Chapter 7 - The Blood on the Altar
When Mara kicked open the service tapestry and stepped back into the council chamber, the room looked like a slaughterhouse.
Four of the territory lords lay dead on the stone floor, their armor pierced by silver bolts. Three others were fighting desperately near the windows, surrounded by Vance’s dark-armored raiders.
In the center of the room, Caleb was on one knee.
A heavy silver bolt was buried deep in his left shoulder, radiating a dark, smoking burn that sizzled against his flesh. Black poison lines—the same synthetic compound Vance had supplied to Nolan—were already creeping outward from the wound, darkening his neck.
Marcus Vance stood five feet away, a long, silver-tipped spear raised in his pale hands, a triumphant, sickening grin spread across his skeletal face.
“Your reign ends today, Alpha King,” Vance hissed, raising the spear for a fatal thrust through Caleb’s throat.
“VANCE!” Mara screamed at the top of her lungs.
The sound echoed through the high stone hall with unnatural, unnatural force—a sonic wave of command authority that made every living wolf in the room freeze in their tracks.
Marcus Vance turned his bald head slowly, his milky-white eyes widening in shock as he saw Mara standing near the broken door.
She had dropped her leather ledger. In her right hand, she held a sharp surgical scalpel she had pulled from her pocket.
Before anyone could stop her, Mara dragged the steel scalpel across her own forearm, opening a four-inch gash along her skin.
Rich, crimson blood poured down her wrist, dripping onto the cold stone floorboards.
The smell hit the room like a bomb.
It was not the scent of a helpless human servant. It was the intoxicating, pure, ancient aroma of White Ash magic—a scent so thick, rich, and raw that every northern raider in the room let out an involuntary gasp of pure, primal hunger.
“The girl...” Vance breathed, his eyes turning wild with unadulterated greed. “The White Ash healer... she lives!”
He lowered his spear away from Caleb’s neck and turned fully toward Mara, stepping over the fallen bodies like a man possessed by a demon.
“Bring her to me!” Vance roared to his remaining men. “Alive! Do not spill a single drop of her blood on the floor!”
Six northern raiders abandoned their fights and charged directly toward Mara, their hands outstretched to seize her.
That was precisely what she had been waiting for.
Mara didn't run. She didn't flinch.
She dipped the fingers of her left hand directly into the warm blood pouring from her right arm, pulled her hand back, and flicked the blood straight into the air toward Caleb.
“CALEB! TAKE IT!” she screamed.
Fine droplets of her blood flew across the ten-foot gap, landing directly against the smoking, silver-burned wound on Caleb’s open shoulder.
The moment her blood touched his flesh, the reaction was instantaneous and terrifying.
The silver bolt buried in his shoulder exploded into fine metallic dust.
The black poison lines crawling up his neck vanished in a blinding flash of golden light.
Caleb didn't just heal—he transformed.
A thunderous, golden shockwave erupted from his body, blowing the four nearest raiders off their feet and slamming them into the stone pillars with bone-crushing force.
Caleb leaped to his feet, his broadsword flashing through the smoke like a lightning bolt.
In three seconds, the six raiders charging toward Mara were cut down, their bodies falling lifeless onto the floorboards before they could even reach her feet.
Caleb stepped over their fallen form, stopping right in front of Mara.
His eyes were no longer gray. They were blazing, sun-gold orbs that burned with pure, absolute, unyielding Alpha rage.
He looked at Marcus Vance.
Vance stumbled backward, his pale face draining of all color as he realized his fatal mistake.
“You... you bound your wolf to her...” Vance whimpered, raising his hands in terror. “You gave her your blood...”
“She is my Alpha Queen,” Caleb growled, his voice carrying the combined weight of ten thousand ancestors. “And you are dead.”
Caleb blurred across the room.
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Marcus Vance didn't even have time to raise his spear.
Caleb’s broadsword swept through the air in a clean, horizontal arc, and Marcus Vance’s head detached from his shoulders, rolling across the stone floor before coming to a stop near the shattered entrance.
