Burn It All Down

Burn It All Down
Thane

We hit Stevens’ territory with enough force to topple a small country.
Engines cut through the predawn quiet as our convoy pours off the main road and into the trees, headlights off, running on the soft green glow of dash lights. The air is sharp with cold, but beneath it sits the heavier scent of wolves and border markers—his and mine, clashing like pressure fronts.
Two hundred of my best. Wolves in tactical gear, human and shifted, all of them trained to move like a single organism.
Also, Cyrus and Raven, because, of course, I brought my chaos weapons despite how I hated removing Raven from Ayla’s side.
Ayla’s scent lingers faintly on my clothing. It’s the only thing keeping my wolf from tearing out of my skin and sprinting back to her.
“Outer perimeter in three minutes,” Cyrus says from the passenger seat, voice flat into the comms.
“Status.”
Theo’s reply comes back instantly. “North and west flanks in position. South squad moving into overwatch. Tyler confirmed no civilian heat signatures along the immediate border. They pulled everyone inward.”
“Fine,” I say. “If you pick up so much as a heat shimmer that looks like it wants to slough off its own skin, you tell me.”
“Oh, definitely,” Tyler says. “He’s top of my ‘things that should not exist’ list.”
We roll to a stop beneath the cover of dense evergreens. Engines fade. Doors open in unison with near-quiet thunks as my warriors spill out, breaking into silent, precise formations. No shouting. No posturing. Just controlled movement and the click of safeties sliding off as we prepare to breach Stevens’ territory.
Raven appears at my side. “Outer watchtowers—four that we can see, probably two more tucked deeper. Sniper glints on the east and south towers. They’ve got floodlights rigged with manual triggers, not motion. Old-school perimeter alarms. Some buried trip-lines—they’re not subtle.”
Her voice is low and razor-sharp.
“So they spent their money on toys and not training,” Cyrus says, joining us, rifle slung across his chest with a bag on his back. “We can work with that.”
“Team Delta and Fang, secure the borders and take out towers. The rest with me.”
The moment my boots hit Stevens’ territory, my aura flared.
Not intentionally.
Not controlled.
Just released.
It surged like a living thing starving for blood.
It spiderwebbed through the trees, through the frozen ground, through every structure within a mile. And then—like a sonar pulse—it came back to me.
Every heart.
Every breath.
Every coward trying to hide behind a wall.
Every wolf trembling behind a gun they didn’t deserve to carry.
My bones vibrated with the pressure of it, and my wolf snarled approval, begging to unleash everything and burn the territory clean.
The first patrol didn’t stand a chance.
Two guards cut across the trail ahead, rifles up, scanning the tree line. My aura hit them before my body did—their knees buckled, their hands trembled violently, and one dropped his gun entirely.
He didn’t get to pick it back up.
I stepped out from behind the trunk, grabbed him by the jaw, and slammed his skull into the nearest tree. Bone cracked. He slid down the bark, leaving a streak of red.
The second tried to run.
Cyrus hit him from the side, dragging him into the snow by his hair. He beat the man’s face into the ground until his nose inverted.
Theo slit his throat to speed up the process.
We didn’t stop.
Aura pulsed again—another wave—like lightning through a spiderweb.
“There,” I snapped, pointing deeper into the woods. “Twenty incoming. Spread. Silent kills.”
We became death.
Theo disappeared into the shadows like smoke. Raven veered left without making a sound. Cyrus cracked his neck once and strode forward like he was walking into a bar fight he’d been waiting for all week.
I crouched low and waited.
Silhouettes emerged between the pines—confident, armed, unaware.
Idiots.
Aura.
I released it in a sharp, concentrated burst. Not enough to knock them out. Just enough to make their instincts scream they were prey.
They froze mid-step.
“Wh—what was—”
Raven dropped from above, tackling the rearmost guard, slicing his femoral artery before he could scream.
Cyrus launched himself from behind, driving a blade through the base of the next one’s skull.
Theo grabbed the middle wolf by the collar and punched him straight in the throat hard enough to collapse the airway. The sound was wet. Ugly. Addictive.
The rest turned to run.
We were on them in a blink.
My elbow drove into a spine, and the crack echoed off the trees. He hit the snow, limp from the waist down.
I didn’t give him the mercy of a quick kill. He didn’t earn mercy.
I took his knife and drove it slowly, deliberately, between his ribs—listening to him choke as his lungs filled.
My men moved through the perimeter like a scythe through wheat.
One crawled backwards, leaving streaks of red behind him.
“No, no, please—”
I stepped onto his wrist.
He screamed, then I crushed his windpipe under my boot.
Silence swept the woods.
Cyrus wiped blood off his knuckles on the dead man’s shirt. “Warm-up,” he said. “I want the main course.”
“You’ll get it.”
Another aura pulse.
This one hit something big.
Dozens of signatures clustered near the central estate. All frantic. All disorganized. All trying to fortify a structure already doomed.
And there—hiding behind two reinforced doors in the basement—
Stevens.
Fucker thought steel and distance would help him.
“Move.”
We stalked through the trees like predators with a number.
The next group wasn’t caught off guard. They had flashlights, guns, and formation.
Still useless.
Three fired at once.
I surged forward, aura blasting outward like a shockwave. The bullets veered just enough—poor aim plus sudden panic—and the shots cracked into trees behind us.
I reached the first gunman and snapped the barrel of his rifle with my bare hands. Then I beat him to death with it—metal bending, skull collapsing under each strike.
Cyrus threw a combat knife straight through another man’s eye.
Raven disarmed one and stabbed him in the groin out of pure spite.
Theo took two more in under six seconds—one throat opened, one stabbed under the ribs and up into the heart.
The last wolf tried to drop his gun and shift.
Not today.
I grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the snow until the ground turned black with blood.
Aura again.
The compound walls trembled under the pressure of it, and I felt—
Fear.
Dense.
Collective.
Spreading like rot.
They knew.
Alpha of Alphas.
Here.
Hunting.
Good.
We pushed to the perimeter fence.
Lights were on in every window. Voices shouting orders. Panic scrambling across the grounds.
“Cyrus, blow the fence.”
“Thought you would never ask.”
Cyrus placed the C4 on the gate under cover fire. No need for stealth now.
Snipers dropped from towers like birds falling from the sky.
“Secure the perimeter when we breach. Nothing follows us in. Nothing gets out.”
Cyrus handed the detonator to Raven. Only fitting she blows the gate.
Raven grinned like a feral goddess. “I’m back,” she said—and hit the trigger.
The explosion didn’t just tear the gate open.
It obliterated it.
A wave of fire and shrapnel blasted outward, shredding the first line of guards into red mist. Metal fragments embedded in walls, trees, and bodies. A shockwave hit the compound so hard the lights flickered, and several wolves staggered as the ground vibrated beneath them.
Chunks of twisted steel rained down like hail.
I didn’t wait for debris to settle.
I stormed in.
I want Stevens.
I want Eric.
I’m done waiting.
The guard closest to me turned, eyes wide, reaching for a pistol.
I ripped his arm off at the elbow.
He screamed as blood fanned across the wall.
The second swung a bat of all things.
I caught it mid-air, yanked him forward, and tossed him over the edge. His body hit the ground below with a crack like dropped pottery.
The third tried to get behind me with a knife.
I pivoted, caught his wrist, twisted until bone and tendon snapped, then shoved the blade into his eye.
He died convulsing.
Cyrus clapped slowly. “Fates, I love when you get dramatic.”
“Raven,” I said. “Left flank. Theo, with me. Cyrus—”
“Center?” he asked, eyes going feral.
“Burn it down.”
His grin spread slowly and murderously.
We charged the main entrance.
Guards poured out like ants from a broken mound, weapons shaking, voices cracking, adrenaline futile against us.
One man lunged at me with a hunting knife.
I sidestepped, grabbed him by the jaw, and twisted until his neck snapped backward.
Another tried to stab Theo.
Theo slit his stomach open from rib to hip before the blade even made contact.
Raven launched herself at a man twice her size, stabbed him in both armpits, then in the throat as he fell.
Cyrus barreled through three at once, slamming them into the wall so hard the siding cracked. He ripped one man’s ear off with his teeth and spat it in another’s face.
My men fired rounds providing cover, but truthfully, I doubt it is needed.
They’re no match for us.
We kept moving.
Bodies piling.
Snow turning red.
Air thick with iron.
Aura again—sharper, hungrier.
And suddenly—
I felt Stevens move.
Good.
He was running deeper into the estate, dragging someone with him. Probably a shield. A hostage. A shifter meat barricade.
A coward’s last tactic.
“Go,” I snarled.
And didn’t stop.