Chapter 5 Bleeding Shadows
BLEEDING SHADOWS
GIDEON
Iwas three aisles deep in the hardware store when the ward snapped.
My vision greyed at the edges. The box of bolts I'd been holding clattered to the floor, and I was already moving before the cashier could look up and ask if I was okay.
I wasn't okay.
The wards around the garage were gone. Just gone. Torn down so fast and so completely that the absence felt like amputation, like losing a limb I'd been using without thinking about it.
Someone was at the garage.
I took my phone out and called Evan.
He answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“Get to the garage.” My voice came out clipped and controlled even though my hands were shaking. “Right now. Something's wrong.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The wards just broke. Someone's there. Cal and Mason—”
“On my way.”
He hung up. I was already running.
Three blocks. Three goddamn blocks between the hardware store and Ward's Garage, and I covered them faster than I should have been able to without shifting. Fear made excellent fuel when you needed to move before your brain could catalog all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
Cal and Mason were human. Vulnerable. If Silas had sent something to my garage while I was gone buying fucking bolts, they wouldn't know how to defend themselves. Wouldn't understand what they were facing until teeth were already at their throats.
I hit the parking lot at a dead run.
The front looked normal. Doors closed. No visible damage. But I could feel the wrongness pressing against my skin like fever, the hollow space where my magic used to wrap around the building like armor.
I went for the side entrance as it was quieter. It gave me half a second of surprise if whatever was inside didn't know I was coming.
The lock was broken and the smell hit me when I stepped inside.
Blood. Copper thick in the air, fresh enough that it was still spreading across concrete. And underneath that, the reek of dark magic.
Then I heard it. Ragged breathing. A low snarl that vibrated through the walls. Something moving in the back bay where we kept the heavy equipment.
I moved toward the sound. Every nerve screaming that this was stupid, that I should wait for Evan, that going in alone meant no backup if this went sideways.
But Cal and Mason were in there.
The back bay opened up ahead of me. Dim light filtered through windows set too high to be useful, casting everything in grey shadows that made depth hard to judge.
I saw Mason first.
He was on the ground. Slumped against the workbench with blood soaking through his shirt from wounds I could see even from here. Deep gashes across his chest and stomach. Claw marks. His face was grey. Shock setting in or blood loss catching up or both.
Cal was next to him. Conscious but bleeding from a gash across his shoulder, hands pressed against Mason's chest like pressure alone could keep his friend from dying.
Then I saw the wolves.
Three of them. Massive. Bigger than normal rogues, fur matted and eyes that glowed faint red in the dim light. Omega Rogues. Had to be. The corruption was written in their movements, the way they circled like pack but moved wrong, joints bending at angles that made my stomach turn.
Silas had sent them. Silas and his new Omega Alpha power, the gift he'd taken when he ate Rafe's heart and absorbed the ability to control rogues that should have been feral and mindless.
These weren't mindless. These were hunting.
And Ronan was between them and Mason.
He'd shifted. Blood matted his dark fur from cuts across his shoulders and flanks where claws had already found purchase. He was snarling. Low and vicious and protective in ways that said he'd die before he let them past him.
One of the Omega Rogues lunged.
Ronan met it head-on. Teeth found throat. He bit down hard, shook, threw the rogue into the wall with enough force to crack concrete. The rogue yelped. Scrambled back up. Kept coming.
They weren't stopping. Weren't running. Just kept pressing forward with single-minded focus that said someone had given them orders and they'd follow those orders until they were dead or their target was.
Cal saw me. His eyes went wide with relief and terror mixing together. “Gideon—what the fuck are these things?”
“Omega Rogues.” I moved toward Mason. Dropped to my knees beside him. Checked his pulse. Thready. Fading fast. “Cal, keep pressure on the worst wounds. Don't let him move.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“End this.”
I stood. Faced the rogues still circling Ronan like sharks. Felt the familiar weight of magic settling into my bones, waking up because I needed it even though I knew what it would cost.
Fighting Omega Rogues meant pulling serious power. Meant digging deep. Meant reaching past the careful walls I'd built to keep myself functional and grabbing hold of magic that would tear me apart from the inside.
Using this much power would rip those stitches wide open. But Mason was dying. And I didn't have a choice.
I reached inward. Past flesh and bone and the careful compartments where I kept myself from falling apart. Down to where my soul sat bleeding and torn, held together by thread that was already fraying at the edges.
I grabbed hold of the ley line beneath the garage.
Power flooded through me like fire through dry wood. It burned. God, it burned. I felt the stitches I'd made this morning pop one by one, felt my soul tear wider as magic poured through the cracks and demanded more space than I had to give.
Pain lanced through my chest. I ignored it. Shaped the power into something I could use. Wove it into spheres of concentrated energy that hung in the air around me like grenades waiting to detonate.
Then I threw them.
The first orb hit the nearest Omega Rogue square in the chest. Impact rang through the garage like thunder. The rogue screamed—a sound that was half-howl and half-human that made my teeth ache—and staggered back with fur smoking where the magic had burned through.
But it didn't fall.
Fuck.
I threw another. And another. Pulled harder on the ley line beneath me, felt it respond with power that tasted like copper and earth and ancient things that had died in the forest before Hollow Pines even existed.
My soul tore wider. I felt it like fabric ripping, like seams giving way under pressure they weren't built to handle. Blood welled up in my mouth. Internal damage. The kind that didn't show on the outside but would kill you just as dead if you didn't stop.
I couldn't stop.
The Omega Rogues pressed forward. One broke away from Ronan, came at me with jaws open and eyes glowing that wrong red that said there was nothing left of the wolf it used to be. Just corruption. Just Silas's will wearing fur.
I met it with a blast of raw power that erupted from my palms like a shotgun blast. It caught the rogue mid-leap. Threw it backward into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. The rogue hit the ground. Shook itself. Got back up.
We were fucked if I couldn't end this fast.
My vision was greying at the edges. Blood dripped from my nose. My hands were shaking. The magic was eating me alive from the inside out, chewing through what was left of my soul like acid through flesh.
Ronan snarled again. Threw himself at the remaining two rogues with feral determination that said he was running on instinct and protective rage more than strategy. He was bleeding badly. Cuts opening across his shoulders and flanks where claws kept finding purchase despite his size advantage.
Where the hell was Evan?
As if summoned by desperation, I heard it.
The Howl.
It was deep and resonant that made the air vibrate.
Evan burst through the side entrance already shifted. Bigger than Ronan, darker, moving with controlled violence that said he'd been training for this his whole life even if he'd never wanted to be Head Alpha.
He assessed the situation in half a second. Then he Howled again.
The sound slammed into the Omega Rogues. I watched them stagger. Watched the red glow in their eyes flicker as Alpha power crashed against whatever corruption Silas had woven into their minds.
For a moment—just a moment—they were vulnerable.
I struck.
Power detonated against flesh that was suddenly solid, suddenly real, suddenly capable of taking damage instead of just absorbing it. I heard ribs crack. Saw one rogue crumple. Saw another stagger back with its front leg hanging at an angle that would have been fatal if it could feel pain.
Ronan and Evan tore into them.
Brothers fighting together. Moving like they'd done this before, like muscle memory from childhood had survived thirty years and death and everything in between. They hit from opposite sides. Coordinated without needing to communicate. Teeth found throats. Claws opened bellies.
The Omega Rogues fought back hard. Viciously. With desperate strength that came from knowing they were losing.
But they were losing.
Evan's jaws closed around one rogue's neck. Bit down. Twisted. I heard vertebrae snap. The rogue went limp. Stayed down this time.
Ronan took another. Ripped its throat out with teeth that were more savage than I'd ever seen from any wolf. Blood sprayed across concrete. Dark and wrong and smelling like corruption.
I hit the third with everything I had left.
Pulled so hard on the ley line that I felt something in my chest tear completely. Felt my soul split wider than it had been since the day Silas first cursed me, since the day I realized every spell I cast was killing me one piece at a time.
Light consumed the rogue. Burned through corruption and flesh until there was nothing left except smoke and the stench of dark magic.
Then silence.
Just ragged breathing. Mine. Cal's. Mason's barely audible gasps that said he was still alive but not by much.
Ronan shifted back to human. Naked and bleeding and swaying on his feet like standing was taking everything he had left. Blood ran from deep cuts across his chest, his arms, his face where claws had gotten too close.