Bloodline of Ash and Fang

CHAPTER SIX :THE BROTHERS GRIEF

Damien looked through the window. The silhouette in the dark was gone. Those cold blue eyes so pale they looked like moonlight on frost, fierce but layered with a deep, aching loneliness had vanished.

He breathed out, gasping for air. He only then realized his whole body was tensed, coiled like a bow stretched to the point of breaking. Just holding the gaze of those eyes had demanded every ounce of his mental strength.

He collapsed onto his bed. "Jeremy, where the heck are you?" he muttered to the empty room.

With a soft swoosh, a figure whizzed through the night, a blur of motion over the rooftops. Sound waves rippled in his wake. He launched himself onto a chimney top, perched for a heartbeat against the moon, then performed a silent somersault down to the ground below.

He landed in a crouch. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a worn leather jacket and black boots. His hair was black and glossy, pulled back and tied neatly with a black ribbon.

He was deep in thought, his mind reeling. Alex...?

Why was that child radiating his friend’s aura? Did Alexander have a son?

It couldn’t be. The boy didn’t carry a single trace of a wolf’s scent. And why wasn’t he with the Ravenholtz pack? Why was he hidden away in this quiet, fragile house?

But that life aura… it was unmistakable. It was a song only his soul, bound to Alexander’s, would recognize. His eyes pooled with tears he refused to shed. His friend had left a seed in this world. He could scarcely believe it.

He’d only followed them tonight because he’d been scouting the scene of their latest act of vengeance. They had been the ones doing the killings, using the sacred ritual reserved for traitors against the very pack that created it.

The goal of the rogue alliance was simple: to make the Royal bloodline feel their pain. The pain of being hunted. The pain of betrayal. The soul-crushing agony he’d felt watching his sworn brother executed for the crime of marrying a supposed vampire.

He didn’t believe that crap. Yes, Alex was never as repulsed by the bloodsuckers as most werewolves were, but he would never marry one. That was a line too far.

And even if he did, it was no reason for execution.

He was sure it was that bastard Joseph’s plot. A scheme for personal gain. He had seen it himself.

He had seen Joseph kill Alex in the woods that day. He’d been hidden, forced to watch as the ritual began. He’d seen Alexander, against all odds, break the sacred bounds.

He’d seen Alex’s eyes shift from a Beta’s steady copper-gold to a Sun-Gold. A blinding, solid light that burned with its own internal fire. His pupils had sharpened into razor-thin black slits, blazing with pure, unconquered authority.

They had all been terrified. Every last one of those hypocritical elders. Even Joseph himself the raw terror in his eyes was plain.

Alexander had shattered the Chains of Judgement. A feat near impossible. With sheer willpower, he had tapped into his final, deepest potential. He had become an Alpha without having to kill for the title, without any right of passage.

A True Alpha. A transformation of purity and heart that might not happen in a century.

He’d been shocked that day. But Joseph, ruthless and cunning, had still prevailed. There were too many. And Alex, in his final moment of clarity, had signaled for him to stay hidden, to not throw his own life away.

He’d watched Joseph pursue a weakened Alexander into the woods and return, dragging his almost-lifeless body, his own eyes now mirroring that same Sun-Gold…but his manner was ferocious, stolen, wrong.

The patriarch was dead. That was the only answer. Joseph had killed his own father and taken his power.

Utterly ruthless. He’d finished the ritual on a True Alpha, a sin against nature itself.

He’d sworn that day, watching his brother’s light go out, that he would kill Joseph if it was the last thing he did.

The all-consuming grief of loss had triggered a change in him, too. The warmth in his eyes had drained away, replaced by a cold, relentless blue. Icy. Isolated.

He had become a werewolf with a single purpose: vengeance.

The air grew still. Too still. The night sounds—the chirping of crickets, the distant rustle of leaves—died all at once, as if the world had been plunged into a vacuum.

A familiar, ancient coldness prickled the back of Kael's neck—a void-like presence he hadn't felt in years. He didn't need to turn around. A low growl rumbled in his chest, raw and instinctual. "Silas," he growled, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "I suppose you were watching the house, too."

A shadow, longer and deeper than any other, detached itself from the alley wall. Then, a voice, cold and smooth as polished stone, cut through the unnatural silence. "The scent of your grief is a beacon. It led me right to you."

Kael turned, a low rumble building in his chest. His fangs elongated, and his claws sharpened—wicked, gleaming points ready to tear through flesh in an instant.

"What are you doing here?" Kael snarled, already in a battle stance. "What do you want with the boy?"

Silas didn't even flinch. His hand moved in a blur of motion too fast to follow, coming to rest on the polished bone handle of the long, cruel dagger sheathed at his hip,his life weapon. The blade was older than most countries, a constant companion through five centuries of violence. The casual touch was more threatening than any drawn weapon.

He looked every bit the ancient predator he was. He had full eyebrows, a head full of dark long hair that slid to his waist, and dark brown eyes that seemed to hold knowledge so deep and broad it felt like staring into time itself. His nose was sculpted to perfection, and a mustache gave him a mature, commanding aura. He didn't look a day over thirty. Tall and poised with elegance.

"Oh, would you put those away, wolf pup?" Silas said slowly, his voice carrying an air of tasteless death smooth to listen to, yet rigid and utterly deadly. A smirk played on his blood-red lips.

But he had every right to call Kael a pup. He was a five-hundred-year-old vampire, and age was power. His strength and speed were honed over centuries, a fact every werewolf instinctively dreaded.

Immortal, agile, and ruthless, vampires were masters of weapons and warfare. But their most dreaded power wasn't steel; it was Compulsion—the art of dominating the mind, of making a target forget their own name or betray their own pack.

Yet Silas knew better than to try it on a wolf like Kael. Not here. Not now. It wouldn't be a simple spell; it would be a war. A brutal, grinding clash of his ancient will against the wolf's feral spirit. It was a fight he could likely win, but not without cost, and not without Kael’s claws finding his throat in the process. Some weapons were best used subtly.

"You can't protect him with claws alone, Kael," Silas said, his voice almost gentle, though his fingers still rested on the dagger's hilt. "Your anger is loud. Your grief is louder. And

in a world of predators, the noisiest prey is always the first to fall."