“Don't I?” Silas's smile was gentle, almost fond. “You carry my blood. My gift. Everything you are, you owe to the magic I passed down. You can deny me, can run for decades pretending you're something other than what you were born to be. But it doesn't change the truth.”
“I am nothing like you?—”
“Aren't you?” Silas gestured at the clearing, at the broken wolves and corrupted magic and the ritual circle still humming with dark intent. “You've been fighting me for years. Protecting these wolves. Reinforcing their wards. But tell me, Gideon—how much of that was righteousness, and how much was just you proving you could master craft better than your father taught you?”
Gideon's hands clenched, golden light flickering at his fingertips. But he didn't attack. Didn't move. Just stood there like a man watching his entire identity crumble.
“You don't have to do this,” Gideon said, and his voice was raw, stripped of the steady confidence I'd always heard. “Whatever you're planning—whatever you think you'll gain?—”
“Gain?” Silas's laugh was soft, almost fond. “Oh, my son. I'm not gaining anything. I'm reclaiming what should have been mine from the beginning.” His eyes tracked to where Calder's resurrected form swayed, to where Rafe stood with corruption magic still crackling across his skin. “Did you think I brought them here for sentiment? For revenge?”
“Then why?” The words tore from Gideon. “Why resurrect Calder? Why train Rafe? What's the point of all this death?”
“Power.” Silas said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Calder commanded rogues for decades. That gift—that ability to bend feral wolves to his will—it doesn't die with the body. It stays in the blood, in the heart, waiting for someone who knows how to take it.” He gestured at Rafe with casual dismissal. “And this one—such wasted potential. I taught him death magic, blood craft, showed him how to weaponize grief and need. He learned well. Better than I expected for someone whose primary talent was seduction.”
Rafe's expression flickered—something that might have been hurt underneath the corruption. “I served you?—”
“You were a tool,” Silas said flatly. “Useful. Well-crafted. But ultimately expendable. Just like Calder. Just like everyone who thinks they can trade loyalty for survival.” His smile was terrible in its gentleness. “The heart holds everything, you see. Power. Magic. The essence of what makes a wolf or witch what they are. And I've learned how to take it.”
“No—” Gideon's voice cracked. “Father, please?—”
“Don't call me that. Not when you've spent decades denying what you are.” Silas's eyes—those old-blood eyes—tracked to me, to Nate still bleeding in the ritual circle. “But this is enlightening. The Harroway line and the forest's chosen, working together. I hadn't expected that variable. Gideon, did you know about their bloodline when you let them into the territory?”
“I suspected?—”
“And you said nothing. How delightfully sentimental.” Silas turned back to Calder and Rafe, and his expression went cold. “But sentiment doesn't win wars. Power does. And you're about to see what real power looks like.”
The pack tried to attack. Daniel's wolf form lurched forward, teeth bared, followed by what remained of the pack's strength. But they were broken. Exhausted. Moving on fumes and desperate fury.
Silas raised his hand.
“Wait—” Rafe's voice came out strangled. “You promised—I did everything you asked?—”
“I know.” Silas's smile was almost apologetic. “And I'm grateful. Truly. But you understand—I need what you carry more than I need you alive.”
And without touching them, without moving more than that casual gesture, he ripped the hearts from Calder and Rafe.
I watched—couldn't not watch, couldn't look away even though every instinct screamed that this was wrong on a level that violated natural law—as their chests tore open from the inside. As hearts pulled free from ribs and muscle and arteries, suspended in midair, still beating.
Calder collapsed like strings cut. His body hit the ground and didn't move, empty eyes staring at nothing. The heart that floated above his corpse pulsed with sickly green light—rogue-command magic made visible, the gift that had let him bend feral wolves to his will for decades.
Rafe hit the ground hard, mouth working around words that wouldn't come, and I saw the exact moment life left his eyes. His heart hung in the air beside Calder's, but this one glowed different—deep crimson threaded with black, blood magic and death craft woven so tight they'd become inseparable.
“No!” Gideon's scream was grief and fury and old terror colliding. “You bastard—they trusted you?—”
“Trust is a luxury,” Silas said calmly. He pulled the hearts toward himself with another gesture, studied them like a collector examining acquisitions. “Calder's gift will let me command every rogue from here to the Carolinas. And Rafe's blood magic—such elegant work, really. I trained him well.” His eyes tracked to Gideon, and something in his expression softened. “You could have learned this too, if you'd stayed. If you'd accepted what our bloodline was meant for.”
“Our bloodline was meant for balance—for protecting?—”
“Our bloodline,” Silas interrupted, “was meant for power. Everything else is just pretty lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night.”
Then he ate their hearts.
Not delicately. Not with ritual reverence. He just consumed them like they were fruit—flesh and blood and the power contained in both. Bit into Calder's first, and I watched green light pour down his throat, watched his body shudder as rogue-command magic rewrote itself into his system. Then Rafe's heart, crimson and black, death craft and blood magic flooding into him with each swallow.
The clearing buckled.
The ground cracked under pressure that shouldn't exist outside cosmic events. Ward stones shattered, sending fragments of ancient magic scattering across churned earth. The moonlight that had been holding me dimmed like the moonitself was turning away in horror, unable to witness what was happening.
