Alden’s POVThomas’ fingers pressed hard against the gash on my forehead and white heat exploded behind my eyes making me cry out.“Hold still,” Thomas muttered, not unkindly. His hands were steady despite the blood soaking his sleeves. “You’ll live.”Rowan and Fudge emerged from the trees moments later, dragging what little we had managed to salvage from the wreck of the ambush. A torn satchel, cracked lantern,half a coil of rope and supplies that looked small in Rowan’s grip.“We must reach the castle before dark,” Rowan said flatly, dropping the bundle at Thomas’ feet. “We won’t survive another night out here.”My ears rang.“What about Hoseman?” I demanded. “What about Percy?”Rowan didn’t look at me.“What about them?” he asked coldly. “They are gone.”“They dragged Hoseman away screaming,” I said. My throat burned. “He’s not dead yet.”Rowan’s eyes snapped to mine.“He will be by now,” he said sharply. “They are not taking him for some merry dance.”Fudge stepped forward, restin

Alden’s POV“This changes nothing,” Rowan said flatly. “We must go on without him.”For a moment, I didn’t understand.Then I did.“No,” I said immediately.Rowan’s gaze shifted to Hoseman, who was barely standing even with Thomas supporting him.“He’s wounded,” Rowan continued. “Slow,weak and he is in no state to fight.”“You can’t leave him behind,” I shot back.Rowan stepped toward me, frustration burning through whatever restraint he had left.“Use your fucking head, Alden,” he snapped. “He is dying. And all you have done is prolong his suffering and burden the rest of us.”The words hit harder than any blade.Hoseman groaned against Thomas’ grip.“Well,” he rasped, voice rough but edged with bitter humor, “thank you very fucking much, Rowan.”Even in pain, he refused to be pitied.“We won’t survive another night out here,” he said. “The wolves will come to finish what they started. And we have no shelter against the Supermoon and we are exposed,vulnerable. We are all gonna die.”

Where are they?” the man shouted again into the moonlit square. “Where are your monsters?”His voice echoed between shuttered houses, bounced off stone walls, and died without answer.Inside the reinforced house, Rowan did not move. Thomas stood rigid near the door, jaw tight. Alden’s grip tightened around the hammer in his hand, but no one stepped outside.The proud man spat once more at the ground.“This,” he muttered to himself, loud enough for the silence to carry it, “is how real men fight.”He staggered toward his own home at the edge of the square, boots scraping against the stone. He did not hurry. If anything, he made sure his steps were deliberate so anyone watching from behind cracks in their shutters would see him walk unafraid beneath the rising Supermoon.At his door, he paused only long enough to fumble with the latch before shoving it open and stepping inside.He slammed it shut behind him.The interior of his house was modest,a single main room with a hearth, a rough

Alden’s POV Eleanor's body lay just beyond the door like a discarded rag doll. The sack she had wrapped herself in was shredded, half hanging off one shoulder, the rest soaked dark and clinging to the cobblestones. Moonlight had found the tear in the fabric the instant Cody's claws ripped into her.But she never finished changing. Cody had torn her open too fast, too deep. Blood had sprayed in a wide arc across the threshold, some of it still dripping slowly under the bottom edge of the door in thick, searching fingers.Inside the house, Elara had collapsed to her knees right there on the flagstones. Her palms pressed flat against the wood of the door as if she could reach through and pull the girl back. Her son wrapped both arms around her waist from behind and pressed his face into the small of her back. He wasn't crying yet. He was just shaking, the way a leaf shakes before the wind rips it free.Rowan still had one hand on Elara's shoulder not gentle, but steady, like he was ancho

Alden’s POV The door was collapsing as each slam sent fresh cracks racing across the wood like veins bursting under skin.One beam grazed my forearm where the cloak had slipped; I yanked it back with a hiss, heart hammering so hard I thought the wolves outside could hear it.Rowan was already moving, sword still drawn, voice low and urgent over the chaos. “Finn. Come here, lad.”The boy peeked out from under the table, eyes huge and wet. Elara tried to pull him back, but Rowan knelt right there in the dust in eye-level with the child. His face usually carved from stone softened in a way I’d never seen before. Not kindness exactly but something older like a man who knew exactly how this night was going to end and was trying to give the boy one clean memory before it did.“You’ve been strong tonight,” Rowan said, voice steady even as another slam shook the rafters. “Stronger than most men I’ve fought beside. But these things… they’re coming through. Nothing’s going to hold them off fo