Chapter One Hundred and Nine

Chapter One Hundred and Nine
Eron’s POV

I was up before thought could reach me.

The sound, sharp, wet, final...pulled me forward like instinct. My sword was already in my hand by the time my mind caught up.

The courtyard was chaos already, movements that our eyes couldn't follow. Then the screaming began.

Blood painted the cobbles near the warehouse entrance, dark and gory. One of my men lay face down, chest torn open like parchment ripped too fast. I didn’t even see what struck him, just a blur that moved by, a shadow moving like smoke given purpose.

“Form up!” I barked, but the words barely carried over the noise.

The air felt heavier, colder somehow. Then I saw them, shapes peeling themselves out of the dark, too fluid to be human. Vampires.

They didn’t hiss or snarl like in stories. They moved, just moved, and every movement left another body on the ground. A man’s head snapped back, spine bending too far in, and I realized too late that Jarren was gone from where he’d been kneeling.

I turned just in time to see him lifted off the ground, claws buried deep in his sides. His scream tore through the air, high and broken. The vampire holding him smiled, face half hidden in the dark, teeth red as if dipped in wine, and then he was ripped in two.

“By the gods…” one of my men muttered, backing up.

“Hold your line!” I shouted, stepping forward. My blade caught the nearest creature across the chest, and for a second, it staggered. Its blood steamed where it fell. Then it looked at me, head tilted, more curious than angry.

Behind me, Tolan yelled something about fire. Someone dropped a lantern, and the ground caught flames, light spilling wild and desperate. The vampires didn’t flinch from it. They just became clearer, pale, perfect monsters that didn’t belong to this world.

The head, the man who had greeted us earlier—was shouting orders, demanding calm. “This is sacred ground!” he cried, as if laws still mattered here.

One of the vampires appeared behind him, silent as thought. It leaned close, lips brushing the man’s ear. “No one speaks and lives,” it whispered, the words soft enough to feel like breath, and before I could even react, the vampire’s hand grabbed his head and snapped it clean off his shoulders.

“Fall back to the carts!” I yelled, pushing through. Two of my soldiers shifted, bones breaking, fur tearing through skin as they took their wolf forms. It was the only way to keep pace, the only thing that could match this kind of speed.

They leapt forward, claws meeting claws, fangs clashing with something older and hungrier. But even wolves bleed, and soon the air reeked of it.

One of them, Bren, lunged and tore a vampire’s arm clean off, but another was already behind him, sinking teeth into his neck. He didn’t even have time to cry out.

I swung again, cutting, cutting, not thinking. Every move was muscle memory. Blood, both red and black, painted my hands. One of my wolves went down beside me, twitching, eyes already glass.

“You were warned!” a voice thundered through the dark, deep and commanding, carried by something not of this world. “You were warned not to touch what is ours.”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. I couldn’t tell how many of them there were, ten, maybe twenty. It didn’t matter. They were faster than death itself.

A shape lunged for me. I turned in time, caught it with the flat of my blade, and drove my sword up through its jaw. It screamed, thrashing, before disintegrating into dust that coated my arm in gray ash. The victory meant nothing. Another one was already on me.

Tolan grabbed it first, tackling it into a wall. The stones cracked from the impact, but when I looked back, Tolan wasn’t moving. His throat was gone.

“Eron, behind you!”

I spun, barely blocking the next strike. It was like trying to fight wind with a blade. Every hit sent tremors up my arm, every breath felt borrowed. My body screamed for me to retreat, but pride wouldn’t let me—not yet.

“Get the wounded!” I roared, pushing one of the surviving soldiers toward the wagons. “Move!”

They dragged what was left of our men, half-conscious, bleeding, terrified. A few still fought, claws out, their wolves howling in pain and defiance. But the vampires were endless shadows, cutting through them as if it were a dance.

“Fall back!” I ordered again, voice raw.

The vampires didn’t chase. Not yet. They circled, like predators toying with prey that had already lost. The fire from the fallen lanterns spread, climbing walls and licking through stalls. Smoke curled thick, swallowing the night.

Jarren’s body lay in two halves near the crates, his blood mixing with wine from shattered barrels. The head was gone, torn clean off.

I tried not to look.

We made it halfway across the yard before one of them appeared again, crouched on the roof, pale white hair whipping in the wind. “You brought the sun to our doorstep,” it said, voice almost mournful. “Now bleed for it.”

And then it leapt.

The impact sent me sprawling. My sword skittered away, and for a heartbeat, I was face to face with it. Its eyes weren’t red, they were empty, like glass. Its teeth brushed my cheek, breath cold as ice. I reached for my dagger and drove it straight into its chest.

It screamed, a terrible, piercing sound that made the air ripple. The others hesitated, the noise drawing them. I used the moment, grabbed my sword, and slashed upward, splitting it from ribs to chin.

“Retreat!” I shouted again, this time not as command, but plea.

We ran. Through smoke, through screams, through the ruin of what had been a market.

When we finally reached the edge of the forest, the air felt different, open, wild. We stopped just long enough to count who was left. Seven. Out of twenty-three.

My chest burned from breathing too much, too hard. My arms shook from exhaustion. I looked back toward the fire. The vampires stood at the edge of the flames, silhouettes framed by their own destruction.

“You were warned,” one of them called again, voice low, echoing like it came from the bones of the earth. “Next time, prince, we come for your kin.”

And then, just like that, they raced towards us before fading into smoke.

The silence that followed was worse than the fight. It pressed in, heavy and final. I turned toward my men. Some sat, clutching wounds. Others stared at nothing.

“We’re going back,” I said finally, my voice rough. “We have to warn them.”

One of them looked at me, disbelief shadowing his face. “After this?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Because this isn’t over.”