CHAPTER 11: The First Howl
737 Words
The silence between Aria and her father stretched as they made their way through the ruins of the old district. Every footstep echoed with ghosts—wolves long buried, bloodlines erased.
She didn’t trust him.
Not yet.
She remembered being ten years old, hiding under the stone table in the council chamber, hearing screams above. Her father’s scent vanishing beneath the fire. No explanation. No rescue. Just ash and silence. That memory still burned.
But she needed him.
And she needed answers.
“You’ve been watching me,” she said, not looking at him.
“Since the night they wiped out House Vex,” Aries replied. “I went underground. Took on new names. Shadowed every movement of Project Crownbite.”
“Why didn’t you fight?”
“I was biding time. Gathering proof. Waiting for the bloodline to mature.”
She stopped walking.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m a project.”
He looked at her then, sharp and cold. “You think I wanted this? To let you grow up not knowing if I lived or died? Watching you become a puppet under a false name? I hated it. But I hated the alternative more.”
Aria’s mouth tightened. “You should’ve trusted me.”
“I did,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”
---
They arrived at an underground safehouse buried beneath the old water treatment plant—rusted piping, flickering lights, and layers of ancient wolf carvings. Aries activated the vault.
Inside: maps of Nexum bunkers, blueprints of the Crownbite labs, hard drives labeled with years and bloodline initials. Scattered among them were news clippings of Aria’s rise as Nova, torn photographs of the Vex crest, and vials of serum marked GEN-BR94.
Dominic arrived minutes later, trench coat damp from city rain.
He didn’t greet Aries. Just looked at Aria.
“Your enemies are mobilizing,” he said. “The High Table’s called for a closed vote. They’re trying to name a new Alpha Authority.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Alric Damaris. Backed by three vampire syndicates and at least one corporate front.”
Kellen entered behind him, grim. “Crownbite is about to go public. We have maybe forty-eight hours before they control the narrative.”
Aria paced the room, her boots echoing against the old tile. She ran her hand over the scattered maps, fingers twitching as she connected lines no one else could see.
“We’ll hit them first. But not with violence. With revelation.”
Dominic raised a brow. “You still think truth is enough?”
“No,” she said. “But truth makes the fire burn hotter.”
---
That night, Aria held a clandestine gathering.
Not of politicians. Not of wolves.
Of hybrids.
In a forgotten metro station, deep beneath the city’s commercial district, they gathered—more than two dozen of them. Underground influencers. Cybernetic athletes. Rogue programmers. Women and men from the registry who had begun to suspect the truth but never had proof.
Aria gave it to them.
She stood before a cracked mosaic wall, her voice sharp and quiet.
“They called us enhanced. Beautiful. Dangerous. They handed us crowns laced with poison and called it power.”
She projected the logs. The biometrics. The footage.
Gasps rippled through the room. One woman dropped her datapad. A man covered his mouth, trembling. The fury was a living thing.
“You were chosen,” she said, her voice rising, “not because you were weak—but because you were strong. Exceptional. Unique. They saw your potential and tried to bottle it. To brand it. To sell it.”
She stepped forward. Her eyes swept over each face.
“Well, now it’s time to break the bottle.”
She lifted a single silver ring—Nova’s old tour emblem—modified with the Vex crest. She held it in the firelight, letting the flames dance along its surface.
Then dropped it into the fire.
“They stole our names. Let’s steal them back.”
For a heartbeat, there was only silence.
Then a low growl.
Then another.
Then a howl.
Raw. Primal. Unrehearsed.
Aria felt it in her bones. It was not a sound of pain. It was power. Memory. War.
The first real howl of the new bloodline.
And the city trembled.
Aria didn’t move.
She just closed her eyes.
And howled with them.
---
- Writer
