Chapter 104 Searching for her

Chapter 104 Searching for her


/Nelson/

The moment we stepped outside the palace, I knew this was not going to be an ordinary battle.

The entire eastern side of the kingdom was covered in smoke. Warriors ran through the streets, weapons drawn, voices tangled together in shouted orders. The war horns kept sounding from the towers above us, and somewhere beyond the palace walls, something huge roared again, the sound rolling through the ground itself.

I could feel my wolf pushing against my skin, restless and eager.

Sunny wanted out. He wanted blood.

But even he was cautious, and that alone told me everything I needed to know. Whatever stood beyond those walls did not feel like anything we had fought before.

Edlyn stood beside me, staring toward the eastern gate with an intensity that worried me. Luca was on her other side, tense and watchful. Seraphina walked behind us like this was some ordinary evening stroll rather than the edge of a war.

I still didn’t trust her.

Maybe she really was Edlyn’s creator. Maybe she was lying through every carefully chosen word. Either way, she knew something about what was coming, and right now, that made her useful whether I liked it or not.

“Timi!” I shouted.

My beta appeared almost immediately, sword in hand, his armor already coated in dust. “Alpha.”

“Report.”

“The eastern wall has been breached. Our warriors are holding the second gate, but we’re losing ground fast.”

“How many?”

“We estimate over five hundred.”

“Five hundred creatures?”

Timi nodded grimly. “And they’re not moving like a normal army.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They aren’t trying to take territory.” He looked toward Edlyn, something apologetic in his expression. “They’re searching.”

My stomach tightened. “Searching for her.”

“Yes.”

Edlyn stepped forward, chin lifted. “Then let them find me.”

“No.”

Her eyes moved toward me, sharp with frustration. “Nelson.”

“No.”

“I can’t hide while my people are fighting for their lives.”

“I’m not asking you to hide.”

“Then what are you asking?”

I looked at her, holding her gaze. “Stay beside us.”

Luca nodded firmly. “She’s safer between us.”

Edlyn rolled her eyes, though I caught the flicker of gratitude beneath the irritation. “You two are becoming annoying.”

“Good,” I said.

Luca gave me a small, tired smirk. “Agreed.”

A loud crash came from the eastern wall, and everyone turned toward it at once. For a moment, there was nothing. Then something climbed over the broken stones.

I had expected monsters.

Instead, I saw people. At least, they looked like people at first glance. Tall, thin figures with skin almost completely white, their eyes solid black, and strange silver markings crawling across their faces and necks like something etched rather than born.

They wore no armor. No weapons.

They didn’t need them.

One of them grabbed a werewolf warrior by the throat and lifted him clean off the ground with a single hand. The warrior shifted mid-air, claws extending, and tried to fight back. The creature didn’t even flinch. It simply threw him across the battlefield like discarding something it had already lost interest in.

My wolf snarled. Those things are strong.

“I noticed,” I muttered.

I drew my sword. “Open the gate.”

Timi looked at me like I’d lost my mind entirely. “Alpha?”

“We’re going out.”

“But—”

“We can’t keep fighting from behind the walls.”

I shifted before he could argue further. My bones cracked, my body expanded, and fur swept over my skin as Sunny took over completely. The moment my paws hit the ground, I heard the familiar howls of my warriors rising around me, hundreds of wolves charging forward as one.

The creatures turned toward us. Their black eyes settled on the charging line.

And then they smiled.

That was when I knew we were in real trouble.

They weren’t afraid. They had been waiting for us the entire time.

I launched myself at the closest one, my jaws closing around its shoulder. Instead of blood, something black poured into my mouth, thick and tasting like ash. The creature screamed, but not in pain.

In excitement.

It grabbed me and slammed me into the ground hard enough to crack the earth beneath my body. Sunny roared inside my skull, and I rolled away just before its claws came down where my throat had been.

Another wolf attacked from the side. The creature caught him mid-leap. Then another creature joined it. Then another. Within seconds, three of them had surrounded us, moving with a coordination that felt planned rather than instinctive.

I rose slowly, my body aching everywhere. But I wasn’t backing down, not with my people fighting and dying around me.

A flash of red moved past me. Luca.

He appeared behind one of the creatures and drove his claws straight through its chest. Black smoke exploded from its body, and the creature collapsed in a heap.

Luca turned toward me. “Still alive?”

I growled low. “Unfortunately for them.”

He smiled, sharp and feral. “Good.”

We attacked together after that. For the first time in centuries, a vampire king and a werewolf king fought side by side, and somehow, impossibly, it worked. I tore into one creature while Luca dismantled another, our warriors following our lead into the chaos.

The creatures began falling.

But there were too many. Every time we killed one, three more seemed to appear out of the smoke.

Then I heard Edlyn scream.

I turned immediately, my heart lurching. She stood near the palace steps, Seraphina beside her. Three of the creatures were closing in on them, moving with terrible purpose.

“EDLYN!”

I ran. Luca moved at the exact same moment.

The creatures reached her before either of us could. One raised its hand, and silver energy shot toward her, crackling through the air.

Edlyn lifted her hand instinctively.

The energy stopped.

Not slowed. Stopped completely, hanging suspended in the air between them.

The entire battlefield went quiet. Even the creatures stared, their black eyes wide with something that looked almost like disbelief.

Edlyn looked at the silver energy floating between her fingers. “What the hell?”

Seraphina’s eyes widened, urgency breaking through her usual calm. “Don’t fight it.”

Edlyn looked at her, confused. “What?”

“Feel it.”

Edlyn frowned in concentration, and the silver energy suddenly shifted. It moved from the creature’s hand toward Edlyn instead, drawn to her like something being called home. Then it disappeared into her palm entirely.

The creature screamed. Its body began to shake violently.

Edlyn’s eyes widened. “I can feel its power.”

Seraphina smiled, something proud flickering across her face. “Exactly.”

I reached Edlyn’s side, breathless. “Step away from it.”

She didn’t move. “Nelson, I don’t think they’re trying to kill me.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

Luca came up beside us, sword still dripping black smoke. “What are you saying?”

Edlyn looked at the shaking creature. “They’re trying to take my power.”

Seraphina nodded slowly. “That is what Collectors do.”

One of the creatures suddenly laughed, the sound layered and wrong, like several voices speaking through one mouth. “You finally understand.”

Edlyn stepped closer, unafraid despite everything. “Who sent you?”

The creature smiled, its black eyes gleaming. “The First.”

Seraphina’s expression changed instantly. For the first time since she’d appeared, she looked genuinely afraid.

I noticed. “So you know who they’re talking about.”

Seraphina didn’t answer.

I stepped toward her, my patience gone. “Who is the First?”

She looked at Edlyn instead of me. “The one who made you.”

Edlyn’s face went pale. “What?”

“The one who created your bloodline.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Name him.”

Seraphina shook her head slowly. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain.”

“The First isn’t a king.” She looked toward the dark, churning sky. “He isn’t a god either.”

A strange sound rolled through the air above us. The clouds began twisting faster, lightning flashing across them in jagged, silent bursts.

Seraphina whispered, “He is older than all of them.”

I looked upward, dread pooling low in my stomach. Something moved inside the clouds, huge and shapeless. I couldn’t make out its form clearly, but I could feel it pressing down on the entire battlefield.

Every wolf around me went silent. Even the creatures stopped fighting entirely.

Edlyn grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in. “Nelson.”

I looked at her. “What?”

“I know that feeling.”

Her eyes filled with a fear I hadn’t seen from her before, not even during the worst of it. “I’ve felt it before.”

“Where?”

She looked toward the sky, her voice barely audible. “In my dreams.”

Luca stepped closer. “What did you see?”

Edlyn swallowed hard.

“Death.”

The creature in front of us smiled once more. Then it dropped to its knees.

All of them did. Every single Collector on the battlefield dropped to their knees at the exact same moment, like puppets whose strings had been pulled from above.

My warriors stopped fighting, uncertain. Luca’s vampires stopped too. Nobody understood what was happening.

Then a voice came from the sky.

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The entire kingdom heard it anyway, the words settling into every corner of the battlefield at once.

“Edlyn.”

She froze completely.

The voice continued, calm and vast. “You have been hidden for too long.”

The clouds opened wide. A giant eye appeared above the kingdom, impossibly large, watching everything below it.

Edlyn stepped backward, her hand tightening in mine. “No.”

I grabbed her hand firmly. Luca grabbed the other.

The voice laughed, low and rolling like distant thunder. “Two kings.”

The eye moved slowly toward us.

“One queen.”

The ground began shaking beneath our feet.

“And a power that was never meant to exist.”

Edlyn squeezed both our hands, her whole body trembling.

The voice turned colder, the warmth bleeding out of it entirely.

“Bring me my daughter.”

Seraphina suddenly stepped forward, placing herself between Edlyn and the sky itself. “No.”

The entire battlefield went still.

The eye turned toward her. “You.”

Seraphina’s face hardened into something unbreakable. “You will not take her.”

The voice laughed again, colder this time. “You still think you can protect her?”

Seraphina raised her hand, and silver light exploded around her body, bright enough to cast shadows across the entire courtyard.

“I failed once.”

She looked back at Edlyn, something fierce and unwavering in her eyes.

“I will not fail again.”