“But we've wasted enough time on sentiment.” Rafe pulled a blade from his belt. Black metal that seemed to drink the moonlight, carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. “The ritual won't complete itself.”
“What ritual?” I demanded. “Rafe, what are you doing?”
“Isn't it obvious?” He crouched beside Nate, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and yanked his head back to expose his throat. “Resurrection requires sacrifice. And not just any sacrifice. To bring back an Alpha, you need blood with power. Old power. The kind that connects to the land itself.”
Understanding hit like ice water.
“Druid blood,” Michael whispered.
“Give the human a prize.” Rafe pressed the blade against Nate's forearm. “The forest chose your son, Daniel. Markedhim as belonging to old magic that predates pack bonds, predates wolves, predates everything except the earth and moon themselves. That kind of blood, spilled willingly or not, in a place this saturated with death magic...” His smile widened. “It opens doors that should stay closed.”
“Don't.” The word tore from me. “Rafe, whatever Silas promised you, whatever you think you'll get from this?—”
“I think I'll get an army.” Rafe dragged the blade across Nate's forearm.
Blood welled crimson against pale skin. Nate screamed, pain and fury and defiance tangled together, and where his blood hit the carved ritual circles, the ground began to glow.
Sickly green-gold light spreading through geometric patterns like infection through veins. The air pressure dropped so fast my ears popped. And from somewhere deep beneath the clearing, I heard something stir.
Something that should have stayed dead.
The cliff face at the clearing's edge began to move.
Stone grinding against stone. Earth tearing apart with sounds like bones breaking. And from the darkness underneath, from the place where Calder had fallen during the battle that was supposed to end him, something clawed its way toward the surface.
Fingers first. Gray and corpse-pale, nails grown long like talons. Then an arm, muscle and sinew still intact despite months in the ground. Then a head emerging from earth that had swallowed it, jaw hanging loose, eyes empty sockets that filled with green fire as the resurrection magic poured into dead flesh.
Calder Voss pulled himself from his grave like he was being born from nightmare itself.
He looked wrong. Not shambling corpse wrong. He moved with liquid grace, power evident in every muscle, strength thatdeath had somehow amplified rather than diminished. But his eyes were empty. Whatever soul had occupied this body was long gone, replaced by something that answered only to dark craft and the will of whoever held his leash.
“Beautiful, isn't it?” Rafe's voice carried reverence. “Death undone. Power reclaimed. And all it cost was druid blood and your pathetic trust.”
Calder's head turned. Those burning empty eyes fixed on me, and I saw recognition there. Not the man, not the rival Alpha who'd challenged my territory and lost. Something else wearing his face, using his memories, driven by hatred that transcended death.
He smiled. Teeth too sharp, jaw unhinging slightly in ways that living bone shouldn't allow.
Then he howled.
The sound wasn't wolf. Wasn't human. It was something older, darker, a call that reached into the corrupted ward stones and the poisoned earth and the shadows between trees. A call that saidcome, hunt, kill.
And the forest answered.
Corrupted wolves poured from the tree line. Dozens of them. More than Rafe could have created alone, more than should have existed in our territory without detection. They moved like puppets, like corpses animated by strings of dark magic, and their eyes all burned with the same green fire as their resurrected master.
Calder moved.
Faster than anything dead should move. He crossed the clearing in three bounds, claws extended, aiming for my throat with the muscle memory of every fight we'd ever had.
I barely got my arm up in time.
His claws raked through flesh instead of windpipe, and pain screamed through my system. But I was already shifting, bonescracking and reforming, wolf rising to meet the monster wearing my enemy's face.
“Rafe, stop—” Michael's voice came out strangled as he struggled to his feet. “This isn't—you're not?—”
“The Michael Harrington redemption tour ends here.” Rafe's smile was terrible. Empty. “Tell me, Daniel. How does it feel? Watching everyone you love die because you were too stupid to see what was right in front of you?”
He moved.
