The howl echoed across Misty Pines like a siren breaking the night open.
Windows rattled. Birds scattered. Somewhere, dogs whimpered and hid. And deep in the forest, things that hadn't stirred in years began to move.
In the aftermath, Caleb collapsed, his breath fogging in the air, chest rising and falling in ragged bursts. He could still feel it—the raw fury, the clarity, the strange sense of power like wildfire in his blood.
Lena knelt beside him, eyes wide with fear and awe. "You changed… but not like before."
Ronan stood a few feet away, his face unreadable. "Because he didn't just transform." He looked Caleb dead in the eyes. "He claimed it. That form—it wasn't forced. It was chosen."
Caleb looked at his hands—still shaking, still stained with something dark. "It felt like something ancient took over me."
"No," Ronan corrected. "It felt like you finally stopped hiding from it."
That night, far beyond the edge of town, in a candlelit chamber beneath the ruins of the old church, Sylas knelt before a circle of stone-carved thrones. Shadows flickered across the ancient faces of the Red Howl elders.
"He's awakening faster than we predicted," she said. "The altar responded to him. The old blood is active."
One of the elders leaned forward, voice like crumbling stone. "Then the prophecy is real. The First Fang's heir walks the earth again."
A second voice: "He must be claimed. Or culled."
Sylas bowed her head. "He won't be easy to tame. Ronan's training him."
Silence. Then:
"Ronan is a traitor to the pack. Deal with him. And bring the boy to us… before the next blood moon."
Sylas rose, eyes glowing faintly red. "As you command."
Back in the Pines, Lena watched Caleb from across the campfire, her gaze unsettled.
"Do you even know who you are anymore?" she asked.
Caleb didn't look up. "No. But I know who I'm not."
"Who's that?"
He met her eyes. "Someone who runs."
There was a long pause. Then Lena nodded.
"Good," she said. "Because they're coming."
She tossed something between them. It hit the dirt with a dull thud.
A severed wolf paw—still warm.
Caleb's eyes widened. "Where did you—"
"They left it by my window," Lena said coldly. "With a message carved into my door."
She swallowed. "Three words. Burned into the wood."
He is ours.
Caleb stood slowly, fists clenched, the firelight dancing across the edge of his shadow.
"Then let them come."
And somewhere in the woods, a second howl answered.
But this one wasn't his.
It was the hunt.
And it had begun.