My heart was beating so hard in my chest that I thought it would explode. Everyone moved almost at the same time. The fastest and most sensitive moved first. Alex, Martin, and then Autumn moved like ghosts in the human world. They were so fast… seeing my daughter move like that… my little girl… she was… forever changed. I was watching her so closely in the house, and then she just disappeared in a blur of motion. It was a harsh reminder of what had changed.

  El, Clara, and the rest of us moved to follow. I hadn’t even realized that Sam and Jane had disappeared from the main living room. We were all so caught up in having Autumn back that we didn’t realize that those two had separated into the backyard.

  I was the first of the humans out in the back yard, but that didn’t matter. I was just as oblivious as any of the supernaturals of our family. The nighttime struck me first. We had been talking so long, all day, that the shadows that laced our property, and the deep blackness of the woods, surprised me as I made it outside.

  I didn’t understand exactly what I was running towards, only following after Martin, Alex, and Autumn as they fled the house, aiming toward where we all understood something was happening. When we all arrived behind the vampires, I saw Sam sitting at the head of the patio table, talking with Jane. Jane, however, was standing now. She was gazing into the darkness of the tree line with murderous intent.

  I noticed that Alex, Autumn, and Martin were not looking at Sam but staring out into the woods. I followed their gaze and saw something that scared the shit out of me. Just at the edge of the property, barely out of sight for us humans, was a sea of glowing eyes. They all looked silver, reflective… no color to differentiate them from the rest. They were all similar, moving, surrounding the house… and all of us.

  What was even worse… was that there were other things… other people, that were in those woods too, only we couldn’t see them yet. I couldn’t explain how I knew it… But I could almost feel them.

  I glance at the table again… searching for some solace in the rising panic. Jane was on her feet… just as surprised, if not more charged by what was happening than anyone else in our backyard. Sam, however, was motionless. I don’t think I saw him move an inch. He didn’t even turn around. He just sat there in his chair, eyes closed, looking down at the table. Before I could ask what the hell was going on, a voice broke the shadows.

  “It never needed to come to this…” Clive spoke as he stepped out of the shadows.

  His form was illuminated by the moonlight that spread over our property like a natural spotlight. He was tall, with short brown hair, large muscles draped over a bulky frame. He was all strength… no brains; at least that’s how we thought of him when we were younger. Something told me that now he was different.

  “I tried to reason with you, Jane. I tried… but you just didn’t want to see reason,” Clive said, either truly emotional or an excellent liar.

  “Shut the fuck up, Clive,” Frank barked into the night. His rage was plain across his face, his body tensed with a fury that was barely kept in check. He was furious that Clive was still up to his usual antics. This time… he wasn’t hiding behind excuses or falsities. He had finally made a move for what he wanted: control… and power. He wanted power over his collective pack and Jane’s.

  “Silence, Frank!” Clive ordered as he fully stepped out from the trees, bestial power laced in his voice. “You’re not even a background note in this story. Just a piece of debris in our path,” he motioned back towards the glowing eyes in the woods. “Stay silent… or I will end you so you do not delay us further.”

  Jane eyed him carefully, watching for what he was going to do with so many people bearing down on us.

  “What do you want?” I asked the werebear, garnering attention on myself.

  Clive regarded me with a reluctant look on his face. It seemed like… he really felt sorry for something he was doing… or was about to do.

  “Carter… things are… complicated, as always.”

  “Then speak plainly, Clive. What is it that you want? Why are you here?” I asked, trying to shove down the emotion that I had been feeling for the last few hours since Autumn’s return.

  “I’ve warned you… all of you!” Clive began. He paced around the outer area of our property, keeping close to the border of the woods as he moved, not getting too close. He was big! Growing in size and intensity as he spoke. The beast was surfacing. “I told you, Jane… something was coming! Something that was a threat to us all! We need to join forces… put all of our power together to face what was to come…” he trailed off, looking more emotional than I think he wanted to… or maybe it was just the right amount.

  We all listened, gauging what he was saying and how much movement remained hidden behind the shadows of the trees. I looked over to my family, human and monster alike, and we were all primed and ready for an all-out brawl… where lives would be claimed. I glanced over to Sam… our ace in the hole. He was… motionless. His eyes were still closed, and his head had never lifted from staring into the table.

  What the fuck are you doing, Sam?

  Jane spoke loudly so everyone hiding in the shadows of the woods could hear her. “All of you… every single person out in those shadows… show yourselves.” Jane’s eyes pulsed wide and shifted into a bestial yellowish-orange that contrasted starkly against her black hair. “Right, fucking-now!” Her voice shifted to a low and monstrous warble that melded her words with a snarl.

  It was chilling, even for me.

  There was a charge in the air after she spoke, and I could see the effect in the reflective eyes out in the woods. One by one, over the course of a few moments, many people stepped out of the tree line. Not all… but many.

  There were some people that I noticed, faces that I had seen before on my few excursions out into Jane’s territory. There were even two faces that I knew were Jane’s relatives… her actual blood. They were standing on that side of the yard… with Clive. I looked over to Jane quickly as soon as I realized… and the image I saw would haunt my mind. Jane was… it was hard to describe. Fury, rage, betrayal, and revenge all rolled up into one look on her face.

  There was a way that Jane could be… so calm and emotionless, but also so horrifying and terrible at he same time. It was an inevitability… a promise in the eyes of a predator that she had already marked you for death… to be consumed by her werewolf form. That’s what I saw in Jane’s face as two of her very own family stepped out from the dark. They weren't strays… they were family.

  “Do not blame them, Jane. You’ve had every chance to join me… to keep them safe. They know, as well as I, what’s coming. They know how many times I’ve come to you… How many times have you fought me off, burying your head in the sand so you don’t have to admit what’s at your front door?” Clive stopped for a moment to gather his emotions, which were theatrically shown to everyone in the area. He was going for effect here… and it was working for all who were with him.

  I could tell that Jane was furious with herself. At one point, she had believed Clive's lies. I think we all did. We were so distracted by Frank's abuse of Hunter’s breath that we ate up whatever lies Clive told us just so we could focus on my brother. All the while, Clive wedged his way in like a bad splinter.

  Before he could continue, a bronze-skinned man stepped out of the tree line and took a few steps out to meet Clive’s distance into the yard. This was one of Jane’s family members. I think his name was Llewyn. He was an average build man, middle-aged, and held more native American features, as Jane did, but even more so. He had long black hair that was coiled up in a more civilized manner than Jane's. This guy seemed like a talker… a bureaucrat.

  “Jane… you haven’t taken us seriously for some time now… We’ve tried to speak to you about this… Tried to hold council meetings… but you…” Llewyn paused to take stock of his intent. He wanted to make sure he said what he meant. I could tell that this was hard for him, but he truly believed what he was saying. “You haven’t chosen us! You have chosen Frank and his family. You have chosen your place outside of the pack!”

  However… I think Llewyn didn’t realize how much Clive had tainted him with lies. “You spend more time with the Chasse family than you do with your own pack these days. How can you lead… How can you be our alpha when we aren’t your priority?”

  Jane's face revealed more than she wanted it to. The look on her face was a mix of torn pain and confusion. I don’t think she expected to see one of her own family members here… with Clive. I think his words hit her harder than even she expected them to. She was trying to figure out if they were actually true.

  Frank spoke up next, “Llewyn… how the fuck could you side with Clive on this? I don’t know everything about your family… but what I do know… is that if they all agreed… they’d be here!” Frank’s emotions and anger punctuated his statement in a way that Llewyn couldn’t argue with.

  Llewyn turned his gaze down at the ground almost immediately, silently admitting the truth in Frank’s words.

  The second of Jane’s family stepped out of the shadows. It was a younger man named Broox; I remembered him from our last trip out to the Rockwoods Reservation, where we helped Jane with an addition to her large farmhouse-style home. It was to accommodate more of these strays.

  I didn’t know Brooxs personally, but I knew what generation he had come out of in the Talbot family. He was around the same age as Autumn. He was only in his early twenties. He was malleable… easily swayed by strong convictions.

  I didn’t pretend to be an expert on werewolves, but I knew some basic principles. Werewolves were all about power… power with numbers… their pack. Within their pack, though, they were still about power. They wanted to be the strongest, to rise and become the alpha. Broox was no different. He wanted to be the strongest… and the strongest stood in his way. Jane was in his way… family or not.

  “You’re right, Hunter! You don’t know us! So do not speak for us!” the young, overconfident werewolf raged towards Frank. Then, he shifted his sights to Jane. “How dare you! How dare you treat our family like we come second to this family!” his eyes spat venom toward us as he let out his resentment. “An alpha leads from the front… we need an alpha that puts our family first. They may be too blind to see it right now… but that’s just because they’re stuck in old ways and outdated loyalty that should have died the same time yours did,” Broox pointed his accusation at Jane, making excuses for his actions.

  Jane was silent for only a second before she spoke coldly, “If you want to be the alpha… make your move!” There was no posturing, no bravado. This was pure opportunity, but also to prove a point.

  Both of the Talbot werewolves that opposed Jane froze. They looked back and forth at each other. They had the classic, “You go first,” look on their faces. The younger one, Broox, looked like he wanted to say something, but he ultimately held his tongue.

  When neither of them moved to accept the challenge, Jane said, “Just as I thought. Not strong enough to take it! You want it handed to you, by siding with him!” Jane’s eyes were laced with hate and fury towards Clive in a way they hadn’t been yet. She looked at Clive like he was a virus that had snuck into her family.

  Both Talbot werewolves cowered at the same moment as Jane’s eyes pulsed an even stranger hue of yellowish-orange, and her irises took up even more area of her eyes. She looked primed for a full transformation, even growing a few inches in height.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Everyone… everyone,” Clive raised his open palms up and out to try and calm the situation. “Let’s let cooler heads prevail!”

  Jane was right… This guy had become a politician. It sickened me to know we had to deal with something like this, all the while we just wanted to have time with Autumn, now that she was back.

  “We didn't come here for Jane’s head… not without offering her one last chance to see reason,” Clive shifted gears. “Jane… stop fighting this and join us! Keep your pack whole, and merge packs with me! We can stop this threat together! She won’t end our world as we know it. We will be the ones to stop all of this… here… and now!” Clive shifted his gaze over towards Alex and Autumn as he said that last part.

  That… gave me pause. What was he talking about… more importantly, who was he talking about?

  Jane picked up on that too, and asked, “What, she? Who are you talking about?” Jane’s primal eyes bored into Clive before shifting over to Autumn.

  Clive stared intently at Autumn. I could see it now… it was not at Alex… but at Autumn directly. I turned my attention to the rest of the eyes I could see, slowly stepping out of the shadows to reveal them. Every single one of them was, more often than not, looking directly at Autumn.

  “I’ve been telling you… There is a new threat in this world… it starts here in this city. It changes things… things that have been set in stone in our world since the dawn of time. You've felt it... I know you have. The hunger... It's changed now. It's more intense. We're all affected by it, and she," Clive pointed at Autumn with authority. "Her presence is a direct blasphemy against the natural order. She should not be,” Clive exclaimed with real conviction this time, pointing a clawed finger at my daughter as his face shifted to more bear-like features.

  “Autumn?” Jane asked with true confusion. “You think that Autumn is this great threat that you’ve been rambling on about since you came back to St. Louis?” Jane sounded truly surprised but mostly confused.

  I think we were all thinking it at the same time; Clive was a dumbass… or a really good showman. Why would he think Autumn was the threat? Nothing he said made any sense, not with what we all knew. Just talking with Sam over the last few hours had illuminated enough to realize that Clive was either very invested in whatever game he was playing... or he'd been led astray. He might have bought into a lie... but from who? Who would have sent him here for Autumn?

  He was already here, preaching about some coming threat, well before she was changed. I knew he had some kind of visions, or connections to the world, like the Wicklows... but I didn't know enough to understand it, or where they came from.

  “She is an abomination. She toes a line none of us are meant to walk. She blots out my sight and leaves the future masked and unreadable.” Clive stepped back a few feet, trying to calm himself to speak more clearly. “Ever since I was warned, I started looking. I saw this girl… cloaked in darkness. She would appear, then disappear. Always in conflict, always surrounded by blood and death. But she never expired on her own. She has a shadow following her… and that was when she was human. Now… what I was warned about has come to pass.” Clive moved a few steps toward Autumn, who had her teeth bared and her eyes blazing crimson just beside Alex.

  When I looked at Autumn in that moment, it felt like some kind of bestial engine had started up, and vibrations of some kind filled the air around me. They emanated from Autumn and Alex both and spilled out across the area. I could feel it across my skin and in my chest, but it wasn't hitting me directly. It was more like these vibrations were rolling off and around me.

  Jane interrupted Clive without hesitation. “That’s it, isn’t it? The real reason you want them? You think that the Chasse family poses too big a threat to take them down with your Golden Corral version of a pack. They'd kill you… especially with Autumn… not to mention Alex,” Jane motioned with her thumb toward the red-haired vampire… whatever she was. “You thought that if you had a reason for them to shift allegiance on me… that would give you enough leverage to put me in a bind… to join with you. Then you’d get what you always wanted; me… back with you.”

  “Jane… don’t be conceited. This isn’t all about you. I hoped to,” Clive searched for the right word. “Collect you as I continued on my path, but it was always about her. My connection to life… to nature… It’s shown me the threat she poses for some time now. I knew that you all would never see reason, so I had to get the numbers… make you see that there is no other way. She blots out all my senses... it blinks around the city in bursts of darkness. When that darkness clears... all that's left are bodies!”

  I burst out in a rage, “So what… You think killing a little girl is going to save the world? You think she’s that big a threat?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying, and how much he had done to accomplish his task.

  “Big bad werebear… attuned to nature itself… and you're worried about one girl…” Jane tried to mock him. "She's with us... She's in control. How would you know any better than us? We have the WIcklows to help us keep watch. Who the fuck are you to tell us one of our own is a threat?"

  “No… she isn’t the only threat… just the first one we have to deal with,” Clive tried to smooth things over before Jane’s family and pack that had betrayed her started asking questions of their own. He shifted gears to keep his narrative rolling. “The ultimate truth here is that you're a failure as an alpha. Your loyalty isn't to your pack anymore,” Clive accused. “If they follow you moving forward, they’ll be following a weak alpha who doesn't have their interests at heart. That will be a death sentence. You… and all of them, will die.”

  A silence fell at Clive’s words. We all stood still as we knew these words would play a key role in what came next. That was the moment I realized just how close Autumn, Alex, and even Martin had moved toward the tree line. They were still within the protection of the wards, but that just meant that they were weaker. Clive and his pack of misled strays were unaffected as of yet. So, we wouldn't let them in, because weakened or not… they had the numbers.

  “You’re right,” Jane said out of nowhere, and an almost relieved look crossed her face.

  It shook the aura of the conversation and the shadows between hidden figures in the trees.

  “The pack hasn’t been my priority for a while now. The pack is… a drain on me, if I'm being honest.”

  “So you admit it?” the young man, named Broox, accused with angry disgust.

  Jane threw a side-eye at him, “Yeah… that’s what I just said, Brooxs…” Jane looked annoyed. “I've followed in the footsteps of our predecessors for far too long. We’ve taken in anyone who appeared and was willing to abide by our rules. Now we are such a small fraction of the greater whole that we aren’t the Talbot pack anymore. We’re the St. Louis pack.” Jane looked down at the ground for a moment and shook her head. It wasn't confusion, but resolution. “I’m not the St. Louis pack. I’m Jane Talbot,” she said her name with a force that I couldn’t comprehend, but all the werewolves, family, stray, or otherwise felt it. They physically reacted to her words. “I’m the Talbot pack… and none of you are with me!” It was a condemnation. “You’ve betrayed your family… and there is no coming back from that!”

  Jane shed a few silent tears as she spoke, though she never let it slow or impede her words. It was only fuel for the growing fire in her heart.

  Llewyn and Brook recoiled slightly at her words, trying not to seem as affected by them as they so obviously were. They stumbled backward a few feet, unsure of what to do after things shifted so drastically from what they thought would happen. They never in a million years thought that Jane would admit she didn’t want to lead the entire pack as she had been. Hell… neither did I.

  “Enough talk, Jane. Your words mean nothing to me,” the werebear took over the conversation. “I don’t want to kill you, Jane, but I will absorb your pack. I will kill this girl here and now… we all will,” Clive motioned back toward his approaching horde of sixty-something supernaturals. “This world cannot support a new creation like her… she’s the link to our annihilation!” Clive exclaimed over the rumbling noise of voices and movement from the woods.

  A strange cacophony of yips, howls, and roars echoed out from the darkness of the trees at his words. They were all prepared to fight... to kill. They wanted blood... my daughter's blood.

  His words struck me, though... something Clive had just said. I didn’t know it at the time, but his words were drawing up a memory of something I would think on later. Something that Sam had told me a while back.

  I gripped the hilt of my silver blade that hung behind me on my belt, ready to pull it and start swinging. I knew I was no match for most of these creatures that surrounded our house. I knew that even if I got the jump on one of them, it could be someone from Jane’s family… or extended family.

  I knew what she had said, but I couldn't know for certain if she truly meant it, or if this was some sort of power move as the alpha to push them back in line. Did Jane really want Llewyn and Broox killed, or was she trying to make them see the severity of what was happening? I didn’t think she actually cared for any of the strays that had betrayed the pack, but family…

  I couldn't imagine seeing Wayland or Jane herself killed by one of us, or our family as a whole. Even our extended family was precious to me. So… what was coming worried me. I didn’t want something to happen that would split our families. I felt like we had just gotten to be so close again after so long apart.

  So, I clutched my blade, but waited to make a move. I slowly crept closer to Autumn, and Eleanor mirrored my movement. We converged at her sides and drew our silver blades. I heard Autumn make a noise that was obviously a part of this new “her,” but I didn’t look. I didn’t need to. It was a reaction to the silver. She was… different, that I knew. But at her heart, even though it was still early in all this, Autumn was still my daughter.

  Win or lose, I had to hang onto that until I met my end. Whatever this world would throw at us, I would never turn against my daughter, not as long as I saw her still in those dark brown eyes in between her shifts into this new monstrous power. Monster hunter or not… I was a father first… always first!

  Jane flared her own transformation, as much as she could pull on this night outside of a full moon. Being an alpha, though, she could draw on more than any other could, except for other alphas.

  In mere moments, Jane's tall, muscular form shifted to having pitch black hair grow over her outer arms and back. Her ears elongated and warped to pick up more sound. Her eyes bulged and widened with that same yellowish-orange tinge that made her seem like something from another world. The muscle beneath her skin must have grown more dense or something, because she had a weightiness to her that I couldn’t understand. All I knew was that she was way stronger… and much heavier, though faster all the same. Her shoulder-length hair grew longer until it was swaying somewhere past her butt as she stalked the area, keeping Clive in her sights. She was so big now, so lean, tall, and formidable. If only she could fully transform… then we’d have a murder machine ready to go… then nothing could stop her.

  Clive shook his head, truly disappointed. “So, this is the fate you choose? This is what you wish for this family you care so much about? If you would all just see reason! See what she has become… see the monster in her. She is a new creation! Stuck between our world and the next! She is elevated beyond the supernatural but lower than the Primeval!”

  The moment Clive said that word… ‘Primeval,’ I felt something wash across the area. It came from behind me… but I dared not look. I knew what it was… who it was. That word carried power, and I don’t think Sam liked that it had just been spoken out loud in front of so many people.

  Sam hadn’t moved, hadn’t budged, or even made a sound as all of this had begun. He remained exactly where he was, eyes closed, and face staring down into the table on our patio. None of the others, not even Clive, acknowledged him as he sat there… just behind us all. It was… weird to say the least. But everything started up so quickly that I didn’t have time to dwell on it too much. I knew he was there, and I was asking the question in my mind.

  Why wasn't Sam doing anything?

  But then… right after I felt that flood of… wrath, come from Sam, everyone noticed him. The mood shifted, and it was like we had all been locked in a room with a starving tiger. If he had been somehow hidden from them before, I was unsure. But they definitely saw him now. They felt him!

  “You think she's the threat?” Sam’s darkly cold voice spilled out across the entire area. It wasn't like it was spoken from him, but like the darkness that surrounded all of us said the words.

  I felt goosebumps roll across my body and grip me in a way I had never felt before. An overwhelming dread swallowed the area, and I felt my heart beating even harder in my throat, chest, and ears.

  “You think that she is the reason your visions don’t let you see anything but death?”

  Instinctively, all of the people with Clive slowly started stepping backward, even Clive himself. But Sam still hadn’t moved from the table. He was exactly where he had been, but his presence… it was like it had exploded. Like the entire area was his domain, and we were the unfortunate souls to be inside of it.

  If the wards were doing anything to inhibit Sam, and whatever he was doing inside of them, I couldn’t tell. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were somehow circumventing every single one of them entirely.

  “The Wicklows have a sight too… one that’s been blocked out a lot recently. When it comes back to them… It’s the same blood and death you talk about,” Eleanor shouted at the top of her lungs, trying to get it out over the rising feeling that was growing by the second. I don't know why she said this... I don't think she even knew, not fully. She understood something now that I think none of the rest of us had put together yet. However, the moment she said it, things started lining up in my mind. But I didn’t have the time to process it all. Everyone stopped, and the backyard fell silent. It only lasted for about two seconds, and then the sound of metal chair legs scraped across the concrete slab.

  Sam stood up, pushing back and then knocking the chair over behind him. He turned fluidly, not rushed or angered, but as smooth as a man doing something very monotonous. Like something he had done countless times.

  When Sam turned, I could barely see his hooded face. In the darkness of his hood, all I saw was the pitch black voids of his eyes and the shift of razor-sharp teeth framing his face. His skin was blackening, and his form turned almost shadowy as he grew rapidly in size. All of us instinctively backed away from him on both sides, moving as two separate groups to the sides of the house. Even the vampires and Jane slowly inched back away from the feeling that was building around Sam.

  What came next… was too brutal… too merciless to explain with words. All I knew for certain… was that, once it began... all I heard were screams!