Righteous Rage
Daxon POV
The battlefield was silent now.
Well...not silent. The air still crackled with leftover magic. The ground was torn to hell. Blood soaked the grass like a morbid fucking rainstorm. Bodies, what was left of them, were already starting to rot, but no one moved yet.
We were all still trying to process what the fuck just happened. I turned slowly in the middle of the field, my fur damp and sticky with gore, Talon snarling low in my head, pacing like a caged animal.“Those things weren’t vampires.”
“No,” I agreed. “They were something worse.”
All around us, wolves shifted back into human form. Bears shook off blood and snarled into the distance. Fox shifters darted through the grass, chasing a scent trail. The witches were already casting spells, trying to cleanse the area, searching for clues.
And Elowen, holy fuck.
She stood with her fists clenched at her sides, trembling with barely contained rage, the goddess marks on her chest and arms glowing like molten gold and emerald fire. Her silver blue green hair whipped in the wind, her eyes glowing like moonlight filtered through fury.
“None of them survived,” Rylen reported grimly, wiping a blade on his thigh. “Every last one of those bastards burned out or bled out. We didn't lose anyone either. What the fuck were they sent for?"
Ashrian appeared beside him, silent and pale, his crimson streaked hair clinging to his face. “That wasn’t a natural vampire coven. Their minds were gone, hollowed out. Puppets.”
He titled his head. "I wonder if this was a test of some sort. They were basically zombie vampire with no real thought process."
Alpha Draven stepped into the clearing, still in his massive black wolf form. When he shifted back, the silence broke.
“I want the entire fucking land searched,” he roared, voice shaking the trees. “Wolves, lions, foxes, everyone. Patrol every inch, every shadow, every hidden crevice of these grounds.”
“Yes, Alpha,” we all answered in unison, even me.
He looked at Elowen next, carefully. Like he knew she was on the edge of going nuclear. “Seers,” he barked over his shoulder. “Sort through any memories left in the corpses. I don’t care how twisted it is. We need answers. Now.”
The witches, about six of them, nodded quickly and began their work, grim-faced and silent as they knelt among the dead. Lachlan appeared next, gripping Elowen’s shoulder, grounding her with nothing but a touch. “Mo ghrá,” he murmured. “Ye’ve done enough. Breathe now. Let the others handle this.”
She blinked, once. Twice. And then nodded. Barely.
That’s when Luna Nira stepped forward, her voice calm but strong. “With your permission,” she said, looking straight at Elowen, “we’d like to build a temple to our God. The Sun God. Our people need to pray. And we’ll need his strength if this battle is truly beginning.”
Elowen turned to her, eyes still glowing, but her voice was steel wrapped in velvet. “Fucking absolutely. We need every God on our side. Build it near the eastern fields. The sun hits hardest there.”
Luna Nira smiled and inclined her head. “We’re honored, Chosen.” I saw Elowen swallow hard at the title. She still wasn’t used to it. But gods help anyone who ever questioned if she’d earned it.
Bram stepped forward next, still half-shifted and looking ready to rip someone’s spine out just for breathing wrong. “I want to scout the tree lines personally.”
“You won’t be alone,” I told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll come with you. We’ll take the lions.” He nodded once. That grizzly was growing on me. Slowly.
Elowen finally moved, stepping toward the seers. “Find me something,” she told them softly. “A name. A place. Anything.”
One of the witches looked up, brow furrowed and voice shaking. “This wasn’t just a strike, my lady… It was a message.”
Elowen’s face darkened. “Good,” she said. “Because I’ve got one to send back.”
And holy hell, I pitied the poor fucks on the receiving end of it.
Elowen POV
My blood was still on fire. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was rage or magic or both, but something ancient was clawing up my spine, and I was done playing defense.
“Give me a fucking head,” I growled.
Lachlan didn’t flinch. He knew that tone. With a silent flick of his wrist, he summoned one of the less melted mutated vampire corpses forward. It slid across the blood soaked earth and stopped at my feet, its head lolling grotesquely, mouth still twisted in some feral snarl.
Perfect.
I dropped to my knees, grabbed a dagger from my thigh sheath, and yanked the corpse’s head clean off with a growl that wasn’t entirely human. Magic pulsed under my skin, moon and earth, both answering me. Willing me forward.
I set the disgusting thing upright in the dirt, the eyes still open, mouth slack.
Then I closed my eyes and called. “Moon Mother. I need you.”
And she came. A breeze danced across the battlefield, silver and cool, laced with the scent of night jasmine and stormlight. My power surged. My eyes flew open as I felt her press into my soul like a kiss on the forehead.
“I hear you, my daughter.”
“Let’s send them a message,” I whispered. “Loud and clear.”
The goddess laughed. The sound echoed through the trees like bells made of thunder. I conjured parchment and wrote with a flick of my finger...
Try again, bitch.
Nice and clear.
I stabbed the note through the vampire’s skull with my dagger, driving it deep between its rotting eyes until the hilt buried in flesh. Then I stood, lifted the head high above me, and felt the ancient words fill my lungs like I’d known them for centuries.
“Gun tillidh thu beò.”
(You will not return alive.)
Light burst from the mark over my heart, and the head exploded into silver dust, vanishing into the night. Silence. Complete, stunned, horrified silence. Hundreds of wolves. Thousands of shifters. An army of Marines. Mages. Witches.
Every single person stared at me like I had grown tentacles or some shit. I dusted my hands on my thighs and turned to the stunned crowd. “Message sent,” I said, casually cracking my neck. “Let’s see if the bastards can read.”
Lachlan stared at me like I’d lit the fucking stars. Ashrian smirked. “Remind me never to piss you off.” Bram growled approvingly. “My kind of woman.” Daxon just grinned like the feral bastard he was and said, “That’s my girl.”
The Moon Goddess didn’t just answer. She roared through me. It took two days to scour every goddamn inch of our land.
The wolves ran until their paws bled. The lions paced and snarled through the brush like golden ghosts. The bears turned over every boulder and tree stump with claws like fucking crowbars. And when they finally came back...muddy, exhausted, but certain...we knew.
The land was clear.
For now.
Alpha Draven gave the order and the border reinforcements began. But me? I didn’t leave that shit to chance. Not this time.
No more slipping through cracks.
I stood barefoot at the outermost edge of the territory, the grass cool beneath my toes, fingers laced with Lachlan’s on one side and Bram’s thick, calloused palm on the other. Daxon and Ashrian flanked my back, their power humming beneath my skin like a second heartbeat.
I reached for the moon. I reached for the earth. And they answered. My body arched as power tore through me, ancient and electric and god breathed. The mark over my heart blazed emerald. My eyes went silver. The air cracked and bent around me as the spell rolled off my tongue like honey and wildfire.
The earth shuddered.
The trees listened.
The wind howled its approval.
All along the borders, glowing runes carved themselves into stone and bark, woven with light and shadow, moon and moss. Traps, beautiful and fucking lethal, anchored into the soil. Vampires wouldn’t step foot in our lands again without meeting the full wrath of two goddesses and one very pissed off hybrid bitch.
I collapsed when it was done. Ash caught me. Of course he did. “Fuck, that was hot,” he whispered as he brushed hair from my face.
“I feel like I just bench pressed a mountain,” I muttered.
“You basically did,” Lachlan said with a grin.
We returned to the keep that night with the borders locked so tight not even a breeze would sneak through without permission.
And then the real work began.
The beast shifters broke ground on their temple to the Sun God, whose name still felt like fire and thunder every time I thought it. Halrik and Nira oversaw it with reverence, and Bram stayed glued to my side, a protective wall of heat and muscle and bear energy that made everyone else walk a little wider around me. Not that I minded.
The witches started construction on their homes beside the forest. Magic whipped through the air like wind chimes and wildfire, laughter and chants rising as homes bloomed from the soil like flowers. The temple to the Earth Goddess went up next, cloaked in ivy and woven sunlight.
The Moon Temple would follow. I could feel Her waiting.
The Marines? Shit, they were a force of their own. Training like their lives depended on it, because they absolutely did. Sparring with wolves. Learning spell defense from witches. Firing enchanted rounds into target dummies that screamed like banshees. Half of them already had wolf mates, and it was causing chaos and babies. The Gods had jokes.
I walked among them all like I belonged to everyone and no one. A soldier nodded at me with reverence. A little witch girl handed me a glowing seed.A lioness bumped her head against my leg and purred. This war was far from over...but this? This was hope.
Living, breathing, ass kicking, temple building, gun wielding hope. My people finally had hope.
And I would fight to the death to protect it.