Failed Hunt

Failed Hunt
The Vampire King’s throne room was lit by the cold glow of enchanted crystals, their pale light spilling across stone and iron. Alfonso sat slouched on his throne, his fingers drumming against the armrest in sharp, impatient rhythm. The last report from his spy still lay on the floor where he had tossed it aside, crumpled and stained with wine.

Nick. Always Nick.

Every victory the wolf had stolen from him, every whisper of his growing bond with Erin, was another ember feeding Alfonso’s rage. But rage alone did not win wars.

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers, eyes gleaming crimson.

"The wolf must fall," he murmured to the empty hall. "Not slain in battle — too clean, too noble. No, he must be broken. Stripped of strength, humiliated before his pack and his mate. Only then will the girl see him for the failure he truly is."

From the shadows, Selvarra emerged, the witch’s silver eyes glinting like daggers. "You intend to take him alive," she said, her tone half question, half accusation.

Alfonso smirked. "Alive, yes. The Council trembles, the druids are ash, and Marcia clings to scraps of hope. But if Nick falls into my hands… Erin’s heart will unravel. She will have no choice but to come to me."

He rose from the throne, the long sweep of his cloak whispering across the floor as he crossed to a vast war map stretched across the wall. A dozen markers glittered across its surface, each one a point of conflict, a weakness in the wolves’ defenses. Alfonso moved one piece — a crimson shard — closer to the mark of Nick’s territory.

"We bleed his pack first," he said coldly. "Send raiders to harry their borders. Strike at his warriors when they sleep. Leave the women and pups terrified. Nick will not sit idle while his house burns. He will come. He will have to come."

Selvarra’s smile curved like a blade. "And when he does?"

Alfonso’s eyes burned with cruel delight. "We take him. We chain him with silver, starve his wolf, break his body, break his spirit. And when Erin’s curse-bound heart calls for him, she will find him ruined. Then — and only then — will she understand that her fate lies with me."

He turned, cloak swirling, his fangs catching the crystal light.

"Prepare the cages," he ordered. "For the Alpha wolf will kneel before the Vampire King."

The night air split with the flap of wings as Alfonso’s raiding party swept over the forest. Vampires cloaked in shadow moved like living blades, their eyes glowing with hunger. At their head rode Lord Caelric, Alfonso’s fiercest war-captain, his orders clear: bring the Alpha back breathing, or don’t return at all.

They descended upon the Blackfang pack’s hunting grounds — expecting panic, weakness, and disarray. Instead, silence greeted them. No howls, no scrambling wolves. Only the faint rustle of leaves in the wind.

“Something’s wrong,” one of the vampires hissed.

Too late.

From the treeline, wolves burst forth — not scattered prey, but a coordinated strike. Jaws clamped down on armored throats. Shadows of fur and fang swept the ground. Alpha Nick himself led the charge, silver in his eyes, his wolf a storm unleashed.

Caelric barely raised his blade before Nick was on him. The Alpha’s strength was overwhelming, his strikes precise, brutal. He didn’t fight like prey caught in an ambush — he fought like the predator who had laid the trap.

“You think I don’t smell Alfonso’s stench all over this plan?” Nick snarled, teeth bared as he slammed the vampire captain into the earth. “Tell your king I don’t bow, and I never break.”

The vampires faltered as the wolves pressed harder. Gamma warriors cut off every escape route, herding the raiders into their own slaughter. Caelric, wounded and broken, barely managed to drag himself away, leaving behind half his force as shredded corpses in the dirt.

\---

Far away, Alfonso sat upon his throne when the report reached him. His goblet shattered in his grip, crimson wine dripping down his pale fingers like blood.

“Outwitted,” he whispered, his voice low with dangerous fury. “By a wolf.”

Selvarra smirked from the shadows. “Perhaps you underestimated him. He is not like the others.”

Alfonso’s fangs glinted as his eyes burned bright. “No, witch. This is not underestimation. This is only the beginning. The Alpha cannot win every game.”

He turned to the war map once more, dragging his clawed finger across Nick’s territory.

"If force will not break him… then betrayal will."

The battlefield stank of ash and blood. Vampire corpses lay broken in the grass, their black armor glinting dully under the moonlight. His wolves moved among the fallen, snarls fading into low growls of triumph, but Nick’s mind was already elsewhere.

He stood on a ridge overlooking the carnage, his wolf still bristling beneath his skin. The ambush had been clever, designed to draw him out — but not clever enough. They hadn’t accounted for his instincts, for the way he could smell the shift in the forest long before the first strike fell.

No. Someone was feeding Alfonso information, but poorly. Sloppy.

Nick narrowed his eyes, scanning the treeline where Caelric’s body had been dragged away by the survivors. Alfonso wouldn’t send a war-captain on a whim. This had been personal.

He clenched his fists.

“Alpha?” Gamma Jarold’s voice carried softly as he approached, his fur streaked with blood. “They’re routed. Not one of our wolves was lost.”

Nick gave a curt nod, pride sparking briefly in his chest at the strength of his pack. But the weight of unease was heavier.

“They knew where to strike,” he murmured. “They thought they could corner me out here, away from the packhouse.”

Jarold frowned. “But how? Only those closest to us knew your patrol schedule.”

Nick’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to voice it, not yet. But the thought gnawed at him. A traitor inside the pack. Someone close. Someone who could pass along details to Alfonso.

His mind flicked to Henry, who had been strangely more vocal and present around Erin lately. Overprotective. Always near. The thought left a bitter taste, but he shoved it aside. Accusations without proof would break the pack faster than any vampire blade.

Still, as he lifted his head to the moon, Nick swore under his breath:

"Whoever is feeding him, I will find them. And when I do, no curse will stop me from tearing them apart."

The wolves howled around him, a song of victory. But for Nick, the night carried no triumph — only the first move in a darker game.