Maris's fingers were still shaking when she grabbed Mathew by the collar and slammed him against the porch beam. Wood cracked. His head snapped back, teeth bared, but he didn't fight her.
"You froze," she growled, her voice barely human. "You let it in."
"I didn't—"
"You let it near the stone."
Her claws had slid out, the tips of them grazing the side of his neck. She was breathing hard, her nostrils flared with rage. Her pupils thinned to slits, burning silver in the moonlight. The alpha in her was awake now — fully awake.
"We were supposed to guard it, Mathew. That's our job. That's what we were born for." Her voice cracked into something guttural. "And you stood there like a coward while that thing smiled at us like it knew everything—like it enjoyed watching us fall apart."
Mathew shoved her back, just enough to put space between them, but not enough to challenge her outright. "I wasn't going to let it touch you."
Maris snarled. "That's not the point."
"It is the point," he snapped. "I saw the way it looked at you. Like you were prey. Like it already owned you."
She froze.
"I wasn't about to lose you to something like that," he continued, voice quieter but trembling. "Not like Mom. Not like the others."
Maris looked away for half a second — just half — but it was enough for her rage to tremble on the edge of grief. She tasted iron behind her teeth. Her claws retracted.
"That thing…" Mathew whispered, eyes haunted, "it wasn't just murderous. It looked happy about it. Like it wanted us to move so it could see how fast we'd break."
Maris turned slowly toward him. "That wasn't a normal vampire."
"No," he agreed. "That wasn't even close."
They both stood in silence, breathing hard, hearts still racing in sync,they were scared.
But as she muttered under his breath, "Next time, I won't freeze. Even if it costs me you."
A shrill voice shattered the air.
"Maris! Mathew! Come quick—it's your father!"
Maris didn't breathe.
Didn't think.
Her whole body ignited.
She ran.
The forest blurred around her. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, louder than the wind tearing past her, louder than Mathew's footsteps trailing behind. The trees were a smear of green and brown; the world narrowed to a single need: Get to him. Now.
She smelled blood before she saw it.
Metallic. Heavy.
Then she broke into the clearing.
And time stopped.
The pack was gathered, motionless, eyes hollow.
In the middle of it all, her father lay on his back—arms limp, mouth slightly parted.
His chest… gaping.
Where his heart should be, there was only an empty, ragged cavity.
His heart—his heart—was lying a few feet away in the dirt, still faintly twitching.
And he was looking at her.
Dead eyes locked on hers, wide, frozen in the last thing he saw.
Maris let out a sound no one had ever heard from her before. Not as an alpha. Not as a daughter. Not as anything human.
It was animal.
It was loss.
It was rage and disbelief wrapped in something that could rip mountains apart.
She collapsed to her knees beside him, her hands trembling as they reached out—and stopped. She didn't touch him.
She couldn't.
The clearing was silent except for her ragged, breaking breath. Mathew stood frozen behind her, face pale, lips moving but making no sound.
Then she whispered, her voice splintering.
"Who… did this?"
No one answered. Because no one knew.
Maris's shoulders trembled. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging so hard into her palms she smelled her own blood.
"WHO DID THIS?!" she roared, her voice shaking the trees, ripping through the pack like a thunderclap. "WHO?!"
No one moved—until one wolf, eyes lowered, finally stepped forward.
"It was… your father," the voice cracked. "And Alpha Dorian. They wanted to check the perimeter first. Before the rest of us moved."
Maris stared, unblinking.
"They thought it was nothing at first. A lone thing… wandering too close to the line. But then it moved. Fast. We couldn't react in time. It… it tore him apart before anyone could shift."
She didn't hear the rest.
Her scream ripped from her throat.The pack flinched. Birds exploded out of the trees. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
She spun on her heel, fangs bared, eyes glowing like fire beneath a storm.
"That thing," she spat, breathing like an engine about to explode, "the one in the house. It wasn't just some wandering stray. It wasn't scared. It wanted us to see it."
Mathew stepped back as her aura surged—her wolf was rising fast and furious.
Her gaze locked on the forest, past the trees, past the silence. Her father's dead eyes were still on her, burned into her mind like a curse.
---
Back at the manor ,Eric stood alone in the dim corner staring at the large door to the basement where Alaric was.His breath came shallow and uneven, every instinct screaming that something was coming—something far worse than anything he had faced before.
Then, as if summoned by the fear coiling inside him, a voice whispered in his mind. Smooth. Chilling. Familiar.
"Prepare yourself, Eric," Killian's voice slid through the darkness of his thoughts, a ghostly presence that made his skin crawl. "There's a reason I left those pups alive."
Eric's eyes snapped open.
"Why?" he thought, desperate to hear more, his mind flickering to the two figures back in town. He was beginning to see what Killian had seen when he took over.
"To make you stronger," Killian replied, cold and resolute. "To merge our souls and strengths once more, you must get stronger. For Alaric, for what's to come. We must be one again."
Killian's voice tightened around Eric's mind like iron, firm and unyielding.
"You don't get answers handed to you," Killian said, the cold arrogance unmistakable. "You have to earn them. The truth of our connection... it's buried deep inside this manor. Alone."
Eric's jaw clenched. Killian's presence was heavy, commanding—but never overbearing. Their shared pride simmered beneath the surface, unspoken but always felt.
"You'll have to walk those halls by yourself," Killian continued, voice low but sharp, "face what's hidden there, no matter how dark. Only then will you understand who we are—and what you really need to become."
The room seemed to close in around Eric, the silence stretching after Killian's final words. The challenge hung in the air, daring him to rise to it.