Chapter 6 The Blood Awakens

Kade's POV

The scream broke the quiet. I bolted upright in bed, every hair on my body standing on end. The sound tore through the walls like a storm wind... raw, broken, wild. Not human. Not entirely.

My wolf surged in my chest before I even knew what I was doing. I was on my feet, naked, barefoot, already running down the hall of the pack house before my mind caught up. It wasn't a police alarm. Not a solo attack.

It was her. Layla. I don't know how I knew. I just did.

By the time I reached the servant rooms, I was too late. The place had been torn open... literally. A hole was smashed through the wall. Claw marks. Deep ones.

The air was heavy with the smell of smoke, sweat, blood... and something else. Power. Ancient and wrong.

"What the hell...?" spoke to one of the guards following behind me. I held up a hand, stopping him. I stepped inside, my heart racing in my chest.

The room was destroyed. The floor was gouged and broken. One of the beds was overturned. A broken mirror showed only wreckage, but the smell still lingered.

Layla, and something else, woven through her essence... sharper, deeper.

Not omega. Not even close. I grabbed the edge of the doorframe to steady myself.

What the hell happened? And why did my wolf feel like bowing?

I followed the smell into the forest, the path twisting and irregular. She'd run-fast. Faster than an omega should. Faster than I could, even at full speed.

My heart sank. Dread gnawed at my gut.

Celeste's voice rang in my mind, sweet and poisonous. "Don't worry, Layla. Soon, you'll be nothing at all." She knew something. She always did. And I hadn't stopped her.

Coward. I pushed harder, trees whizzing past me in blurry. The moon was a pale sickle overhead, not full, not even near.

But the forest hummed with something old tonight. The kind of energy that makes every animal in the woods lift its head and listen.

I stopped. The air moved. A howl-clear and furious-ripped through the dark.

My knees buckled. Not from pain, but from awe. That wasn't an omega screaming. That was Alpha, and it came from Layla.

Ivy found me first. She burst out of the underbrush, her eyes wide, breath ragged.

"She shifted." I grabbed her shoulders.

"What do you mean, shifted? There's no full moon."

"I know!" She breathed heavily. But it happened. Her body just... burned. Then she wasn't Layla anymore.

She was something else. Kade, I've never seen anything like it. Silver fur. Eyes that glowed like fire. And she ran... so fast I couldn't follow. I tried..."

"Where?" I asked. "Where did she go?"

Ivy swallowed hard and pointed toward the eastern hill. "Toward the old forest. Where the stones are."

My blood went cold. The holy grove. Where no omega dared to step. I found her near the bent tree... barely a shadow in the moonlight.

Silver hair shimmered like stars along her back. She was huge. Strong. Her limbs moved with ease and anger, as if she were made of thunder and bone.

She wasn't just beautiful; she was scary.

Then, just for a moment, her head raised, and she looked at me-right through me-as if she knew every terrible thing I'd done... every word I hadn't said.

I stepped forward. She didn't move. Didn't snarl. But she didn't move, either. Then Sage appeared, stepping from the darkness as if she'd always been there.

"She's waking," the witch said, her voice a low song. "You feel it, don't you, Kade?"

I stared at her, eyes narrowing. "What did you do to her?"

"I showed her the truth," she answered.

"Something you and your father worked very hard to bury."

My stomach turned. "What truth?" Sage turned her gaze to the silver wolf beside her.

"She's not just born," Kade said. "She was chosen."

My breath caught.

Layla's ears twitched, but she didn't move. She just watched me.

Suddenly, I felt smaller than I ever had... less than what I claimed to be.

"She has Alpha blood," Sage whispered.

"Hidden. Suppressed. Lied about. But you can't hide the moon's pain forever.

Eventually, it bleeds.

"No," I breathed. That's impossible. Her records... her lineage...

"Were forged," Sage snapped. "You think your father didn't know what he was doing when he took her in? You think it was kindness that kept her close? No. It was fear. Because her father... her real father... was the true Alpha."

My knees nearly gave out. My mouth moved before my brain caught up. "You mean... Marcus wasn't...?"

"Layla Blackthorn," she said, is the daughter of Lucian Thorn. The one your father betrayed. The one he killed to take power.

Silence dropped over me like a cloud. I couldn't breathe. Lucian Thorn. The name I'd only ever heard in whispers. The rebel. The rogue. The ghost of a lost line, but it wasn't true.

Not if Layla was his.

I looked at her-really looked-and saw it.

Not just strength, but authority. Power that bent the surrounding ground. Power my father must've feared from the day she was born, and we'd called her omega.

We'd made her kneel. We'd broken her. I had refused her. "Oh Goddess," I said in a low voice. "What have we done?"

Sage said nothing. She only watched me with that knowing, irritating look.

Then Layla moved. Her form shimmered... fur pulling back, bones re-forming, skin slipping over muscles.

And then she stood, naked and shining in the moonlight, silver hair twisted and dirt-streaked, but her eyes...

Her eyes burned. "Don't pretend you didn't know," she said softly.

"You looked at me like I was nothing. Like I wasn't worth a second look. Like I wasn't yours."

I stepped forward, heart beating. "Layla..."

"No." Her voice cut like glass. "You don't get to say my name now."

My throat tightened. "I don't know what I am," she continued, taking a step toward me.

"But I know what I'm not. I'm not your toy. I'm not your pity. And I'm not the broken thing you left behind."

Tears blurred my view. "You're right," I rasped. "You're not any of those things. You're..."

She didn't wait. She turned and walked past me, her body straight, her back immovable.

Ivy ran forward with a blanket and wrapped it around her.

Sage caught my eyes one last time. "You can't cage the moon's chosen," she said. "And now that she remembers... you better pray she forgives you."

Back in the packhouse, I couldn't sleep. I sat in the war room, looking at the old family records: the genes, the lies.

My hands shook. She had Alpha blood.

That meant Marcus had lied for over a decade, and I'd helped him enforce it.

If the other Alphas found out...

If Elias Thorn found out...

Layla's name wouldn't just be mentioned in mockery; it would be written in folklore because the last true heir to Bloodfang was alive, and now she was awake.