Chapter 4: Storm of Ash and Power

With a swipe of my claws, blood sprayed everywhere.

I moved through them like a storm, claws flashing, blood spraying across the porch and into the grass. Screams filled the air, mingling with the thunder overhead. The world was chaos, and I was its center.

Severed limbs hit the ground like rain.

The ground was slick with blood, bodies piling up around me. The pack fought back, but it was hopeless. I was beyond them now—faster, stronger, unstoppable.

The barrier was going wild.

Lightning crackled overhead, the air humming with power. The barrier pulsed, its energy wild and uncontrolled. It was as if the lodge itself had become a living thing, lashing out in its death throes.

Countless bolts of lightning crashed down, leaving devastation across the pack’s territory.

The night was lit up with blue-white fire, trees splintering, the ground scorched black. The smell of burning fur and ozone was everywhere. It was the end of the world, and I was its architect.

Many pack members, still holed up in their dens, were hit and burned to cinders on the spot.

I heard their screams, saw their shadows burned into the walls. There was no escape—not in the lodge, not in the woods, not anywhere. The moon watched, silent and pitiless.

There were also wolves underground, trying to burrow through the earth. I howled, sealing them beneath it. The ground shifted, closing up over them. Their cries faded into nothing.

Among them was my eldest son.

I felt his presence flicker and fade, another bond broken. There was a hollow ache where his memory had been, but I pushed it aside. Power demanded sacrifice.

Every death fed the storm inside me.

I could feel that, with just a little more, I might be able to tear open the heavens and ascend to something beyond even the pack.

The power was so close I could taste it—a new world waiting on the other side. All I had to do was finish what I’d started.

I’d killed everyone in the lodge. Still, something was missing.