For one breath, the clearing froze.
The next, it erupted.
The vampire moved first—a blur of shadow and pale skin, faster than sight could follow. He struck the nearest wolf in a single motion, claws cutting deep, sending a spray of fur and blood across the snow. The wolf's body hit the ground with a wet thud.
Then the rest of them came.
Shadows poured from the treeline, moving too fast to track. Wolves roared and lunged, claws scraping ice, teeth snapping—but the vampires slipped past them like water, only to hit back with bone-breaking force. Every blow landed with the sound of something tearing, shattering.
Evan spun to follow, but the fights ended faster than his eyes could settle on them. White fangs and black claws flashed, here then gone, replaced by the heavy crash of bodies slamming into the ground.
Something hit him from the side—hard. Pain exploded down his ribs as he crashed into the snow. His glasses flew from his face, vanishing into the chaos.
The world went soft at the edges.
Not blind, but nearly. Without his glasses, wolves and vampires blurred into shifting shadows. Teeth and claws became streaks of white light, too fast to separate.
He blinked against the blur, forcing himself to listen instead.
Crack. A bone snapping.
Snarl—yelp—thud. A wolf silenced mid-leap.
Shhk-shhk-shhk. Claws cutting air—one sound sharper, cleaner than the rest.
Somewhere to his right, a voice cut through the din:
"Push them harder! This is the heir's coming-of-age trial. Make it count."
The words made his gut clench. This wasn't an ambush—it was a test.
Then he felt it. That presence.
Even without seeing clearly, he could tell this one moved differently—faster, more precise. The ground trembled under short bursts of speed, each followed by a single, devastating strike. Wolves went down in one blow, sprawled motionless across the snow.
The claws had a sound all their own—like steel dragged across glass, so sharp it made his ears ache.
The heir.
Evan staggered backward, trying to keep his distance, but the air shifted and something was suddenly behind him.
A heavy boot slammed between his shoulder blades, forcing him face-first into the snow. Cold bit into his cheek, melting into wet streaks against his skin.
"Stay down," a voice ordered—low, calm, without strain.
He twisted, trying to lift his head, but the boot pressed higher, at the base of his neck. A warning.
"You don't get to look at me."
The fighting roared on around them—snarls, impacts, screams—but under that weight, the world narrowed to breath, snow, and humiliation.
"You're still human on a full moon," the voice murmured, cold and close to his ear. "No wonder they've given up on you."
The boot lifted for just a moment—long enough for him to draw breath—before pressing down again, grinding him into the ice.
"You're not worth the bite."
Then the pressure was gone.
He rolled onto his side, gasping, but the heir was already gone, swallowed by the blur of violence. Even without seeing his face, Evan could feel it—the authority, the certainty, the cold command of someone untouchable.
It was over within minutes. The vampires pulled back as quickly as they had arrived, shadows melting into the forest. Silence crashed down, broken only by the wind.
Evan pushed himself up, heart hammering. Shapes lay scattered across the clearing. The scent of blood hung thick in the air, metallic and heavy.
He crawled to the nearest body. No movement. The next—still. The next—cold.
His father lay sprawled on his side, eyes closed as if only sleeping. His mother was a few feet away, eyes half-open, glassy under the moonlight.
Every wolf in the Hale pack—Alpha, kin, friends—was still.
He was the only one breathing.
The snow was red and silent around him. The cold in his chest wasn't from the air—it was from the truth.
They hadn't failed to kill him.
They had chosen to let him live.
Survival wasn't mercy.
It was the final insult.
Two years had passed since the night the Hale pack was wiped from the earth.
Evan Hale was eighteen now. He had finished high school like everyone else, keeping his head down, pretending to be ordinary. When the acceptance letter came from a university far from his hometown, he took it without hesitation. Distance was the only thing he wanted.
He had no safety deposit box, no hidden fortune—only a few gold coins from what was left of his family's belongings. He had sold most of them, just enough to cover tuition for the first year. There wasn't enough for living expenses, so he would work part-time to survive.
The rest of the gold he kept in a small pouch in his bag, untouched. It was all that remained of the Hale name.
The long bus ride to the new city felt like a slow escape. He watched the scenery change from familiar streets to rolling hills, telling himself this was the start of a different life—one where no one would know his past, where the word "wolf" meant nothing.
But the past didn't loosen its grip so easily.
He carried it in the quiet moments: the memory of his parents' faces, the sound of their voices, the way their love had been the only warmth in that cold, condemning pack. And the image of that moonlit clearing—the snow, the silence, the bodies—never faded.
In the last two years, there had been girls who smiled at him, who found excuses to talk to him, who maybe wanted more. Each time, he turned away. Not because he didn't notice, but because he couldn't.
The self-doubt had sunk too deep, and the fear was still there—that if they got close, they'd see what he really was.
Broken. Half a wolf. Alone.
And so he kept his distance, walking into this new city with nothing but a backpack, a little money, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, he could make it through four years as nothing more than a human.