The night was breathless.
Moonlight cut across the sprawling Gryphon estate like pale knives, silvering the hedges and fences, glinting on the steel tips of security cameras.
From a distance, the mansion looked serene, its trimmed lawns, the scattered lamps, the iron gates. But Cassius knew better. Behind those walls was not just wealth, but a pack. And tonight, he and his men would burn it all down.
Crouched low in the brush, Cassius adjusted the earpiece snug against his jaw. His gloved fingers tapped the side once. "Positions?" His voice was a whisper, but it carried in the silence like a blade unsheathing.
One by one, his men answered.
"South gate, ready."
"East tower, eyes on target."
"Perimeter, clean."
"Sniper in the west treeline. Locked."
Cassius exhaled through his nose, cold air steaming against the black cloth of his mask. Twenty-four hunters. That was the number he'd brought. Two dozen trained men armed with silver rifles, flash grenades tuned to overload lupine senses, and shaped charges designed for stone and wood alike. Enough to kill a pack, if the plan held.
John was crouched beside him, a heavy rifle slung across his chest, watching him the way only someone who had bled beside you for years could. "Still time to call it off," he muttered, but there was no hesitation in his tone. Just habit. Just ritual.
Cassius gave him the faintest smile. "You'd hate me if I did."
John smirked back, checked his ammo, and nodded once.
The hunters moved as shadows. They fanned out around the estate, every step rehearsed, every angle memorized from weeks of studying maps and surveillance photos.
Cassius had walked them through this attack until the men could draw the estate blindfolded in dirt. He knew where the servants slept, where the dogs patrolled, where the pack would gather when alarms were tripped.
That last part mattered most. Because you never killed a pack one by one. You herded them. You cornered them. You broke them with intellect, not brute force.
Cassius flicked his hand forward. Advance.
The first shot was silent, a suppressed crack from the treeline. One of the outer guards collapsed before he even had time to shift. Another followed, then another. Each corpse, as Cassius passed, leaked that strange gray smoke, fur fading, claws shrinking, flesh convulsing as they shriveled back to fragile human form. Cassius barely glanced at them. Hesitation was poison.
They breached the south wall, scaling with hooked lines and silent boots. Within moments, men were inside the gardens, weaving between hedges and statues, rifles up. The flashbangs came next.
White light tore the dark apart. Thunderous cracks rolled across the grounds. Werewolves howled from the main house, a guttural, heart-stopping sound that reverberated in Cassius' chest. He forced his breathing steady. They'll be blind. Deaf. Dazed. Move.
Hunters flooded the outer yard. Silver-tipped bullets ripped into fur and muscle. Wolves lunged out of the darkness, hulking, eight feet tall, faster than any man had a right to be.
One leapt from the balcony, landing so hard the marble cracked beneath its claws. Two hunters fired, silver burning into its hide, but it kept coming, seizing one man by the throat and ripping him open before it collapsed under a third volley.
Cassius' jaw tightened. One gone already.
He and John pressed north, flanked by two others. The smell was everywhere, burnt fur, blood, the acrid tang of gunpowder. Every howl was answered by gunfire, every scream by a spray of silver. Cassius didn't stop to check faces. There was no time to mourn.
They carved a line through the outer quarters. Servants stumbled into the hallways, screaming, some human, some wolf-blooded. Cassius didn't hesitate. Orders were orders: kill on sight. He gunned them down, the recoil of his rifle a steady heartbeat in his arms.
John kept his flank clear, reloading with fast, brutal efficiency. "We're thinning them. Push!"
The main house loomed before them, gothic windows glowing faint with candlelight. Two guards burst from the entrance, already shifting mid-stride, jaws lengthening, spines snapping upward.
Cassius and John dropped them with synchronized bursts. Smoke rose from their chests as their bodies convulsed back into naked, bleeding human corpses on the steps.
Inside, the house was chaos. Wolves bounded down staircases, crashing through doorways, snarling through fountains of blood. Silver blades flashed as hunters fought up close, slashing tendons before pumping rounds into the beasts. The hunters' plan was working, they forced the wolves into choke points, narrow corridors where their speed counted for nothing.
But still, the cost mounted. Cassius saw one man slammed against a wall so hard his skull burst. Another dragged screaming through a window. A third torn in half before his grenade even left his hand.
Up the grand staircase, Cassius noticed something odd. The wolves weren't fighting to the death. They were retreating, step by step, pulling back.
"John," he hissed, his boots pounding the crimson rug. "They're leading us."
"Then we follow." John's jaw was steel.
The master bedroom doors gave under a kick. The chamber was lavish, four-poster bed, velvet drapes, chandeliers swaying from the concussions outside. But it was empty.
Empty, except for the faint tick. tick. tick.
One of the men froze, eyes wide. "Explosives!"
Cassius didn't think. He shoved, hard, sending John and the others tumbling as the world erupted.
Darkness.
***
His ears screamed with silence. Weight pressed on his chest. Dust filled his lungs. He coughed, blinked, saw nothing but fire and smoke.
A hand grabbed him. John, shaking him hard. "Cassius! Up! They're moving!"
Cassius staggered to his feet, mind sluggish, vision swimming. Through the haze, he saw it: a black limo nosing its way through rubble, headlights stabbing the dark. It picked up speed, tires screeching, aiming for the back road.
"No," Cassius growled, fury snapping him awake. He ripped the RPG off the shoulder of a fallen hunter. His arms trembled, his vision blurred. He fired.
The rocket screamed, exploded against stone, wide miss.
"Reload!" John barked.
Cassius gritted his teeth, fired again, missed, clipping a hedge. Rage boiled in his chest. He steadied himself, inhaled, shut out the chaos. Third shot, clean.
The rocket slammed the limo's rear. Fireball. The car tumbled, metal shrieking, glass shattering, until it skidded to a burning stop.
"Advance!" Cassius roared into his radio, voice raw. "On me!"
He sprinted with John and the last man standing. "Where's our fourth?" Cassius barked.
"Didn't make it," the hunter panted.
The words landed like a stone in Cassius' chest. He shoved it down. No time.
They reached the wreckage. The limo's rear door groaned. Two figures stumbled out, girls, no older than twenty. For a breath Cassius hesitated. Then they snarled, jaws splitting, limbs elongating, fur ripping through their dresses. Wolves.
They came fast. Too fast. One barreled into the third hunter, claws flashing. He screamed as she tore into him. Cassius and John opened fire, silver burning, smoke pouring. They dropped one after a vicious melee, the second shrieking and fleeing into the night, her body smoking, half her jaw blown away.
***
A howl split the air.
The limo tore apart from within. Metal peeled like paper. And then it stepped out.
The Alpha.
Towering, broad as two men, eyes burning red. Lance Gryphon.
He moved like no wolf Cassius had seen; fast, deliberate, almost graceful. Gunfire peppered him, silver tearing his flesh, but he shrugged it off, lunged, and in a blur seized the third man. The hunter barely screamed before he was ripped apart, blood misting across the flames.
Smoke. Shadows. Silence.
Then the voice, guttural, human through the muzzle of a beast: "You'll pay… for my girls. For my wife."
He came.
Cassius barely raised his weapon before claws flashed. John shoved him aside, taking the strike full force. The Alpha's talons speared through his chest, lifting him off his feet. Blood gushed, his body twitching. But John didn't let go, he held on, teeth bared in agony, arms locked around the beast's arm.
"Now!" he roared through blood.
Cassius didn't think. He lifted the RPG, aimed, fired point-blank.
The explosion lit the night, heat searing his face. The Alpha was hurled back, arm shredded, chest smoking. He staggered, snarled, and vanished into the smoke, retreating into the dark.
Cassius turned, too late.
John was on the ground. His chest was a ruin, claw marks gaping. Burns covered his arms and face. His breaths were ragged, shallow, each one a knife in his throat.
Cassius dropped to his knees. "No, no, stay with me—"
John coughed, blood spilling down his lips. He tried to speak, but no sound came, only a guttural rasp. His hand fumbled at his vest, pulled a small phone, and shoved it into Cassius' palm. His eyes locked onto Cassius; pleading, resolute, final.
Cassius' throat tightened. "Don't you dare—don't you dare leave me, John—"
But John's hand fell limp. His chest stilled. His eyes froze open, staring at the smoke-choked sky.
Cassius bowed his head, grief like a blade tearing him from within. Around him, fire roared, men screamed, wolves howled. But all he could hear was the silence where John's voice should have been.
The night had almost been a victory. But it tasted like ash.