Sound the Alarms
Lucien POV
Private Suite, Hollow Creed Safehouse
Just After the Ambush
Blood dried beneath my fingernails. It flaked every time I clenched my fists, which was every few fucking seconds.
The silk sheets tangled around my hips were warm...Vaela’s doing...but I was ice under the surface.
Rage wasn’t a strong enough word for what I felt.They knew.
They walked into our trap like they built it themselves. Like they had a fucking script. I stood at the edge of the bed, naked, still half drenched in smoke and sweat, staring at the wall where the war map used to be before I burned it down with a curse.
“They had to have a seer,” I muttered. “Or a divine. Someone tipped them off.”
Behind me, Vaela stretched, slow and satisfied, like she hadn’t just watched our entire front line get annihilated.
“We still wounded them,” she purred, her voice thick with post battle arousal and arrogance. “They may have survived, but they didn’t win.”
I turned, growling low. “Don’t. Patronize. Me.”
Her grin widened. She liked when I snapped. The star kissed bitch with the silver bear magic should’ve died. She was supposed to burn in that clearing, screaming and begging for the very gods that cursed her to begin with.
Instead? She wiped out an entire Creed unit. My fangs ached from how tight I was clenching my jaw.
“They weren’t surprised,” I hissed. “They moved like predators. Coordinated. Clean. Even the mage ward broke at the exact right second.”
I dropped back onto the bed beside Vaela, my skin still buzzing with fury. “I don’t like being outplayed.”
Vaela rolled onto her side, her fingers sliding across my chest, her runes still glowing faintly with residual blood magic.
“They were prepared, sure,” she whispered, “but not for what’s coming next.”
I glanced at her, my eyes narrowed. “You have something in mind?”
Her smile was venomous. “Always.”
She pressed her lips to my neck and spoke against my skin. “You’ve been attacking the head, my king. The queen. But what happens when you poison the roots? The villages? The supply lines? The morale?”
I growled low, my eyes closing briefly. “You want to strike the civilians.”
“I want them to break.” Her nails traced a line across my ribs. “Not from war. From rot. Slow. Internal. Let them turn on each other. Lose faith. Then, when they beg for peace..”
“We deliver death.”
“Exactly.”
I leaned back into the pillows, letting her sink into me like smoke. Maybe I didn’t win last night. Maybe the goddess wolf got her little fucking moment.
But she’d learn the hard way...
__________________
Vaela POV
He was still seething, naked, and blood streaked. With his fangs bared in the half light, and gods, I could’ve come just from the way he paced the room like a wild animal denied his kill.
“You don’t lose well,” I purred, lounging in the ruined sheets, runes still pulsing across my skin like a heartbeat.
His glare should’ve scared me. It didn’t.
“I don’t lose,” he snarled.
I rolled onto my stomach, my chin on my hands. “Then let’s make sure they remember this wasn’t a win. It was a warning.”
Lucien stopped mid step. That got his attention.
“You’re thinking something,” he said slowly.
“I’m always thinking,” I replied, stretching like a cat. “That’s the difference between me and them. Elowen and her pathetic pack of soft hearted, temple crying fools? They protect. We infect.”
I sat up, letting the silk fall from my chest as I slid off the bed and walked barefoot to the glowing runes along the wall. My hand hovered above one of them, the blood bond thrumming through me.
“She has temples,” I said. “Gods. Worshipers.”
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “You want to hit her faith.”
I smiled, sharp and cruel. “Let’s show her what it feels like to be forgotten.”
And then, like clockwork, I heard her.
Raelith Mortem.
Her voice was always velvet and venom, warm like a lover’s breath, but soaked in decay. “My child of crimson… the bear queen spreads her light. Shall we dim it?”
“Yes, Mother,” I whispered, tracing one of the sigils with my nail. “Let’s put out her stars.”
Lucien watched me with something between awe and madness. I stepped back toward him, pulled him to me with bloodstained fingers, and kissed his mouth like a promise.
“We won’t just kill her,” I murmured. “We’ll erase her.”
_________________________
Raelith Mortem POV
The Blood Goddess
The Crimson Sanctum, Beyond Mortal Realms
I awoke to the taste of blood on the wind. It was not fresh, nor sweet, it was divine and cold. Like moonlight soaked in panic, and starfire flecked with fear. The scent of Elowen’s fury clung to the threads of fate like a spoiled offering.
She breathed. She fought. She shone. I hated her for it.
I rose from my throne of bone and blackened gold, my bare feet leaving wet prints on obsidian that drank the shine. The sanctum pulsed around me. The walls were stitched from the flayed and the faithful, and the chandeliers wept still-warm vitae. My daughters knelt in rows before me, blindfolded and bleeding, murmuring the hymns of ruin until their voices braided into a single, hungry chorus.
Vaela’s voice, sharp, gleeful, and dangerous, echoed in my mind, a promise of desecration. Good girl. But Elowen… she dared to inspire. She walked temples. She kindled worship. She strengthened the divine.
Unacceptable.
I lifted my hand. The blood the was pooled at my feet heaved, faces surfacing in its slow churn. There were priests, healers, mages, and wolves. Everyone foolish enough to believe sanctuary under Elowen’s light meant safety.
They were not.
“It’s time,” I whispered, my voice silk dragged across a blade. “Poison the roots.”
My daughters whimpered with rapture.
“Blight their water. Spoil their harvest. Infect their shrines. For every prayer they whisper, I want a scream beneath it,” I said, and the words tasted like iron and delight.
I turned to the altar, a collage of shattered halos and broken reliquaries, and drew my claws across the offering bowl. Blood rose like smoke and obeyed, curling to the rhythm of my breath.
I spoke to Vaela through the bond, close and precise. “Begin the hollowing. Burn the Earth Temple first. Make the land mourn.”
To Varek, my loyal devourer, I sent a darker hymn. “Find the divine born infants. Feed on their light.”
To Lucien I threaded venom and theater. “Let her see what worship costs. Let her see what I do to gods.”
The sanctum dimmed as I raised my arms, and one by one, the candles guttered into black flame. The room contracted around that shadow until every corner drank the dark. “I do not conquer. I do not plead. I do not forgive,” I told the hollow air, and the echoes came back sharpened.
I consumed. I tasted their prayers and turned them into knives. I braided despair into promises and fed it to those who knelt.
Let Elowen rise with her temples and hope. Let her blaze like a star.
Stars still died, and I intended to make certain she learned how.
_____________________
Verenya The Earth Goddess POV
The Verdant Veil
Realm of Earth and Root
I felt her hunger before she spoke it. The rot slithered across the ley lines, thick and black, leaving a trail of decay in the veins of the world. My roots recoiled. My rivers thickened. The soil itself hissed.
Raelith is stirring.
And that bitch never wakes without thirst. I opened my eyes from within the Hollow Tree...my sacred seat, ancient and patient. The winds outside stilled. The birds held their breath. Even the worms below froze.
The Blood Goddess was moving. Elowen’s temples had strengthened me, yes. Her people knelt in prayer, yes. But Raelith didn’t come with armies. She came in the silence.
In spoiled wells. In crumbling fields. In children coughing blood before anyone knew why. No. Not this time. I placed my palm on the bark beside me and spoke through every root, every stone, and every tendril of moss from here to the mortal realm.
“My seers. My sentinels. Hear me now.”
I sent my power like a shockwave underground. It tore through sacred groves. It cracked the soil beneath old altars.
It reached every soul who ever breathed with the land...
And struck hardest in the mind of the one I trusted most.
________________________
Isolde MacCrae — Coven Mother POV
Moon Temple Outpost
Pre-dawn
I dropped to my knees mid-step. One heartbeat my boots hit stone, the next the world tipped and my head aimed for marble. Alaric was there, solid and hot, and his arms closed around me before my skull met the floor. My vision rolled white. My breath stilled. Then the air left me in a ragged gasp and a scream lodged itself behind my teeth.
“Poison,” I choked out. “She’s poisoning the earth.”
Lachlan was at my side like a storm, his hands flaring with shielding magic. “Who?”
“Raelith,” I said, and the name cut like a blade. My voice came sharp, my eyes wide enough to drink the dawn. “She’s coming for the temples. Verenya sent word…vines burning, rivers going black, blood in the wells…” I dug my fingers into Alaric’s wrist until my nails hurt. The warning tasted of iron on my tongue.
“Tell Elowen. Now. They’ll hit the Earth Temple first.”
“Water,” I whispered, my breath ragged, the single word a warning and a plea. “Don’t drink it. Don’t touch it. Every cup could kill.”
My knees trembled and I slumped forward, Alaric’s arms cradled me, steady as stone. He pressed his forehead to mine for the fraction of a breath, his eyes blazing with a slow, terrible fire.
“Sound the fucking alarms,” he ordered, his voice low and hard.
_________________________
Elowen POV
Stormclaw Keep
Just After Sunrise
I was halfway into my first cup of bitter, black as sin coffee when the floor shook. Not violently. Just enough to make the roots groan under the stone. Enough to send a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
A second later, the great hall doors burst open. Isolde and Alaric stormed through like a prophecy on legs. She looked like death, sweat dripping down her temple, robes clinging to her like she’d just run through a battlefield of ghosts. Her eyes were still flickering with residual light.
Alaric shouted before they even reached me.“It’s Verenya! A warning from the Earth Goddess!” My mug hit the stone floor and shattered. I was on my feet before they stopped moving.
“What kind of warning?”
Isolde grabbed the edge of the war table, barely steady.
“Blood magic, rotting the ley lines. She’s poisoning the land. Raelith is moving, and she’s starting with the Earth Temple.”
My heart dropped. “She’s trying to break our gods,” I said aloud, the truth settling cold in my chest.
Isolde nodded, her eyes wide. “She’s targeting our faith. The roots of your power. Our power. She’ll rot the wells, foul the crops, and corrupt the water.”
“Fuck,” Daxon muttered from behind me. “That’s why the temple groves smelled wrong last night. I thought it was runoff from the armory forge.”
“No,” I snapped. “It was Raelith.”
Lachlan was already casting a detection ward. Alaric unsheathed his blade.
“She wants to starve us from within,” I said. “We cut her off.”
I turned to the guards posted at the door, my voice sharp and commanding. “Sound the horns. Lock down every well in the valley. Boil nothing. Drink nothing. If you so much as smell iron in the water, burn the source.”
Then I faced the room, warriors, nobles, mages, and my mates.
“All priests, seers, and elemental casters to their temples. Now. Ward the shrines. Feed the gods. Speak their names. Sing if you fucking have to.”
“Raelith is trying to hollow us out. So we fight her the way she fears most..”
“With roots. With light. With faith.”
Ashrian grinned like he was ready to fight a god with his bare hands. Daxon cracked his knuckles. “Let’s purge a bitch.”
I turned toward the East Tower, where the Earth Temple rose like a fortress wrapped in vines.
My mark burned.
“Gather the witches,” I said. “We go now.”