Chapter 70 The Silent Assassins

Chapter 70 The Silent Assassins
Deborah's POV

The spirit wolves bowed, their ghost-like bodies glowing in the moonlight. Deborah should have felt victorious, like she'd won. But instead, she felt a warning, a feeling that something was very wrong. 

The air tasted metallic, like blood. Underneath the glowing wolves, shadows moved strangely, against the wind and everything natural.

The moon mark on her forehead glowed, hot and strong. Through its light, she saw what she hadn't noticed: the forest was too quiet. 

No crickets, no leaves moving. Even the spirit wolves were frozen stiff, their fur standing up, their see-through bodies shaking. 

The air suddenly got cold, and her breath showed. 

Deborah's hand automatically went to her side, looking for a weapon she didn't have.

She saw something move at the edge of her sight, then it was gone. A shadow moved away from a tree and disappeared into the dark. Another slid across the ground. Her heart pounded as she realized: they weren't alone. 

They had never been alone. Whatever was watching them from the dark had waited for this exact moment when she was weak from her transformation, when her moon mark made her a bright target to attack.

"Erick," she whispered, trying to reach him through their connection, even as she got ready to fight. But the connection felt empty. 

She remembered with a sinking feeling that he had stayed at the edge of the clearing, giving her space with the wolves. She was alone. She was open to attack. 

And the shadows were coming closer.

The first attacker came from behind.

Deborah reacted without thinking, dropping and rolling as something flew past where her head had been. She crouched, her claws coming out. 

She saw her attacker: it looked human but was unnatural, covered in shadows like a tight suit. Its face was hidden by a plain black mask. 

The figure moved silently, making no sound, just a slight disturbance in the air as it attacked again.

She dodged left, her body remembering how to fight even though her muscles ached. Her transformation had left her tired, her arms and legs heavy, her reactions a bit slow. 

The attacker's dark, curved blade, which seemed to glow with something awful, cut her shoulder. It hurt sharply, but worse was the numbness spreading from the cut. 

It was poison that stopped magic. She felt it trying to turn off her moon mark's power, trying to make her normal again.

The spirit wolves rushed forward, snarling loudly, but the attackers moved through them like smoke. Neither the wolves nor the attackers could truly touch each other. 

The wolves protected the spirit world, but these attackers came from something darker, something from between different worlds.

Two more attackers appeared from the shadows, no, three, maybe four, she couldn't keep track. They circled her slowly, like hunters. 

Deborah's mind raced while her body kept moving. Silent Assassins. 

She'd heard stories about them in her father's meetings, tales told to scare young wolves. 

The Shadow Order made them centuries ago to get rid of threats before they became too strong. 

They were super stealthy, had weapons that could kill magic, and waited patiently for the right time to attack.

This was that moment. When she was weak. When she was alone.

"Like hell," she thought.

Deborah bared her teeth and let her Alpha power grow, even with the poison trying to stop it. The moon mark glowed brighter. 

She felt the power from the Seed stirring inside her, not a huge burst like before, but something stronger and deeper. 

Old power that had waited thousands of years wouldn't be stopped by just poison. 

She was the Eclipse Alpha. She connected worlds. And she was not going to die here.

She moved.

The first attacker came from her right, its blade aimed at her heart. Deborah grabbed its wrist, feeling its strange, cold skin. She twisted hard. A bone broke. The attacker made no sound, but its grip loosened, letting her take the blade. 

She drove it into the second attacker's throat. Dark blood sprayed, sizzling on the ground, and that attacker melted into shadows that screamed as they vanished.

But there were too many. As she fought, more came out of the dark. 

The poison in her shoulder was spreading. 

Her vision got blurry. Her claws felt far away. 

An attacker got past her defenses, its blade cutting her ribs. Deborah stumbled, tasting blood.

Their connection suddenly came alive, filled with fear that wasn't hers; it was Erick's fear, strong and real, the kind of fear you feel when your mate is in danger. 

She felt him running before she heard him. 

She felt his power building up, like a storm. She felt his absolute refusal to let her fight this alone.

Then he was there. He burst into the clearing, his eyes glowing silver and gold. Deborah felt such strong relief that it almost made her knees weak. 

But there was no time for relief, only for survival. An attacker lunged at her back. 

Erick's power shot out like a whip, a beam of moonlight that burned through the shadow-body, leaving the attacker twisting on the ground.

"Behind you!" Deborah gasped. Erick spun, moving smoothly and perfectly, catching an attacker's blade with a shield of hard light. 

They took their positions without needing to talk, standing back-to-back, moving together perfectly. 

Through their connection, Deborah could feel his heart beating with hers. 

She could feel him noticing every danger, every move. It was like fighting with a part of herself.

An assassin came at her from the left. She ducked, and Erick's power pushed it back over her head. She drove her claws into another attacker's chest. 

Erick was already moving to cover her exposed side, his shield blocking two blades at once. 

They moved together like they'd practiced for years, knowing what the other would do, covering each other's weak spots.

"The poison," Erick said, his voice tight. She felt his worry through their connection as he sensed her getting weaker. "Deborah..."

"I'm fine," she snapped, but they both knew it was a lie. The numbness had spread to her chest, making each breath hard. Her lunar mark's glow was dimming, and so was her strength. 

She felt Erick's strong need to protect her, to take every hit for her. 

This went against her own instinct as an Alpha, to never show weakness, to never need help, to stand alone.

But she wasn't alone. Not anymore.

An assassin broke through their defense, its blade aimed for Deborah's heart. She was too slow, too weak, the poison making her limbs feel heavy. 

Time seemed to slow. She saw the blade coming, saw death in its dark gleam, and knew she couldn't dodge it in time.

Erick moved faster than thought, stepping between her and the blade. His power burst out in a flash of light that sent assassins flying. 

It burned away shadows and made the clearing bright as day. 

The blade meant for her heart skidded off his quickly-formed shield and spun into the darkness.

"Don't you dare," Deborah gasped, both angry and scared. Through their connection, she felt his firm resolve, his absolute refusal to let her die, even if it meant he took the blow. "Erick, I swear."

"Together," he cut her off, his voice rough. His hand found hers, their fingers linking. Power surged between them, his light, her darkness. 

Their Eclipse Bond flared with enough force to make the remaining assassins hesitate. "We fight together, or not at all."

Something in Deborah's chest opened up. Not surrender, but acceptance. She squeezed his hand, feeling his strength flow into her through their joined palms. 

She felt the poison's grip weakening as his light burned it away. 

Her lunar mark blazed back to full brightness. She let herself lean on him, just for a moment, just long enough to gather her strength.

Then they moved as one.

Deborah's claws found throats while Erick's light burned through the shadowy enemies. They spun, struck, and defended in perfect sync. 

Their Bond sang between them, their powers weaving together into something more powerful than either could do alone. 

An assassin lunged; Deborah caught its blade while Erick's power disintegrated it from behind. 

Another attacked from above; Erick's shield blocked it while Deborah's claws ripped it from the air.

The spirit wolves, sensing the change in the fight, attacked with new energy. 

They couldn't fully touch the assassins, but they could bother them and create openings that Deborah and Erick used with deadly skill. 

The clearing became a blur of light and shadow, of claws and blades and old magic, until finally the last assassin fell.

Silence fell over the clearing. Deborah stood panting, her body hurting, blood warm on her side. But she was alive. 

They were alive. Scattered around them were the melting bodies of about twelve Silent Assassins, their shadowy forms disappearing back into the darkness from which they came.

All except one.

The assassin lay crumpled at the base of an oak tree, its chest torn open by Deborah's claws, dark blood pooling beneath it. It was dying, they could both see that, but it hadn't dissolved yet. 

Its mask had cracked, showing a face that might have been human once, before the Shadow Order twisted it.

Deborah approached carefully, Erick at her side, their hands still joined. The assassin's eyes were completely black, with no white visible, as she watched her move. 

Its lips moved, forming words that came out wet and gurgling.

"You... cannot stop it," the assassin whispered. "The Eclipse Alpha... rises. The balance... shifts. And so..." It let out a horrible, rattling laugh. "The Blood Crown... rises."

Deborah felt a chill. "What is the Blood Crown?"

But the assassin's eyes had already become still, its body starting to dissolve into shadow. 

Within seconds, nothing remained but a dark stain on the forest floor and the echo of those last words hanging in the air.

The Blood Crown rises.

Deborah turned to Erick, seeing her own fear in his face. Through their connection, she felt his mind racing, trying to understand what they'd just heard. 

The spirit wolves had gathered around them in a protective circle, their ghostly forms still uneasy, still sensing danger in the air.

"What's the Blood Crown?" Deborah asked, though she already knew he wouldn't have an answer. 

The term meant nothing to her, brought up no memories from her father's teachings or her own studies of pack history. 

But the way the assassin had said it with both respect and terror made her certain of one thing.

Whatever it was, it was coming for them. And this attack had been just the beginning.