“Stay in the safe room,” he commanded.
“The one behind the bookshelf.
Don’t come out until Silas or I come for you.”
“I’m not hiding while you—”
“You are my Luna,” Grimshaw snapped, his grey eyes flashing with that terrifying, possessive fury.
“And you will do as I say.
If Vane takes you, I burn this fucking world to the ground.
And that includes Black-ridge.”
Ariella’s mouth snapped shut.
Grimshaw crossed the room in two strides, grabbing her face with one hand.
He kissed her—hard, desperate, bruising.
It wasn’t a kiss of love; it was a kiss of a promise.
“When I come back,” he whispered against her lips, “we finish this.”
He was gone before she could respond.
The Safe Room
Ariella sat in the reinforced chamber, surrounded by walls of lead and silver lining.
The screen on the wall showed a feed of the battle—chaos, gore, flashes of silver light as Siphoner tech tore through Ironfang’s defenses.
She could feel Grimshaw’s Void out there, a cold, hungry presence fighting to protect her.
And she could feel something else.
A familiar scent.
Wild mint and dark musk.
It was faint, barely there, but unmistakable.
She looked at the ventilation opening in the corner of the safe room.
It was open.
Someone had been inside.
On the floor, next to the cot, was a single black raven’s feather.
And wrapped around it, a thin strand of copper wire.
Ariella picked it up, her heart hammering.
She looked at the ventilation opening, then at the door, then at the feather.
The Ash-Walker had been in the pack.
While Grimshaw fought for his life outside, the ghost had been here.
Watching.
Waiting?
She unfolded a tiny piece of parchment tucked under the wire.
The handwriting was sharp, aggressive.
“The fire that burns too fast becomes ash.
Rest, little wolf.
The war is long, and you are not yet ready to burn.”
Ariella stared at the note, a cold chill running down her spine.
He knew what had almost happened in that bedroom.
He had seen it.
And now, he had left her a warning.
Why?
Was he protecting her from Grimshaw?
Or is there more to this than she knew?
The Eastern Ridge – The Battle
Grimshaw moved through the chaos like a specter of death.
He had shifted, not into a wolf, but into something older, something the legends called the Void-Wolf.
His body was still human, but his skin had turned a smoky gray, his eyes pure black pools of hungry darkness.
He was surrounded by a field of anti-gravity energy that sent Siphoners flying, their bodies melting as the Void literally ripped the stolen magic from their veins.
“Vane!” Grimshaw roared, his voice a deep, vibrating thunder.
“Show yourself, you corpse-loving coward!”
Commander Thorne, Vane’s right hand man stepped out of the smoke, his scarred face twisted into a grim smile.
“The Alpha reveals himself.
How…
predictable.”
Behind Thorne, the massive form of Vane emerged.
The Siphoner Alpha looked worse than before—his parchment skin was cracked, leaking a gray, oily fluid where Grimshaw’s inverted attack had damaged him.
But his milky eyes were bright with murderous hunger.
“I don’t need to take her tonight, Ironfang,” Vane rasped, raising a withered hand.
“I just needed you to be distracted.”
Grimshaw’s blood ran cold.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Where she’s always been,” Vane said, a hideous smile spreading across his skull-like face.
“In the heart of your fortress.
And I sent something to keep her warm while you were busy.”
In the safe room, Ariella heard it first.
A low, hissing sound from the ventilation opening.
She turned, the copper-wire note still in her hand, and saw a gray, mist-like formed smoke sliding through the opening.
It was followed by another.
And another.
A Siphoner scout.
Smaller, faster, designed to slip through defenses.
Ariella scrambled back, her hands going to the collar around her neck.
The iron was scorched, fried by the last attack.
It wouldn’t ground her this time.
The mist formed into a humanoid shape—a gaunt figure with hollow eyes and a mouth that opened too wide, revealing rows of needle teeth.
“I smell the fire,” the scout hissed, teeth wide open. The source of this chapter is g.com.
“Vane wants a taste.”
Ariella’s silver spark flared, but it was weak, exhausted from her last encounter.
She couldn’t call the Command, she didn’t want to push her limits.
But she didn’t need to.
A blade of black iron slammed through the ventilation opening, severing the scout’s reaching arm.
The creature shrieked, dissolving into smoke.
Standing in the shattered opening was the Ash-Walker.
He dropped into the safe room, his carbon-fiber boots hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
The bone-wolf mask gleamed in the red emergency lighting, the charcoal-red lenses fixed on her.
“Run,” the Rogue commanded, his vocoder-voice vibrating with urgent intensity.
“The Eastern exit.
Don’t stop, don’t look back.”
“Not without you,” Ariella said, though her voice shook.
“I’m not leaving,” the Ash-Walker said, raising his blade toward the second wave of mist seeping through the opening.
“I have a war to fight, that’s what I live for.
And you, you have a life to live.”
“Who are you?
Why are you always helping me?” Ariella demanded.
“Why are you doing this?”
The Rogue paused.
The mist was closing in, three, four, five scouts mixing into hungry shapes.
He had seconds.
“Because the world is more interesting with you in it,” he said, and threw a small, silver device at her feet.
“Flash-bang.
Run.”
Ariella grabbed it and ran.
Behind her, she heard the explosion.
She heard the Ash-Walker’s metallic roar, the clash of his blade against the Siphoner forms.
She heard his voice—not the vocoder distortion, but a raw, human bellow of pain.
Then silence.
She reached the Eastern corridor, where Silas had burst in through, his silver cane dripping with blood, his refined demeanor completely shattered.
“Inside.
Now.”
Ariella looked back toward the safe room.
“The ash-walker.
He’s still in there—”
“The Ash-Walker is a ghost,” Silas said, his voice harsh with a grief he couldn’t hide.
“Ghosts don’t die.
They disappear.
Move, Luna.”