Kael's POV - Three Hours Later
The Sacred Grove looked like a graveyard.
Bodies littered the ground—some dead, most wounded. Healers moved between them, their hands glowing with medicinal magic. The scent of blood and death hung so thick in the air it made my Primordial instincts twitch with hunger.
I forced the feeling down. The massive Primordial form had receded after the battle, leaving me in my hybrid state. Less monstrous, but still powerful enough to make normal wolves give me a wide berth.
Elena's body lay on a ceremonial cloth near what remained of the altar. Someone had cleaned her face, closed her eyes, made her look peaceful. But I could still see the wound in her chest, could still smell her blood on the grass.
Our daughter.
The thought kept circling my mind like a vulture. I had a daughter. Three years old, hidden in the human world, believing she was an orphan named Sarah Moore.
Did she know she had a father? Did she dream of wolves?
Did she have my eyes?
"Kael."
Marcus approached cautiously, now dressed in borrowed clothes. His face was still healing from the wolfsbane burns—angry red welts that would scar even with our enhanced healing.
"We need to talk about what happens next," he said quietly.
"I'm going to Boston." My voice was flat, emotionless. "I'm finding my daughter."
"I know. And you should." Marcus glanced at Elena's body. "But there's a problem. Several problems, actually."
"Speak."
He gestured to the forest edge, where Council guards were dragging Daemon's unconscious form toward a prison wagon. "Daemon's not as broken as he appeared. The healers examined him—most of his injuries are superficial. He let us think we'd beaten him."
Ice flooded my veins. "What?"
"He's planning something. I can feel it through what's left of the pack bond." Marcus's jaw tightened. "Before you arrived, before the ceremony, he spent an hour in the Grove's center, alone. Said he was 'preparing the blessing.' But I saw runes carved into the altar. Old ones. Eclipse ones."
I turned to look at the shattered altar. In the debris, I could make out symbols—ancient, complex, written in what looked like dried blood.
"Raven." I needed her expertise. "Where—"
"Already there."
Raven knelt by the altar's remains, her fingers tracing the runes, her expression growing darker with each passing second. When she finally stood, her face was white.
"We need to leave. Now. Everyone needs to leave the Grove immediately."
"What is it?" I demanded.
"A summoning circle." Her voice shook—the first time I'd seen her truly afraid. "Daemon didn't just carve these tonight. These runes have been here for months, building power, waiting for the right moment." She looked at me. "Waiting for enough death to activate them."
The blood drained from my face. "The battle. All those deaths—"
"Fed the ritual." Raven grabbed my arm. "Kael, do you know what tonight is? The date?"
I thought back. October 31st. Halloween in the human world.
"It's the Blood Moon," Marcus whispered. "The same moon we were born under thirty years ago."
"Exactly." Raven's grip tightened. "And with enough sacrificial blood, enough death at the crossing point between wolf and human worlds, Daemon can use these runes to—"
The earth trembled.
Not a small tremor. The entire Grove shook, trees swaying, stone cracking. Wolves stumbled, some falling to their knees.
From the prison wagon, Daemon's laughter echoed across the clearing—mad, triumphant, victorious.
"Too late!" His voice boomed with unnatural power. "The blood has been spilled! The moon rises! The ritual begins!"
The altar's ruins exploded with crimson light.
The runes Daemon had carved blazed to life, spreading across the ground like wildfire, racing outward in geometric patterns that covered the entire Sacred Grove. Every body, every drop of blood, every wolf standing within the circle—all connected by pulsing red lines of power.
"MOVE!" Aldric's staff blazed with defensive magic. "EVERYONE OUT OF THE CIRCLE—"
The runes flared brighter, and suddenly a barrier rose—a dome of blood-red energy that trapped everyone inside. Wolves crashed into it trying to escape, only to be thrown back.
We were caged.
"Welcome, children, to my masterpiece." Daemon stood in the prison wagon, his chains falling away like paper. The injuries we'd inflicted were healing in real-time, muscle and bone knitting back together. "Thirty years of planning. Thirty years of patience. And finally, finally, all the pieces are in place."
"What have you done?" Raven's voice was deadly quiet.
"What you should have done, niece, if you hadn't been so weak." Daemon stepped from the wagon, and with each step, he grew larger, more powerful. His wolf was manifesting without him shifting—a partial transformation that should have been impossible.
No. Not just wolf. Something else. Something ancient and wrong.
"The Eclipse Clan guarded the secret to immortality," Daemon continued, his voice reverberating with inhuman power. "They called it the Blood Moon Ascension. A ritual that would transform a worthy wolf into something beyond Alpha, beyond Primordial—a Lycan God."
"That ritual was forbidden!" Raven snarled. "It requires the sacrifice of an entire pack! It requires—"
"The blood of Primordials." Daemon's smile was terrible. "Which is why I've spent thirty years creating you, boys. Stealing you from Eclipse, sealing your power, letting it build and build until you were walking batteries of ancient magic." He gestured to the carnage around us. "And why I orchestrated this battle. Every wolf who died here? Their blood fed the circle. Every warrior who fell? Fuel for my transformation."
"You used us." Marcus's voice was hollow. "All of us. The wedding, the trap, Elena's death—"
"All necessary." Daemon's form continued to grow, now eight feet tall, his features becoming monstrous. "Elena was convenient collateral. Her death ensured Kael would fully awaken his Primordial power, making the sacrifice even more potent." He looked directly at me. "I should thank you for killing so many of my warriors, son. Their deaths only made the circle stronger."
Rage exploded through me. I lunged, my hybrid form moving with Primordial speed—
Daemon caught my throat with one hand and lifted me off my feet.
"Still so impulsive." He squeezed, cutting off my air. "But don't worry. Your suffering will serve a greater purpose. When I consume your power, your essence, your very soul, I'll become unstoppable. Strong enough to challenge the Moon Goddess herself."
He threw me across the clearing. I crashed into the barrier, electricity coursing through my body, burning, paralyzing.
Marcus attacked from the side, his silver wolf a blur—but Daemon backhanded him with casual strength, sending him tumbling.
Raven began chanting, her hands weaving complex spell patterns, trying to disrupt the ritual—but Daemon gestured and the runes on the ground flared, sending tendrils of red energy wrapping around her, binding her in place.
"None of you understand," Daemon said, his transformation accelerating. Black fur sprouted across his body, but it was wrong—too dark, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. His eyes turned crimson, glowing with malevolent intelligence. "I've already won. The moment the Blood Moon reached its zenith, the moment you all stood within my circle, the ritual became inevitable."
He raised his arms to the sky.
The moon—full, massive, dominating the night—began to turn red.
Not the soft crimson of a lunar eclipse. This was the color of fresh arterial blood, pulsing like a living thing.
"Behold!" Daemon's voice echoed with divine power. "The Blood Moon Ascension! Three Primordials, bound by blood! One hundred warriors, dead or dying! And one Grove, sanctified by ancient magic! Everything I need to transcend mortality!"
The red lines connecting every wolf in the circle began to pull. I felt it immediately—my strength draining, my power being siphoned away through the runes beneath my feet.
Around me, wolves collapsed. The injured died instantly, their remaining life force ripped away. Even the healthy warriors stumbled, their energy being harvested.
"Stop!" Aldric slammed his staff into the ground, trying to counter-spell, but the ritual was too strong. "You'll kill everyone! The Council will—"
"The Council is trapped like everyone else." Daemon laughed. "Even your vaunted powers can't break my circle. Only three things can stop the Blood Moon Ascension: destroying the one who initiated it, shattering the moon itself, or..." He paused for dramatic effect. "...willing sacrifice from the Primordials at its heart."
"What?" I struggled to my feet, my hybrid form flickering as power drained from me.
"The ritual needs Primordial essence to complete. I planned to take it by force—rip it from your souls as you died." Daemon's smile was cruel. "But if you were to willingly give it to me, the transformation would be even more powerful. So here's my offer, nephews, niece."
He gestured to the hundreds of wolves collapsing around us, their life force being consumed.
"Surrender yourselves. Let me absorb your power without resistance. In exchange, I'll release everyone else. Let them live." His crimson eyes gleamed. "Or refuse, and I'll drain every single wolf in this Grove to fuel my ascension. Men, women, children—everyone dies. Except you three, of course. I'll save you for last, let you watch as I slaughter hundreds because of your pride."
"You're lying," Marcus spat blood. "You'll kill them anyway."
"Perhaps." Daemon shrugged. "But you'll never know unless you refuse. So what will it be, Eclipse heirs? Will you sacrifice yourselves to save these unworthy masses? Or will you let your selfishness doom them all?"
I looked around the Grove. At Zane, on his knees, blood seeping from his nose as the ritual drained him. At the Bloodfang warriors who'd followed me into battle, now dying because I'd led them into this trap. At the Council members, powerless to stop their own slaughter.
At Raven and Marcus, my real family, both struggling to stand as their power was harvested.
Our daughter, a voice whispered in my mind. If you die here, she'll never know her father. She'll grow up alone, just like you did.
But if I refused, hundreds would die. Children. Innocents. Wolves who'd never asked to be part of Daemon's mad scheme.
"There has to be another way," Raven gasped, still trying to weave counter-spells with failing strength. "The ritual must have a weakness—"
"It has one." A new voice cut through the chaos.
Elena.
No. Not Elena. Her body, standing up, moving, but her eyes were glowing with silver light—the color of the Moon Goddess's blessing.
"Impossible," Daemon whispered. "She's dead. I watched Marcus kill her—"
"Her body is dead." The voice that came from Elena's lips was ancient, powerful, nothing like the she-wolf I'd known. "But I claimed her soul before it could depart. She prayed to me with her dying breath, begged me to save her child's father, to give him a chance to live."
The figure stepped forward, and I realized it wasn't Elena at all anymore. It was something using her body as a vessel. Something divine.
"Moon Goddess," Aldric gasped, dropping to his knees in reverence.
"Rise, Elder. There's no time for ceremony." The Goddess looked at Daemon with eyes that held eons of judgment. "You dare invoke my moon in your twisted ritual? You dare use the sacred power I granted your ancestors for your own ambition?"
"The power was always meant to be taken!" Daemon snarled, but I noticed he didn't attack. Even he feared the Goddess. "The strong rule! The weak serve! That is the law of wolves!"
"That is your law. Not mine." She turned to face me, Marcus, and Raven. "Children of Eclipse, stolen and broken. You have a choice before you."
"What choice?" I asked.
"Daemon's ritual can be stopped, but only through a counter-ritual of equal power." Her expression was sad. "One Primordial must willingly sacrifice their life, their power, their very essence to shatter the Blood Moon circle. In doing so, they'll save everyone here—but they will be erased from existence. No afterlife. No rest. Simply... gone."
"One of us has to die," Marcus said flatly.
"Yes." The Goddess looked between us. "But you must choose. I cannot make this decision for you. Free will is my greatest gift—and greatest burden—to your kind."
Silence fell across the Grove, broken only by the groans of dying wolves and Daemon's labored breathing as he tried to maintain the ritual.
I looked at Raven. At my sister, who'd spent thirty years in a tomb, who'd finally been freed, who deserved to rebuild her clan and live the life that had been stolen from her.
At Marcus. At my brother, manipulated and abused, forced to become Daemon's weapon, now trying to atone by becoming a better Alpha than our false father ever was.
Then I thought of my daughter. Sarah. Three years old. Hidden in Boston. Waiting for a father she'd never met.
The choice was obvious.
"I'll do it."
"Kael, no—" Raven reached for me.
"I have to." I looked at her, then at Marcus. "You two have clans to rebuild. People depending on you. But me?" I laughed bitterly. "I'm an exile with a stolen pack and a daughter I've never met. If one of us has to be erased..." I met the Goddess's eyes. "Better me than them."
"Are you certain?" She asked. "This is not a decision you can take back. You will cease to exist. Your daughter will never know you. The world will forget you ever lived."
That hurt more than any wound Daemon had ever given me.
But I nodded. "I'm certain."
"NO!" Marcus grabbed my arm. "Kael, you can't—there has to be another way—"
"There isn't." I pulled away gently. "But I need you to promise me something."
"Anything."
"Find Sarah. Tell her..." My voice cracked. "Tell her that her father loved her. Even if he never got to meet her. Tell her I made this choice so she could live in a world without monsters like Daemon."
Marcus's eyes filled with tears. "I promise."
I turned to Raven. "Rebuild Eclipse. Make it what it should have been. Teach Marcus and the others the old ways. And..." I paused. "Forgive yourself. None of this was your fault."
"Kael, I—" Her voice broke. "I'm sorry. For all of it. If I'd been stronger, if I'd escaped sooner—"
"Then we wouldn't be here now, ready to stop him." I smiled. "Sometimes the longest path is the right one."
I walked toward the center of the circle, toward the altar's remains, toward the heart of Daemon's ritual.
The Goddess followed. "When you're ready, take my hand. The counter-ritual will activate immediately. Your essence will burn through the circle, shattering it, releasing everyone. But the pain..." She looked sad. "The pain will be beyond anything you've experienced. Your very soul will be torn apart."
"Will it be quick?"
"No."
I nodded. Looked back one last time at the family I'd just found—and was about to lose forever.
Then I reached for the Goddess's hand—
"WAIT!"
Marcus was suddenly beside me. "I'm coming too."
"Marcus, no, you don't have to—"
"She said one Primordial's sacrifice would shatter the circle. But three Primordials?" He looked at Raven, who was walking toward us despite her bound state. "Three Primordials sacrificing together? That wouldn't just break the ritual. It would obliterate it. Erase every trace of Daemon's magic. Make sure he could never try this again."
"And kill all three of you," the Goddess said quietly.
"Yes." Raven stood beside us now, the red tendrils still wrapped around her but weakening as she channeled her remaining power. "But Marcus is right. A single sacrifice might not be enough. Daemon's ritual is too strong. It would just reconstitute, rebuild, try again in another generation."
"But three of us?" Marcus looked at me. "Three Eclipse heirs, three Primordials, three souls willingly given? That would end this permanently."
"You have families," I protested. "Clans to rebuild, lives to—"
"I have blood," Raven interrupted. "Nothing else. Eclipse died with my mother. I'm just a ghost haunting the ruins."
"And I'm a monster wearing my brother's face," Marcus added. "Every time I look in the mirror, I see what Daemon made me. I killed Elena, Kael. I killed the mother of your child. There's no redemption for that."
"Marcus—"
"Let me do this." His eyes—our eyes—were clear for the first time since I could remember. "Let me make one good choice. One decision that isn't poisoned by Daemon's manipulation."
I looked between them. At my sister and my brother. My real family, found and lost in the span of hours.
"Together?" I asked.
"Together," they answered.
We joined hands—Raven, Marcus, and me—and reached toward the Goddess.
"So be it." She touched our joined hands. "Your sacrifice will be remembered, Eclipse heirs. Not by the world, which will forget you. But by me. I will carry your names in my light forever."
"Will someone tell my daughter?" I had to ask. "Will someone make sure she knows?"
The Goddess's smile was sad. "A piece of you will endure, Kael Blackclaw. Not in memory, not in history, but in her. Your essence will live on through your child. And when she's old enough, when the time is right, the truth will find her."
It wasn't much. But it was enough.
"Do it."
The Goddess's power flowed through us like liquid fire.
The pain was immediate, excruciating, infinite. My soul began to burn, to unravel, to be consumed by divine flame. But I held on—held on to Marcus's hand, to Raven's hand, to the connection between us.
We're family, I thought as my consciousness began to dissolve. Real family. Not bound by Daemon's lies, but by choice.
The counter-ritual exploded outward.
A wave of silver-white light burst from our joined hands, racing along Daemon's red runes, overwriting them, erasing them. Where the light touched, the Blood Moon's power shattered.
Daemon screamed as his ritual collapsed. "NO! NO! I WAS SO CLOSE—"
The light hit him like a physical force, burning away the transformation he'd begun, stripping the stolen power, reducing him to nothing more than a broken old wolf.
The barrier fell.
The Blood Moon faded back to its normal silver-white.
And I felt myself disappear.
Not dying. Erasing. Like I'd never existed at all.
My last thought was of a little girl with amber eyes, somewhere in Boston, who would never know her father had died to save the world.
Marcus's POV
I woke up gasping, my body intact but my soul feeling hollow.
Beside me, Raven stirred, then sat up, looking just as empty as I felt.
"Did we...?" She couldn't finish the question.
"We're alive." My voice was hoarse. "But Kael..."
I looked around the Grove. Wolves were standing, confused, their wounds healed by the counter-ritual's power. The Lycan Council was recovering, Aldric already organizing evacuation efforts.
And Daemon—Daemon was a withered husk, barely conscious, all his power gone.
But there was no sign of Kael.
No body. No trace. Not even a memory imprint.
"He's truly gone," the Goddess said. She still wore Elena's form, but it was fading now, the body beginning to decompose as nature reclaimed it. "All three of you were meant to vanish. But at the last moment..." She looked at me and Raven. "Kael made a choice. He channeled the majority of the sacrifice through himself, burning brighter, faster, letting his essence fuel most of the counter-ritual. He saved you."
"Why?" Raven whispered. "Why would he—"
"Because he was a true Alpha." The Goddess's smile was warm. "He protected his pack. His family. Even at the cost of his own existence." She began to fade. "Remember him, even though the world won't. Remember Kael Blackclaw, who gave everything."
Then she was gone, and Elena's body collapsed, empty.
I stood on shaking legs and walked to where Kael had been standing. Nothing remained. Not ash. Not even a scent trail.
Just... absence.
"What do we tell people?" Raven asked, her voice hollow. "How do we explain—"
"We don't." Aldric approached, his expression grim. "The counter-ritual's power is already working. Memories are shifting. Wolves who saw Kael tonight are forgetting him. By morning, most won't remember he ever existed."
"But we will?" I had to know.
"You were part of the sacrifice. The forgetting doesn't affect you." Aldric placed a hand on my shoulder. "Which means you bear the burden of remembering what the world has lost."
A burden. Yes. But also a gift.
"And Daemon?" I looked at the broken wolf being loaded into the prison wagon, this time with real chains, real guards.
"Will face trial and execution." Aldric's voice was final. "His crimes are too numerous, too heinous. Even without Kael to testify, we have enough evidence."
I nodded. Looked at Raven. "We should go. There's... there's a little girl in Boston who deserves to know she had a father. Even if we can't tell her his name."
"Sarah Moore," Raven said softly. "St. Catherine's Orphanage."
"Will you come with me?"
She nodded. "He was my cousin. My brother. I owe him that much."
Together, we left the Sacred Grove. Behind us, the last traces of the Blood Moon ritual faded, taking with them the memory of the wolf who'd saved us all.
But I would remember.
We both would.
And someday, when Sarah was old enough, we'd find a way to tell her the truth.
That her father was a hero.