56. Death and Destruction
Death and Destruction
The first howl split through the settlement before Matilda could respond.
It was deep, guttural, and carried across the hills like a deadly premonition.
Panic rippled through the village. Children cried as they were snatched up and herded toward safety, and the warning bell continued shrilling in the distance.
She felt herself being dragged away as her vision settled on the tree-lined forest neighboring the settlement.
“Matilda! Move!” Luka demanded.
Shapes darted between the trees, and fear gripped her like a hand clutched around her throat. She wasn’t fearful for her or her family, but for the innocent lives that would be lost—for the children who finally had a taste of freedom, for the couples who always dreamed of loving each other freely.
They told them they would be safe, and now the villagers were lambs led to the slaughter.
The villagers scattered as guards rushed toward the outer barricades with crossbows and silver-tipped spears.
Another howl erupted, signaling they were closing in.
Luka’s voice sharpened. “Matilda. Take Denalia!” he ordered, pressing their daughter against her chest. Denalia stirred, and her eyes widened as if sensing the fear plaguing the settlement.
Matilda looked down at her daughter; then back toward the tree line.
The first wolf exploded from the forest a heartbeat later.
The creature cleared the outer fencing in a single leap. His massive claws glinted, and the remaining villagers who dared to fight screamed and stumbled backward.
The wolf was enormous—far larger than any natural wolf had the right to be—with black fur slicked with rainwater. His amber eyes burned with bloodlust and didn’t stop tracking until they landed on Matilda.
She held his amber-eyed gaze long past polite—a subtle challenge that made his lips peel back from dagger-like teeth. One by one, more wolves emerged from the surrounding woods, taking their places at his flanks.
Guards opened fire, and silver-tipped bolts tore through the air, striking one wolf squarely in the shoulder. The beast snarled and charged, colliding directly into the offender hard enough to send his body tumbling across the settlement square.
Matilda moved instinctively, thrusting Denalia toward Luka. “Take her,” she snapped. She launched forward the moment his arms closed around Denalia.
“Matilda!”
A wolf lunged for a fleeing child. Matilda intercepted the wolf midair. The impact drove them into the side of a wooden cottage, splintering the wall inward. The wolf snarled violently beneath her. He raked his claws across her arm, deep enough to tear fabric and skin.
Pain flared through her, and her fangs descended. The wolf snapped for her throat. Matilda caught its jaws with both hands before they could close. Her muscles strained as the creature thrashed beneath her.
He was powerful, but he underestimated her new vampire strength. With a vicious growl, she twisted sharply. Bones cracked, leaving his jaw unhinged and hanging grotesquely. The wolf collapsed lifelessly beneath her.
“Protect the women and children!” someone screamed nearby.
“Oh, Matilda,” Ezra whispered when he caught up to her and found her breathing heavily above the deceased predator. “It’s not safe. We need to return to the castle immediately.”
A soft, disbelieving laugh cut through the pained cries.
“Do you expect me to hide behind a fortress guarded by an army while they die by the hands of our enemies?”
“I expect you to think about the consequences of a dead queen!” he bit out.
She smirked, patted his face, and stepped over debris. “Oh, ye of little faith,” she mocked.
She entered what now looked like a battlefield that was soaked with blood and strewn with body parts. A human guard was dragged screaming beneath a wolf. Matilda sprinted after it and leapt onto its back. Her claws sank into its fur. The wolf roared and twisted violently, trying to throw her free.
“MATILDA!”
Luka’s voice thundered across the square. Black wings exploded outward behind him as he collided with the attacking wolf. They rolled to the ground. The wolf beneath him tried to rise, but his plans were thwarted when Luka ripped its head clean from its body. Blood sprayed across the mud.
Silence followed for a heartbeat until a horn sounded from beyond the forest.
Everyone froze except the beta, who began retreating toward the tree line, backing away with a low growl rumbling in its throat.
The settlement had gone deathly silent except for the cries of the wounded and grieved.
Matilda stood in the center of the destruction, breathing hard, blood dripping steadily down her torn arm, while bodies littered the muddy pathways around her.
Ezra approached slowly with Denalia beneath his cloak.
“Prince Lykaon won’t take losing his men kindly,” Ezra commented.
Luka huffed. “Then he sorely miscalculated their abilities.”
Matilda narrowed her eyes when a lone figure emerged from the trees. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and most of all… familiar.
Prince Lykaon wore black leather armor marked with deep claw symbols across the chest. He stopped just beyond the broken settlement gates. The rain returned, rolling down his face as golden eyes settled directly on Luka. His gaze shifted to Matilda before finally landing on Denalia.
A slow smile spread across his mouth.
“Well,” he said calmly, “there she is. The last of the Alesi bloodline.”
Luka tightened his hold on Denalia until the infant was pressed securely against his chest. Every muscle in his body remained coiled, and his black wings threatened to unfurl at the slightest provocation.
Prince Lykaon noticed.
A rough laugh escaped him, low and taunting, as though Luka’s caution amused him more than it offended him.
“Put yourself at ease, Luka. Do you expect me to snatch the babe from your arms and devour her?”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Luka replied without hesitation.
Ezra silently stepped between them, placing himself as another barrier between the prince and the child.
Lykaon spread his hands with exaggerated innocence. “I’m no monster.”
A bitter laugh escaped Matilda before she could stop it.
Her gaze drifted across the ruined settlement, over homes destroyed by fire, and bodies scattered through the mud.
An elderly man lay crumpled beside a shattered cart, while only a few paces away the body of a toddler lay slashed into ribbons.
Her eyes settled on the headless corpse of a young woman lying near the well.
“This,” she said quietly, gesturing toward the deceased woman, “suggests otherwise.”
Lykaon regarded her, nodding politely as if they were old friends instead of enemies.
His eyes traveled over her, lingering on her dark clothing clinging to her rain-soaked body, and the fangs she couldn’t conceal.
The unmistakable look of death in her eyes amused him.
A smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
“Vampirism suits you.”
It sounded like a compliment, but Matilda knew better. She met his gaze without answering.
“I almost didn’t recognize you. The huntress who built her reputation preaching honor while collecting coin for every vampire she beheaded.”
Rain streamed from his hair, tracing the sharp lines of his face before dripping from his chin.
“You used to stand in taverns telling anyone who would listen that vampires were a plague upon the world.” He chuckled to himself. “And now look at you.”
The settlement square grew strangely quiet. Even the wounded seemed to fall silent as Lykaon’s voice echoed through the wounded village.
“You abandoned your humanity the moment it became inconvenient.”
Luka’s expression darkened, but the prince paid him no mind. His eyes remained fixed entirely on Matilda.
“You spent years hunting vampires, then decided it was easier to climb into a king’s bed, wear a crown, and forget every principle you ever claimed to believe.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Where I come from, there’s only one word for that.”
He allowed the pause to linger.
“Hypocrite.”
The word clung to the air like thick smoke. Lykaon had expected outrage, or perhaps shame. At the very least, an attempt to defend herself. Instead, Matilda simply looked at him while blood from the healing cut on her forearm slipped down to her fingertips before disappearing into the earth.
Then she laughed—not loud, not mocking, but just enough to make everyone present believe she’d gone mad. Enough to make Lykaon’s confident smile falter.
“Are you finished?” His brow creased in frustration, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with an aggressive swallow. “You are confused,” Matilda stated.
“How so?”
“You have me confused with someone who owes you an explanation.”
“How can you be a leader if you abandon everything you stand for?”
Matilda shook her head with a smile. “My leadership is of no concern to you. And someone such as yourself cannot judge me.”
His smirk returned. “Someone such as myself? Expound.”
“Someone who is rife with disloyalty. Beta David,” she reminded him. “He was loyal to you, even when you sent him on a suicide mission. You abandoned him.”
“He knew the risks,” Lykaon spoke.
“He was loyal to you, and even in death, he deserved to be honored by you. You didn’t seek out his body to return to his home.
You barely waited before you struck his name from the register and passed all his worldly possessions to your new beta.
I am not you. Because despite who I lay with, despite whose surname I carry, and despite the children I bear, I will always stand with my people,” Matilda preached, pounding a fist to her chest.
Lykaon glared at her through narrowed eyes. “They are not your people any longer.”
Matilda stepped toward him, boots sinking into the mud.
“That is not for you to say. I hunted vampires because vampires murdered innocent people. I never hunted vampires just because they were vampires. I hunted killers.”
The prince’s smile tipped cruelly. “And now?”
“And now you are the killer who has my attention,” she replied firmly.
Lykaon glanced briefly toward the villagers gathered behind the guards. Hybrid children peeked nervously from doorways, clutching parents who were frightened to death. He returned his attention to Matilda.
“Is that a threat, Queen Matilda?”
The guards’ hands drifted toward their sword hilts, ready to strike if necessary. Matilda casually waved them off.
“It is not a threat. It is a response—a response to your senseless attacks because we wouldn’t surrender our land to you. Children are dead. Women are dead. Men are dead. Families are dead. You will be taken in as a prisoner for your crimes today.”
Lykaon laughed as the guards slowly moved in.
Matilda went rigid when something had stolen her attention.
It began as a faint disturbance, like a whisper speaking to her.
The hairs on her arms stood on end as the feeling sharpened.
Her eyes drifted toward the tree line where the forest stood silent beneath the rain.
Nothing appeared unusual or moved unfamiliarly, yet every instinct she possessed screamed.
The familiar scent of wet pine shifted until she caught the scent of something else.
A gust of wind swept through the trees, sending branches swaying in unison. Halfway up the ridge, a section of foliage remained unnaturally still.
Her hearing honed in on the sounds around her—rain, heartbeats, the crackling remains of fire.
Then… a scrape. Followed by the sounds of wood brushing leather and someone holding their breath.
A sudden realization overcame her. It wasn’t one, but several hidden amongst the trees, waiting patiently for their prince’s orders.
Matilda’s head snapped towards Luka. “Leave! Now!”
There was something in her voice that silenced any desire to question her.
The atmosphere shifted in an instant, and for the first time since arriving, genuine tension crossed the prince’s face. His eyes flicked toward the forest before returning to her. It confirmed her worst fear.
Archers were concealed in the trees, waiting patiently for the perfect shot that would shatter Night Falls.
His wings stretched from his back, flinging rain in every direction. Gasps rippled through the settlement when he launched skyward. And within seconds, he disappeared above the clouds.
Lykaon sighed with unmistakable frustration. “You found my archers. I am equally impressed and disappointed. Your senses are sharp—sharper than your sire. How is that?”
Around the square, guards immediately turned toward the tree line, weapons drawn, searching desperately through the forest. They saw nothing, but Matilda knew where every single one was. She had found the first heartbeat and couldn’t stop finding the others.
Twelve archers—all trained to kill with one shot. They were waiting for a signal, but Matilda knew it would never come.
“A member of my court officially challenges you for your throne.”
Lykaon was taken aback. His eyes blinked repeatedly as he considered her words.
“Who?”
“You know him very well,” Matilda replied with a grin, taking a step back. “He was your most loyal dog. That is until you abandoned him.”
“David? He is alive?”
“Alive and stronger than ever. Prepare your men and say your prayers to the gods, Lykaon. We will be at your doors at dawn and will feast on your blood by noonday.”
“You are bluffing,” Lykaon whispered.
Matilda chuckled. “I bluff not. Leave this place, and don’t bother signaling for your archers. It is too late for them. They are already dead,” she confirmed when she heard the final heartbeat skip to a stop. A covert team had circled the forest while they conversed and swiftly ended them.
“Barely a queen for a fortnight. You, Matilda Alesi, will have the shortest reign in Night Falls history. You will not make it out of Moonshire alive,” Lykaon seethed.
“Your confidence is misplaced. Leave here, dog.”
Wisely, Prince Lykaon retreated, leaving the decimated settlement to their mourning.
Ezra placed a hand on Matilda’s shoulder. “For what it is worth, you handled him well.”
Matilda nodded. “Ezra?”
“Yes, my Queen?”
“I need full protection for the settlement.”
“I will temporarily reassign soldiers from the army.”
“Very good,” she replied with a nod.
“Get us immediate care for the wounded and assistance with burial. Also, compensate the villagers.”
“I will see to this. Are you okay?”
Matilda surveyed their bloodied surroundings and shook her head. “I don’t think I will ever be okay.”