Hades' Cursed Luna

Hades

"Kael!" His name tore from my throat as I watched in horror. My mind raced through impossible calculations—every option a death sentence. If I moved too fast or hit too hard, Thea and Micah would fall. If I rammed into the creature, the sudden impact could send them plummeting or give the vampire a chance to grab them. If I tried to shake the creature off, Kael would be thrown into the void. But if I waited, Kael would die by his own hand.

All these thoughts crashed through my consciousness in the span of a heartbeat.

Kael's hand moved toward his throat with jerky, unnatural movements, but I could see him fighting it—his fingers trembling as he tried to force his arm back down. The partial control he still maintained over his own body was the only thing keeping him alive, but it was a battle he was losing.

The unfinished mark on his back pulsed brighter, visible even through his torn shirt. Malrik's incomplete claim was enough to give the vampire some control, but not total dominance. Yet.

"Fight it, Kael!" I screamed, my voice breaking with desperation.

Behind me, I felt sudden movement. Before I could react, Thea had shifted into her wolf form—smaller and more agile than Kael's—and launched herself through the air with impossible speed and precision. Her leap carried her directly onto the vampire's back, right beside where Kael struggled against the compulsion.

Without hesitation, she bit down hard on Kael's clawed hand just as his talons reached his throat. Her smaller wolf form was no match for his strength, but the sharp pain was enough to break his concentration. Kael howled—a sound of anguish and rage that echoed across the night sky as he fought against both the vampire's control and Thea's intervention.

The vampire thrashed violently, trying to dislodge both wolves from its back while maintaining flight, but Thea held on with grim determination. Her bite wasn't meant to hurt Kael—it was meant to save him, to give him something real and immediate to focus on besides the insidious whisper in his mind.

For a moment, the three of them formed a struggling knot of wings, fur, and desperation against the starlit sky.

I had a child on my back.

What the hell was I going to do? The helplessness was a tight noose around my throat that I tightened every second.

The frustration and fear that had been building inside me reached a breaking point. We were supposed to make it home tonight. Kael should have been sleeping in his own bed by now. Thea and Micah should have been safe in Obsidian territory, finally free from the nightmare they'd been living, their debt paid after giving us the route that could change everything.

Instead, we were trapped in this aerial hell, with a child crying on my back and my closest friend fighting for his life against a creature that shouldn't exist.

The rage that erupted from my throat wasn't human—wasn't even entirely lycan. It was something primal and ancient, the sound of Vassir's essence given voice. The growl that tore from me shattered the night air, so loud and powerful it seemed capable of ripping the very sky apart. The sound waves rippled outward, carrying with them all my fury, desperation, and protective instinct.

The vampire stopped mid-snarl, its crimson form going completely still in the air as if frozen by the sheer force of my roar. Its burning red eyes widened, and for the first time since this nightmare began, it looked genuinely stunned.

The effect on Kael was immediate. Whatever hold the creature had on him snapped like a severed rope. He crumpled forward, his wolf form going limp as consciousness returned to his eyes. His hands—or what remained of them as they regenerated from bloody stumps—hung useless at his sides, but he was awake, he was himself again.

Kael shifted back to human form, naked and trembling but alive. Thea, still in her wolf form, grabbed him by the shoulder with her jaws and leaped off the vampire's back in one fluid motion. I dove beneath them, catching both of them against my spine just as they began to fall.

The vampire remained motionless in the air, staring at me with the same stunned recognition it had shown when it remembered Kael's name. Something in my growl had reached it—had reminded it of something or someone it thought was lost forever.

It was strange too because from the moment I saw it, it felt familiar as well.

But I didn't care what memories my voice had stirred. All that mattered was getting my people home.

The air burned in my lungs, but I didn't dare slow. Each beat of my wings was agony, but the thought of losing even one of them after everything we had faced this night kept me pushing.

Below us, the hidden city stretched like a phantom tapestry, glittering towers wrapped in its impossible glamour.

And beyond the trees—

My eyes narrowed, heart kicking hard against my ribs. There it was. The wall. Tall and unyielding, stretching like a jagged scar across the horizon, dividing Obsidian from Silverpine.

Home.

A surge of gratitude rose sharp in my chest, cutting through exhaustion like a blade. Thea had been right. She'd led us true. She'd saved Kael. She'd saved all of us. For the first time since this nightmare flight began, hope was close enough to taste.

Then the howl came.

It tore from behind us, long and piercing, a sound that rattled bone and froze blood. The vampire. Whatever trance my roar had forced upon it—whatever recognition had stunned it into stillness—was shattered.

I didn't need to look back to know. The thunder of crimson wings beat against the night air, closer, louder. The predator was hunting again.

Adrenaline flooded me, my muscles screaming as I forced more speed from my battered body. My vision blurred, spots sparking at the edges, but I drove forward anyway. Just a little further. Just to the wall.

Then—light.

Blinding beams cut across the sky, searing my eyes white. I reeled, the sudden glare slicing through the dark like a blade, and my stomach dropped as realization struck cold and merciless.

We weren't the only ones who had seen us.

Searchlights.