Chapter 10 The Fury of a Mother
The silence that followed the explosion of oily smoke was more deafening than the blast itself.
I stood in the hallway, my lungs burning from the acrid scent of rot and old magic.
My hands were still outstretched, the silver frost dulling on my skin as if the very air had drained my power.
“Leo!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat with a raw, primal agony.
I lunged into the fading mist, my fingers grasping at nothing but cold shadows.
He was gone. My son, the boy who had survived a ravine, a frozen forest, and five years of exile which had been taken from the heart of my own fortress.
“Elara, stop!” Silas’s voice was a sharp command behind me.
He caught my shoulders as I began to claw at the stone walls, my nails leaving silver gouges in the rock.
“The smoke was a displacement field. They aren’t in the building anymore.
You’re wasting energy.”
I spun on him, my eyes glowing with a violent, unstable light.
“He’s five, Silas! They took a five-year-old boy!
I will tear this mountain down stone by stone until I find him!
”
“And while you’re tearing down stones, they’ll be crossing the border,” a new voice joined us.
Killian stood at the end of the hallway, flanked by the two Lycan guards I had set to watch him.
He looked like he had fought his way through a war zone to get here; his face was streaked with soot, and the golden fire in his eyes was replaced by a cold, desperate clarity.
He didn’t wait for my permission to speak.
He didn’t even look at the guards. He looked at the spot where our son had vanished.
“They used a Shadow-Step,” Killian said, his voice tight.
“It’s a forbidden technique. It requires a blood-catalyst to tether the destination.
They didn’t just stumble upon this hallway, Elara.
They had a beacon.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
A beacon meant an inside job. Someone within the Black Mountain where someone who knew exactly where the heirs were sleeping.
“Where would they take him?” I demanded, stepping toward Killian until the frost from my breath clouded his vision.
“You said the Morrigan are fanatics. What is their endgame?”
“The Altar of Purity,” Killian whispered.
“It’s an ancient site in the neutral zone, deep within the Grey Peaks.
They believe that by sacrificing a ‘tainted’ Alpha heir under a blood moon, they can reset the lineage.
And the blood moon... it rises in three hours.
”
Three hours.
I felt a coldness settle in my chest that had nothing to do with my magic.
It was the absolute, focused calm of a predator who had found its mark.
“Silas,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Prepare the Lycan cavalry. We move now.”
?
“The Grey Peaks are a maze of anti-magic wards, Elara,” Silas warned.
“Your ice will be dampened there. The cavalry will be slowed by the terrain. We won’t make it in time on horseback or by transport.
”
“Then we run,” Killian said, stepping forward.
He looked at me, a silent plea in his eyes.
“In my full shift, I can cover the distance in two hours. I can track his scent through the displacement mist because he carries my blood. But I can’t fight the Morrigan alone if their wards are active.
I need your power to break their shields.
”
I stared at him. The man who had rejected me.
The man who had sent me to die. And now, the only person who could lead me to my son before the moon turned red.
“If you lead me into a trap, Killian,” I said, my talons extending until they grazed his throat, “I won’t just kill you.
I will ensure your soul never finds the Moon Mother’s halls.
”
“If my son dies tonight, Elara,” Killian replied, his voice breaking, “I don’t want to find them anyway.
”
The journey through the Grey Peaks was a blur of silver and shadow.
Killian had shifted into a massive, jet-black wolf, his muscles rippling under a coat that seemed to absorb the moonlight.
I rode on his back, my fingers buried deep in his fur, my silver aura acting as a tether to keep us both grounded as the anti-magic wards began to claw at my skin.
Every second felt like an eternity. I could hear Leo’s voice in my head—the way he laughed when he caught a frog in the forest, the way he stubbornly refused to hide his tail.
Hold on, Leo, I prayed. Mama is coming.
We reached the summit of the Peaks just as the moon began to take on a sickly, rusted hue.
Below us, in a natural stone amphitheater, the Morrigan were gathered.
There were dozens of them, all wearing the ivory raven masks, their voices rising in a discordant, rhythmic chant that made the very ground vibrate.
In the center of the amphitheater stood a jagged stone slab.
Leo was draped across it, his small body pale against the dark rock.
Standing over him was the figure in the charcoal robes, a curved obsidian blade raised toward the darkening sky.
“Stay back until I drop the shield,” I hissed into Killian’s ear.
I slid off his back, my feet hitting the frozen ground.
The air here was heavy, pressing down on my power like a lead blanket.
The Morrigan had erected a shimmering violet dome over the altar—a ward designed to repel any wolf who approached.
I closed my eyes and reached deep, past the fear, past the grief, into the ancient well of the Silver Lineage.
I didn’t try to fight the ward; I tried to freeze the energy of the ward itself.
Absolute Zero.
A shockwave of white light exploded from my hands.
The violet dome didn’t just break; it shattered like glass, the shards evaporating before they hit the ground.
The chanting stopped abruptly as the assassins turned, their masked faces tilted upward in shock.
“Now!” I roared.
Killian let out a howl that shook the mountainside and leaped into the fray.
He was a whirlwind of black fur and teeth, tearing through the robed figures with a savagery that spoke of five years of repressed rage.
I descended the slope like a winter storm.
Every flick of my wrist sent shards of ice through the air, pinning assassins to the stone walls.
My vision was tunneled on the altar—on the man with the obsidian blade.
“The cycle ends!” the leader shouted, his voice echoing through the ivory mask.
He brought the blade down.
“NO!”
I didn’t use ice.
I used the raw, kinetic force of my power.
I threw myself forward, my hand catching the obsidian blade inches from Leo’s chest. The black stone sliced into my palm, my silver blood smoking as it touched the cursed metal.
I ignored the pain. I grabbed the assassin’s throat with my other hand, my fingers sinking into the charcoal fabric.
“You touched my son,” I whispered, the light in my eyes blindingly bright.
I didn’t just freeze him. I turned his entire body into a pillar of solid, unyielding ice from the inside out.
With a single shove, he fell backward, shattering into a thousand nameless pieces against the Altar of Purity.
I scrambled onto the altar, pulling Leo into my arms. He was breathing—shallow, but steady.
He was drugged, not dead.
“I have him,” I sobbed, clutching him to my chest. “Killian, I have him!”
Killian stood at the base of the altar, surrounded by the fallen Morrigan.
He was covered in blood, his wolf form panting, his golden eyes fixed on the boy in my arms. He let out a low, vibrating whirr—a sound of pure relief.
But the victory was short-lived.
From the shadows of the surrounding caves, more figures emerged.
Not the Morrigan. These were men in modern tactical gear, carrying heavy-duty tranquilizer rifles and silver-net launchers.
And leading them was a man I hadn’t seen in five years.
Marcus, the former Head of Security for the Black Mountain Pack—the man who had personally driven the van to the ravine.
“Well done, Queen Elara,” Marcus sneered, his rifle leveled at my head.
“You did the hard work for us. The Morrigan were always too theatrical. We just wanted the bloodline for the labs. And now, we have all three of you in one place.”
Beside him, a woman stepped out of the shadows, her face hidden by a hood.
But I knew that scent. I knew that aura of desperation and rot.
Sienna.
“Did you really think exile would stop me, Elara?” she hissed, her voice dripping with venom.
“If I can’t be Luna, then there won’t be a pack left for you to rule. ”