Chapter 6 Under The Storm
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
Soft. Relentless. Like it knew she’d answer eventually.
Lila stood frozen, the glow of the screen trembling in her hand.
The rain outside pressed against the glass, tapping an uneven rhythm that matched the pulse in her throat. Somewhere behind her, Aiden’s voice cut through the quiet, low and steady.
“Don’t.”
But her thumb was already moving.
The line clicked. Silence.
Not the peaceful kind, but the sort that hums, like air before lightning. Then, slowly, a voice she hadn’t heard in three years filled the air.
“Lila.”
Sienna.
Her name sounded sweet and poisonous at the same time.
Lila’s throat tightened. “Where are you?”
A soft, mocking laugh. “I’ve missed you too.”
Cut it, Lila said. “What do you want?”
“For you to stop pretending,” Sienna murmured. “You left a mess behind, sister. Now you get to clean it.”
The line crackled. In the background, Lila could hear faint murmurs, voices, footsteps, the sound of wind whistling through stone. A place she recognized but didn’t want to remember.
The pack hall.
“You’re at Iron Fang,” she whispered.
“Home,” Sienna said, her tone sharp as broken glass. “Where you should have stayed.”
Lila’s chest ached. “It stopped being home the night you.......”
“.....saved us,” Sienna interrupted. “You never understood, did you? Damon wasn’t yours to keep. The moon never wanted you, Lila. But she gave you a chance to run. Look what you did with it. A nightclub? Full of drunk humans?”
Lila’s voice dropped to a dangerous calm. “You don’t get to talk about what I built.”
“Oh, but I do,” Sienna said, the smile audible in her voice.
“Because it’s mine now.”
The call ended. Just a flat tone.
Lila stared at the screen. For a moment, she couldn’t even breathe.
Rye was the first to speak, voice low. “What does that mean; ‘it’s mine now’?”
Lila swallowed. “She’s coming.”
Aiden took the phone from her, eyes sharp. His jaw flexed once. “Her voice… it didn’t sound natural.”
“She’s always been controlled,” Lila said.
“No,” Aiden replied. “That wasn’t control. That was command.”
She frowned. “Command?”
He met her gaze. “She’s leading them.”
Her stomach turned. “That’s impossible. Damon is is is....”
“Damon’s gone,” Aiden said flatly.
It was like the air was starting to blow in heat for a second. “What do you mean gone?”
“I’ve had reports. The Iron Fang Alpha’s been missing for weeks. No trace. No scent.”
Rye ran a hand through his hair. “So if he’s gone…”
Lila finished quietly, “That makes her Alpha and Luna both.”
The thought landed like a bruise. Sienna the sister who once stole her mate, now leading the same pack that ruined her life?
Aiden started pacing, boots echoing against the wood. “If she’s leading, then every attack, every rogue sighting, the poison, the trap.”… it’s all coordinated.”
“She’s not capable of that,” Lila argued, though her voice faltered.
He looked at her, steady and sharp. “You’re defending her?”
“I’m saying she’s not that kind of monster.”
He gave a quiet laugh that wasn’t amused. “You’re still trying to find good in people who burned you.”
Her temper sparked. “And you’re too used to killing yours.”
The words cracked between them. She turned away, pressing a hand on the counter, fighting the sting behind her eyes.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she muttered.
“I understand more than you think,” he said. His voice had softened, but the hurt in it was real.
She looked back at him, something unspoken catching in her chest. “You’ve lost someone too.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Rye cleared his throat loudly. Love the tension, really, you two have a whole therapy session brewing, but maybe we save the emotional unpacking till after we stop your psychopathic sister from burning the town down?
Lila gave him a glare that would’ve wilted anyone else. “You’re hilarious.”
He grinned. “I try.”
She turned back to Aiden. “You’re hiding something.”
He sighed, like he’d been waiting for that. “Crescent Moon’s been tracking Iron Fang for months. Wolves disappearing.
Entire patrols gone. The ones we found…” He hesitated. “They weren’t wolves anymore.”
Her pulse skipped. “Then what were they?”
Before he could respond, a crash shattered the quiet.
Rye grabbed the nearest metal rod. “Please tell me that wasn’t another exploding knife.”
Lila held up her hand while listening. The sound came again, claws scraping brick, a low whine beneath it.
Aiden moved first, all muscle and quiet precision. Lila followed, ignoring his glare. Rain hit her skin like shards of glass.
The alley was a shadowed maze. The scent hit her first: wolf, but warped, metallic, foul.
Something shifted near the dumpster.
Aiden crouched, knife ready. “Stay back.”
Lila stepped past him anyway, flashlight shaking in her hand.
The beam caught pale skin, matted hair of a boy no older than twenty. His eyes were open but hollow. Silver veins shimmered under his skin like a map of lightning.
A person.
Lila’s voice trembled. “What is this?”
Aiden knelt beside him, checking for breath. None. He wiped his hand on his sleeve, leaving a streak of blackened blood.
“He’s one of mine.”
Lila froze. “Your pack?”
He nodded, eyes dark. “Crescent Moon. Sent to spy on Iron Fang two weeks ago.”
The rain blurred her vision. “Then she’s already reaching past Mystic Drops.”
Aiden rose slowly. “This isn’t just her.”
“You said....”
“I said she’s leading them,” he snapped. “That doesn’t mean she’s in control.”
“Then who is?”
His jaw tightened. “Someone who knows both our packs.”
The rain fell harder, drowning the quiet.
Lila stared at him. “You mean Damon.”
He didn’t answer.
And that silence told her everything.
Because right then, the phone in her hand buzzed again.
Same number. Same black screen.
Her fingers went numb.
She answered.
This time, it wasn’t Sienna’s voice.
“Hello, Lila.”
Damon’s voice was quiet, almost gentle. But beneath it was something hollow. Something wrong.
Her knees nearly gave out. “You’re alive.”
“I was,” he said softly. “Until you left.”
Static crawled through the speaker, almost like breathing.
Lila’s heart hammered. “What did they do to you?”
Damon laughed, low, broken. “They showed me the truth.”
“What truth?” she demanded.
“That you were never meant to lead anyone.”
Aiden took a step closer, his expression carved from stone. “End the call.”
Lila couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“Come home, Lila,” Damon whispered. “Or I’ll bring home to you.”
The line went dead again.
Outside, thunder rolled across the sky.
And for the first time in years, Lila’s wolf stirred, not with fear, but rage.
Something inside her had just woken up. And this is no longer love but war!!!!