orphanage, where a three-year-old girl sat unaware that the broken ghost of her father was trying to protect her from beyond erasure. "We fortify the orphanage. Set wards. Gather allies."
"And if Daemon breaks through anyway?"
I met his eyes. "Then we make him regret surviving the first time."
Daemon's POV - Two Days Later
They thought I was broken.
The Council. Marcus. That bitch Raven.
They thought stripping my power, executing me, burning my body would be enough to kill me.
Fools.
I'd spent thirty years preparing for every contingency, every possible failure. The moment I began the Blood Moon Ascension, I'd created an insurance policy—a phylactery, hidden in the old Eclipse catacombs, containing a fragment of my soul.
When the silver stake pierced my heart, when my body burned, my consciousness simply... transferred.
It took me two weeks to reconstitute a physical form. Weaker, yes. Scarred and broken. But alive.
And now, watching the orphanage from across the street, I could smell her.
Sarah Moore.
Kael's brat. The last vestige of Eclipse Primordial blood.
My nephews and niece thought they'd won. Thought they'd saved everyone.
But they'd left me the ultimate weapon.
A child. Untrained. Unprotected. Ripe for harvest.
The full moon was tomorrow night. I'd already prepared the ritual circle in the abandoned church three blocks from here. All I needed was the girl.
My informants had told me Marcus and Raven were here, setting up wards, calling in guards. But they were too late.
I'd already infiltrated.
Sister Margaret—dear, sweet, easily-manipulated Sister Margaret—had been under my thrall for days. A simple compulsion spell, just strong enough to make her trust me, to let me into the orphanage after hours.
Tonight, while Marcus and Raven patrolled the outside, while the Council's guards watched the obvious entrances, I would slip in through the basement.
And I would take the child.
One final ritual. One final chance to claim the power that should have been mine.
And if Marcus or Raven tried to stop me?
Well, I'd already killed one of my nephews. What were two more?
I smiled, feeling my scarred face crack with the expression, and waited for nightfall.
Sarah's POV
I knew something was wrong.
Sister Margaret had been acting strange all week. Her eyes were glazed, her movements mechanical. She'd stopped scolding the other children, stopped organizing activities, just... drifted through the halls like a ghost.
And the smell. That awful smell of rot and death that clung to her now.
The same smell as the man with broken smile.
He was coming. Tonight. I could feel it.
I sat in my bed, the other children asleep around me, clutching the pendant Marcus had given me. In the moonlight, the Eclipse seal glowed faintly.
Be strong, I told myself. Be brave. Like Father would want.
Father.
I'd never met him, but I knew him. In my dreams, in my blood, in the way the moon sang to me through the window. He was there. Always there.
And tonight, I felt him closer than ever.
Footsteps in the hallway. Slow. Deliberate.
The door opened.
Sister Margaret stood in the doorway, her eyes completely black now. Behind her, the man with the broken smile.
"Hello, little one," Daemon said, his voice like gravel. "Time to come with me."
I wanted to scream. Wanted to run. But my body wouldn't move.
He'd cast a paralysis spell. I could feel it wrapped around me like invisible chains.
"Don't be afraid," Daemon crooned, walking closer. "This won't hurt. Well..." He smiled. "It will. But only for a moment. And then you'll give me your power, and I'll—"
The pendant around my neck began to burn.
Not with heat. With cold. Ice-cold fire that spread across my chest, my arms, my entire body.
Daemon's eyes widened. "What—"
The pendant exploded with amber light.
And I felt him.
Father.
Not just a dream. Not just a memory. But present, here, real.
His presence flooded through me, burning away Daemon's paralysis spell, filling me with strength I didn't know I had. My three-year-old body shouldn't have been capable of what happened next.
But Kael's essence was guiding me. Protecting me.
I shifted.
Not the normal shift that took years to master. This was instant, instinctive, perfect. My body transformed into a wolf—not a pup, but a full-sized she-wolf with midnight-black fur and eyes that blazed amber and white.
Primordial. Just like Father.
Daemon stumbled backward. "Impossible! She's too young! The power should be dormant until—"
I lunged.
My jaws—Father's jaws—closed around his throat. He screamed, thrashing, trying to throw me off.
But I held on.
Because I wasn't alone. Father was with me. His strength, his rage, his love flowing through every fiber of my being.
The orphanage doors burst open. Marcus and Raven rushed in, weapons drawn, ready to fight—
And stopped dead at the sight of me, a three-year-old Primordial wolf, tearing out Daemon's throat.
When I finally released him, his body hit the floor with a wet thump. Dead. Truly dead this time.
The amber light faded. I shifted back to human, naked and shivering on the floor.
Raven rushed forward, wrapping me in her jacket. "Sarah! Are you—how did you—"
"Father helped me." My voice was small again, childlike. "He was there. I felt him."
Marcus knelt beside us, examining Daemon's corpse. "He's gone. Really gone this time." He looked at me with awe. "You killed him, Sarah. You saved yourself."
"We killed him." I touched the pendant, which had stopped glowing. "Father and me. Together."
"Kael." Raven whispered his name like a prayer. "Even erased, even scattered across existence, he found a way to protect his daughter."
She was crying. They both were.
And so was I, though I didn't fully understand why.
I just knew that my father had been with me. That he'd saved me. That somewhere, in some way, he was still watching over me.
Epilogue - Five Years Later
Sarah's POV
I stood at the edge of the forest, eight years old now, staring at the path that led to Silverfang territory. To the pack Marcus had rebuilt. To the family waiting for me.
"Ready?" Raven asked beside me.
I nodded. "Ready."
For five years, they'd visited me at the orphanage. Teaching me. Training me. Preparing me for this moment—when I'd leave the human world behind and join my real family.
Sister Margaret had no memory of Daemon's attack, thanks to Raven's memory spells. The Council had paid for my care until I was old enough to make the choice myself.
And I chose the wolves.
"Your father would be proud," Marcus said, appearing in his human form. He was Alpha now, truly Alpha, leading Silverfang with the honor Daemon never had.
"I hope so." I touched the pendant I still wore. In the past five years, I'd felt Father's presence three more times—always when I was in danger, always protecting me.
The erasure hadn't been complete. Couldn't be complete. Because love, real love, transcended even divine magic.
"Come on," Raven took my hand. "Your pack is waiting."
We walked together into the forest, into the moonlight, into the world I was born for.
And as the moon rose full and bright above us, I could have sworn I heard a voice—distant, fractured, but unmistakably his:
"I love you, little wolf. Always."
I smiled.
"I love you too, Father."
And somewhere in the space between existence and erasure, Kael Blackclaw smiled back.