All Chapters of Howl of the Forgotten: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
27 chapters
Blood Remembers
The night did not stay quiet.By the time Luca, Mira, and Kai stepped back into the open street, the moon had climbed higher, a thin blade of silver slicing clouds apart. The wind smelled different now—not like ash and rain—but like prey.Kai lifted his head first, nostrils flaring. “We’re being watched.”Mira’s hand slid to the inside of her coat. She wasn’t pack, but she had never needed fur to be dangerous.Luca didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He simply felt.Footsteps. Too careful. Too many. Closing in.From the alley behind them—five figures stepped out, dressed in matte black like shadows given shape. Their movements were precise. Controlled. Soldiers trained to kill quietly.The Order of the Veil.The same bastards who had burned his pack.The one in front spoke, voice almost gentle. “Luca Morrow. The city has been told you are dead. You should have remained so.”Luca tasted copper on his tongue. His heartbeat didn’t rise. His breath didn’t quicken.This wasn’t fear.It was memory w
The House of Masks
Dawn didn’t break gently.It bled into the sky, red and bruised, like the sun knew what was coming.The city rose in silence. Street vendors setting up stalls. Commuters dragging themselves into trains. Neon signs flickering out as daylight took over. None of them knew that underneath this ordinary morning, war was waking.Luca stood on the rooftop of an old parking garage overlooking District Twelve — the financial quarter where The Order of the Veil hid behind glass and corporate smiles.Beside him, Kai leaned against a rusted air duct, arms crossed, jaw tight. Mira sat on the ledge, one leg dangling, the other bent, her fingers tapping slow patterns on her knee. The wind pushed her hair back, exposing the small scar at her temple — a mark from a life before all this, a life that felt like another lifetime entirely.Below them, the building they watched was a tall structure of tinted windows and clean steel edges. It looked harmless. Polished. Respectable.It was a lie.“The Order c
Running the Razorline
The alarms didn’t sound at first.They howled.Shrill, layered tones — one for evacuation, one for security breach, one for containment protocol. The building sealed itself. Emergency shutters slammed over doors, steel slabs locking into place. Windows darkened. The hall lights snapped to deep crimson, painting everything blood-red.The Order had planned this.They didn’t want Luca and the others stopped.They wanted them caught.Kai grabbed Luca by the collar and yanked him backward just as a wave of silver-tipped bolts shattered the corridor wall where his head had been. Splinters and metal shards blasted into the air.“MOVE!” Kai barked.Mira was already ahead, sliding across the floor underneath a second volley, one hand braced, the other firing two short rounds from her suppressed pistol. Not to kill — to break the firing line — to stagger the pursuing soldiers.The clerics were gone.Now came the hunters.Black uniforms. Silver belts. Face-masks shaped with expressionless porcel
The Tower Bleeds Light
The rain had turned the city into a reflection of itself — a trembling, half-drowned mirage caught between lightning and memory. From the rooftop of Saint Lazarus Tower, I could see everything I had ever loved, and everything I had ever ruined. Neon bled into the puddles like veins, carrying the heartbeat of a city that never forgave, only forgot.The tower loomed beneath me — a spine of glass and stone jutting into a bruised sky. Each floor below hummed with the low murmur of machines and the scent of fear. I could feel it through my boots — the pulse of old magic buried deep in the structure. This place was never just a building. It was a tomb with a pulse.Somewhere below, my pack moved through the storm. Shadows among shadows. I could smell them — sweat, steel, wet fur. Some of them were afraid. Some were hungry. And a few, the ones I had trained myself, were silent as ghosts. I had taught them well once. Then I betrayed them all, or they betrayed me. The memory still came in piec
The Morning Without Wolves
The world was silent.Not the kind of silence you find in peace — this was the hollow quiet that comes after something sacred has died.The air tasted like iron and lightning. The tower was half gone, a ribcage of steel and smoke clawing at the pale dawn. I could still feel the hum of the runes somewhere beneath the rubble, flickering like a dying pulse.I pushed myself up, my hands slipping on blood — mine or Cassian’s, I couldn’t tell anymore. The sky was a sheet of bruised gold, and for the first time in a long while, the city looked tired. Not defeated, just… old. Like it had seen everything it needed to see.The storm had passed. But its ghosts still lingered in the air.I limped through the wreckage, boots crunching over shards of glass that once held reflections of people I used to be. My coat was torn, soaked with rain and smoke. Every step hurt, but it felt honest. Pain was something I could still trust.Cassian was nowhere. No body, no shadow. Just a smear of dark blood near
The Ash Beneath the Halo
The city never really wakes — it just shifts between shades of insomnia. By the time I left the bridge, the streets had started breathing again. Steam rose from the gutters, neon signs blinked back to life, and the air smelled of metal and cheap salvation.I kept my hands in my pockets, trying not to stare at the mark burning under my sleeve. The sigil pulsed in rhythm with the city’s heartbeat — slow, deliberate, like it was syncing to something far bigger than me. Every time it throbbed, I caught flashes behind my eyes: silver corridors, chanting voices, the feeling of being watched through glass thicker than air.Whatever Cassian had done before the tower fell, it hadn’t died with him. It had followed me.And if I was carrying a piece of that curse, I needed to know what kind of weapon I’d become.I headed south through the industrial sector — a skeleton maze of warehouses and floodlit yards that smelled of oil, smoke, and forgotten wages. The Order always hid their filth behind or
The First Poison
The city did not sleep. Not really. It only pretended. Lights flickered like nervous eyes. Sirens whispered in the distance. Somewhere, someone was already turning against them.Ethan Cross stood at the top of the corporate tower, his palms resting lightly on the glass railing. From this height, the streets looked calm, orderly, like a chessboard waiting for the first move. But he knew better. He always did. There was no such thing as order in the veins of this city. Only control. And control was under assault.Tessa stood beside him, eyes scanning the city with precision. She never flinched, never wavered. Not in front of him. Not anywhere. Her posture screamed readiness, as if she could anticipate every threat before it existed. And in this war of shadows, that was exactly what he needed.“They’ve begun,” he said quietly, his voice a low, lethal drawl that seemed to scrape the air. “Not with fire. Not with blood. With whispers. With seeds.”Tessa tilted her head. “Poison.” She state
The Web Tightens
The city moved obliviously beneath them. From his office on the fifty-second floor, Ethan Cross could see everything: the neat grid of streets, the morning traffic, the corporate towers standing like monuments to ambition. On the surface, order. Beneath it, rot.He didn’t need reports to feel it. The poison had spread further overnight. Claire Novak had been a distraction, a test. Now the network was showing itself in subtler forms: untraceable memos, minor discrepancies in procurement, delays in shipments that should have been seamless. The Order of the Veil was patient. Ruthless. Invisible.Tessa entered the room, her steps deliberate, almost silent. Her eyes scanned the monitors, then slid to Ethan. She didn’t speak — she never did when observation was more important than words.“They’ve infiltrated the financial wing,” she finally said, her voice low, precise. “Two new transfers. Both approved internally. Both routed to shell accounts.”Ethan’s jaw tightened. He moved to the neare
Purging the Shadows
Nightfall brought no relief. In the city below, neon flickered like nervous pulses. Ethan Cross remained in his operations room, surrounded by the cold hum of servers, screens glowing with anomalies, and the faint smell of ozone from the electronics. Every tiny signal, every misaligned data packet could be a trap, and he knew it.Tessa was already at the monitors, scanning, analyzing, calculating. Her eyes were steady, precise. She did not flinch. She did not speculate. She observed. And in this war of unseen enemies, observation was power.“They’ve moved again,” she said quietly. “Three employees are now rerouting sensitive communications. Small, deliberate, coordinated.”Ethan’s jaw tightened. “They’re trying to compartmentalize. They think splitting responsibilities will protect them.” His voice was low, lethal. “It won’t. No one hides from me.”The first strike tonight would be decisive. Ethan selected the first target — an operations manager who had been subtly manipulating shipm
The Hidden Fractures
The morning light was thin and gray, seeping through the glass walls of Cross Global Holdings like a weak attempt at hope. Inside, Ethan Cross moved with silent precision, surveying the aftermath of last night’s purge. One mole eliminated. Several more under scrutiny. But the slow poison did not rest. It had only just begun to spread its hidden tendrils deeper into his empire.Tessa was at the control panel, tracing subtle anomalies, her expression unreadable. Every movement, every calculation, every adjustment was made with the accuracy of a machine. Yet she was not a machine — she anticipated, adapted, predicted. That combination made her dangerous. And necessary.“They’ve hidden something,” she said finally, voice low, deliberate. “Not another mole — yet. Something deeper. I can feel the fractures in their network.”Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Show me.”She highlighted a chain of internal communications, emails, and digital transfers. Subtle, almost invisible alterations. Accounts redi