CHAPTER 100: THE FIRST STRIKE

Chapter 100: The First Strike

Vex raised one perfect hand, and hell broke loose. The attack came from all sides at once.

Vampires moved faster than lightning, appearing behind wolves before they could even feel danger.

Fae magic twisted the air itself into binding chains that wrapped around fighting supernatural beings. Witch spells turned the ceremonial ground into a nightmare of thorns and shadow.

But it was the angels that made Liana’s blood freeze. Their wings weren’t the white feathers of tales. They were made of pure energy that burned everything they touched.

When they spoke, their voices demanded absolute obedience. "KNEEL," one ordered, and dozens of wolves dropped against their will.

"SUBMIT," ordered another, and several pack leaders found themselves crawling toward the High Council members.

"No!" Liana screamed, her Guardian strength exploding outward in a silver shield.

The shield caught three vampires mid-strike, sending them flying backward. It broke the fae chains holding Elena Moonwhisper’s coastal wolves. But there were too many enemies and not enough of her.

Kael shifted into his massive black wolf form, lunging at a Council member who looked like live starlight. His teeth found nothing but air as the being flickered out of existence, reappearing behind him with claws that left glowing cuts across his ribs.

"Brother!" Jace howled, but his own fight was going badly. Two witches had trapped him, their curse-fire turning his fur black wherever it touched.

Rowan tried to use his empathic skills to confuse their attackers, but the High Council members felt nothing. No feeling. No doubt. No mercy. "They’re not alive," he gasped to Liana through their bond. "Not like us. They’re something else entirely."

Something else that was winning. Marcus fell first, angel-song forcing him to his knees before crystal chains locked around his arms.

Then the Alpha of the Northern Ice Pack, his frost magic useless against creatures who lived outside natural law.

"Stop this!" Liana begged, throwing more power into her shield as it cracked under the attack. "Surrender and we will," Vex answered calmly, stepping through her silver barrier like it was mist. "Your choice, Guardian Luna."

A vampire grabbed Talia, teeth at her throat. "Decide quickly. This one smells particularly sweet."

Rage made Liana’s eyes blur red. "Let her go!" "After you kneel." Liana looked around the battlefield. Half the ceremonial meeting was down.

Elena Moonwhisper hung trapped in thorns that grew tighter with every breath. The Shadow Pack representatives had vanished—whether escaped or caught, she couldn’t tell.

Her shield was failing. Her friends were bleeding. Her friends were dying. "Fine," she whispered. "I’ll—" "Don’t you dare!" Mira’s voice cut through the confusion like a blade.

The aged wolf stood in the center of the battlefield, her silver hair whipping around her face as power older than memory blazed from her eyes.

"Adrian!" she screamed at the sky. "If you can hear me, help us now!" Thunder crashed overhead despite the clear day.

The ceremonial ground shook as something old stirred beneath their feet. "Impossible," Vex snarled. "The dead don’t answer prayers." "The dead don’t," Mira agreed, tears running down her face as ghostly light began to form around her.

"But true love never dies." The spirit of Adrian materialized beside his mate, translucent but blazing with anger. Behind him came others—dozens of magical beings who had died fighting the High Council centuries ago.

"You killed our bodies," Adrian’s ghost spoke with the voice of winter wind. "But you never touched our souls."

The ghostly army charged. Chaos erupted as spirits fought with Council members. The dead couldn’t be hurt by physical attacks, but their touch drained the energy from their old enemies.

"Now!" Liana shouted, pouring everything she had into healing her friends. Her Guardian power swept across the battlefield, mending wounds and breaking evil chains.

Kael roared back to full strength. Jace’s burned fur regrew silver-bright. Elena burst free from her thorny jail. But the relief lasted only seconds.

"Enough games," Vex stated. They spread arms that suddenly sprouted wings made of liquid darkness. When those wings beat once, every ghost on the battlefield screamed and faded away—including Adrian.

"NO!" Mira fell as her mate’s spirit dissolved. "Cheap tricks," Vex said coldly.

"Did you think we hadn’t learned to deal with the dead after all these centuries?" The surviving High Council members formed a circle around the supernatural survivors.

Maybe thirty of the original thousand were still standing, all of them hurt, all of them trapped. "Last chance," Vex announced. "Surrender now, or we stop holding back."

"You call this holding back?" Jace panted, blood dripping from claw marks across his chest. Vex smiled, and it was the most frightening thing Liana had ever seen.

"Child, we’ve been playing with you. Observe true power." The Council member who looked like live starlight raised both hands.

Energy gathered between their palms—not the warm power of supernatural skills, but something cold and hungry that made reality itself recoil. "This is creation magic," Vex explained lightly.

"The same force we used to make your species in the first place. One touch will unmake you at the molecular level." The stars being aimed at Kael. "Stop!" Liana threw herself forward, but she was too far away.

The creation magic launched like a spear of pure destruction, directed straight at her mate’s heart. It never came.

River appeared between Kael and the dangerous energy, their half-real form absorbing the attack like a sponge soaking up water. "Impossible," the starlight being whispered. River turned, and their eyes were no longer purple.

They blazed with colors that had no names, colors from the spaces between worlds. "You forgot something," River said, their voice echoing with harmonies that made the air itself ring like a bell.

"Hybrid children don’t just bridge different species." They smiled, and reality cracked around them like broken glass.

"We bridge different dimensions. And something from the other side has been waiting a very long time to meet you."

The crack in reality widened, and through it walked a figure that made every High Council member take an involuntary step backward. It looked like Vex, but wrong.

Like someone had made a copy from memory and gotten all the details slightly off. Beautiful but twisted. Elegant but hungry. "Hello, brother," it said to Vex in a voice like poisoned honey.

"Miss me?" Vex’s perfect composure finally shattered totally. "You’re dead. We killed you in the first war." "Killed my body, yes," the visitor agreed.

"But consciousness is harder to kill than flesh. I’ve been waiting in the spaces between worlds, getting stronger, learning patience."

It pointed at River and the other hybrid children whose forms were now visible across the battlefield—no longer fading but blazing with interdimensional energy.

"And now these lovely children have given me the right way home. Thank you for making them, by the way. Your move to separate the species just made them more determined to unite."

More cracks emerged in reality. More twisted forms began to emerge—dozens of beings that looked like dark reflections of the High Council. "The exiled," Vex breathed.

"But the barriers—" "Were never meant to keep us out forever," the visitor finished. "Just until we found the right keys. Keys made of love that crosses impossible limits."

River laughed, and the sound shattered every lingering barrier between dimensions. "Welcome to the real war," they told everyone present.

"The one that’s been going on since before any of you were born." Liana realized with growing horror that the High Council had never been their biggest enemy.

They had just woken something infinitely worse.