Chapter 123 Before the Storm
The morning of the twins’ birthday started with flour on the kitchen counter and an argument about cake.
“Pink,” Lily said.
“Blue,” Leo said.
“Pink.”
“Blue.”
Aria stood between them at the kitchen island, spatula in hand, looking at Kane with an expression that said clearly this is your problem too.
Kane crouched to their level. “What about both?”
Silence.
Leo and Lily looked at each other with the particular intensity of twins conducting a private negotiation no adult could access.
Then they looked back at Kane.
“Okay,” they agreed simultaneously.
Aria exhaled. “Both it is.”
Kane straightened, catching her eye over their heads. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. She turned back to the counter before she returned it.
The morning had been deliberately ordinary. They had agreed on that without saying it aloud.
Whatever the night required, the twins deserved this first.
Leo climbed onto the counter stool and watched Aria mix batter with focused seriousness.
Lily had already relocated to Kane’s side and was attempting to braid the hem of his shirt.
“How many candles?” Leo asked.
“Four,” Aria said.
He held up four fingers and counted them carefully. “That is how old I am going to be.”
“It is how old you are going to be,” she confirmed.
He nodded, satisfied with this information.
Lily looked up from Kane’s shirt. “Will Elder Morgana come to our party?”
The kitchen went quiet.
Kane’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Aria set the spatula down slowly.
She crouched to Lily’s level. “No, baby. Elder Morgana cannot come. She passed away, remember? We talked about this.”
Lily’s brow furrowed. “But it is our birthday.”
“I know.”
“She always comes to our birthday.”
Aria held her gaze steadily, keeping her voice soft. “She loved you very much. And she would have wanted to be here. But she is somewhere peaceful.”
Lily considered this with the gravity only a nearly four year old could produce.
Then she looked at Kane. “Can we save her some cake?”
Something moved through Kane’s expression that he controlled quickly.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “We can save her some cake.”
Lily accepted that and returned to his shirt.
Aria stood and met Kane’s eyes briefly.
Neither of them said anything.
They did not need to.
An hour later, with the twins occupied by cartoons in the next room, Kane and Aria stood in the kitchen speaking in low voices.
“We need to talk about tonight,” he said.
“I know.”
“The full moon. Alexander.”
Aria set her mug down. “I have been trying to find a way to tell them since last week. I did not know how to explain to two children who have been counting down this birthday for months that they needed to wait.”
“They just lost Elder Morgana,” Kane said.
“Yes.”
He exhaled slowly. “They need to be kids today.”
“That is what I keep coming back to.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“We postpone. One week. We keep today low. Cake. A small celebration. Just us. The real party comes after.”
Aria nodded. “It is the right call.”
“You want to tell them or should I?”
She gave him a look.
“Together,” he said immediately.
They found the twins on the floor of the living room, a cartoon playing largely ignored while Leo constructed something architectural out of building blocks and Lily arranged a row of stuffed animals in order of size.
Kane sat on the floor between them.
That alone got their attention.
“We need to talk about your birthday party,” he said.
Leo looked up.
Lily turned immediately.
“There is something important happening tonight,” Aria said carefully, sitting beside Kane. “Something that means we need everyone focused and safe. So we thought we could have a small celebration today, just us, and then have your real party with all your friends next week.”
Silence.
Leo’s expression shifted first.
His bottom lip moved.
“But it is our birthday,” he said.
“It is,” Kane agreed. “And we are going to celebrate. Just smaller today.”
“Next week is not our birthday,” Lily said.
“No. But the party can still be for your birthday.”
Lily stood up.
“No,” she said.
Leo stood up too. “No.”
“We want our party today,” Lily continued, her voice climbing. “You promised. You said birthday party. You said cake and friends and the bouncy thing.”
“The bouncy castle,” Leo confirmed, with the gravity of someone presenting evidence.
Kane looked at Aria.
Aria looked at Kane.
“The bouncy castle will be there next week,” Kane said.
“I do not want it next week,” Lily said. “I want it today. Today is our birthday. Next week is not our birthday.”
“Lily.”
“No.” She crossed her arms.
Leo, apparently deciding that Lily had covered the verbal argument sufficiently, sat back down and began silently dismantling his block structure with the energy of a person expressing feelings through demolition.
Lily was not done.
“Elder Morgana would have let us have our birthday,” she said, her voice wavering now.
Aria closed her eyes briefly.
Kane exhaled through his nose.
That was not a fair argument.
It was also completely accurate.
They looked at each other over the twins’ heads.
The silent conversation lasted approximately four seconds.
Kane broke first.
“A few hours,” he said quietly to Aria.
“A few hours,” she agreed.
He turned to Lily. “We will have the party today. A few hours only. Small. Then it ends early and you both go to bed without argument.”
Lily’s arms uncrossed. “And the bouncy castle?”
“And the bouncy castle.”
Leo looked up from his demolished structure. “And cake?”
“Pink and blue,” Aria confirmed.
Both twins sat back down as if the last five minutes had not happened.
Kane stood slowly, brushing off his knees, and looked at Aria with an expression somewhere between defeated and amused.
She pressed her lips together. “We lasted longer than I expected.”
“Barely.”
By afternoon the compound had transformed.
Balloons in pink and blue.
A bouncy castle on the east lawn.
A table of food, small and contained.
A handful of children from trusted families, screaming in the afternoon sun.
Kane stood at the edge of the lawn watching Leo attempt to tackle a child twice his size in the bouncy castle.
Marcus appeared at his shoulder.
“Perimeter checks are done,” he said quietly. “Warriors are in position. The allied Alphas begin arriving at nightfall.”
Kane did not take his eyes off his son. “Good.”
“Everything is ready.”
“Make sure the eastern line has double coverage tonight. Aria believes whatever is bound there may respond to the full moon.”
Marcus nodded once. “Understood.”
Across the lawn, Aria sat with Lily in her lap, the two of them watching Leo with matching focused expressions.
Lily said something.
Aria laughed quietly.
Kane watched them for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he turned back to the night ahead.
By the time the sun dropped, the children were gone, the twins were in bed with cake in their stomachs and promises of the bouncy castle again next week, and the compound had shifted into something different.
The allied Alphas gathered on the main grounds as darkness settled.
Twelve territories represented.
Warriors positioned at every boundary.
The air carried the particular tension of people prepared for something they could not fully predict.
Kane stood at the center of it.
Aria stood beside him.
He addressed the gathered Alphas with the full weight of his authority.
He spoke about Alexander’s methods.
The moon fever.
The evidence that had turned more than half of Alexander’s own warriors against him.
He named the scale of what they were facing without softening it.
Then he paused.
“There is one more asset,” he said. “Someone who understands Alexander’s methods from the inside. Someone with capabilities none of us carry.”
He looked at Marcus.
“Bring them in.”
Marcus nodded and moved toward the outer path.
The Alphas waited.
Kane scanned the grounds.
Aria stood still beside him, her awareness stretched toward the eastern boundary.
Footsteps on the path.
Two figures emerged from the dark.
Amanda walked with her chin level.
Jacob half a step behind her, his hand at the small of her back.
The gathered Alphas watched.
Kane stepped forward to address them.
Then the air changed.
It happened without warning.
Thick black smoke rolled across the grounds from nowhere, unnatural and dense, carrying cold with it that had nothing to do with the night temperature.
Everyone stilled.
The smoke condensed.
A figure stepped through it.
Alexander.
He looked at Amanda with an expression that did not carry anger.
It carried something colder than that.
“Did you think I would not find out?” he said quietly.
His voice carried across the grounds without effort.
Amanda stopped walking.
“You were always going to betray me,” he continued. “I simply waited to see when.”
Kane’s hand rose, signaling the warriors to hold position.
Alexander’s gaze moved slowly across the gathered Alphas, unhurried, almost amused.
Then, without a shift in expression, without a word of warning, without giving anyone time to move, he turned and moved towards Jacob.
His hand came up.
Jacob’s throat opened beneath Alexander’s claws.
For a fraction of a second, no one understood what had happened.
Then blood poured down his chest.
Amanda screamed first.
Aria’s scream followed an instant later.
Kane lunged forward.
Jacob collapsed before they reached him.
“Stay with me,” Amanda choked.
But the blood would not stop.
Aria stood frozen for one impossible second.
Then her power flared silver across the entire grounds.
It was too late.
Jacob’s body stilled beneath Amanda’s hands.
Alexander had not run.
He stood exactly where he was.
Watching.