Cane strolled into the moonlit clearing like he owned the night—and possibly the moon too, if paperwork allowed it.
Silver light spilled over him, sharpening every angle of his face until his cheekbones looked capable of drawing blood on their own. His eyes gleamed with that unsettling, unhurried calm only predators possessed—the kind that said I could kill you… but let's not rush art.
He glanced around once, unimpressed.
Then he sighed.
Not a tired sigh. Not an annoyed sigh.
A deeply disappointed parent at a school play sigh.
"You disappoint me," he said, voice smooth but cutting enough to shave bark off the nearest tree. It rolled through the clearing like distant thunder. "I was hoping for a touch of subtlety."
From the far edge of the woods, a darker shadow peeled itself away from the trees.
Kael stepped into the light.
If Cane looked like the night's aristocrat, Kael looked like the storm it was trying very hard not to release.
"And I," Kael replied, shoulders loose but eyes blazing, "was betting on cowardice."
The forest seemed to inhale—and forget how to exhale.
Even the wind hesitated, as if it wanted absolutely no involvement in whatever was about to happen.
Then came the wolves.
They didn't charge in dramatically. No heroic entrances. No theatrical growls.
They simply… appeared.
Shapes detached from darkness. Eyes flickered open like dying stars reigniting. Massive bodies moved with eerie silence, muscles coiled beneath fur, each one radiating the quiet promise of violence.
A lesser man might have counted them.
A smarter man would have started running.
Cane's gaze drifted downward, landing on Kael's hands. Dried blood crusted his knuckles, flaking slightly when his fingers curled.
Cane lifted one brow.
"You took out my border guards," he observed, almost conversationally—like Kael had trimmed hedges without permission.
Kael let out a humorless chuckle.
"You massacred my patrol."
"Well…" Cane tilted his head thoughtfully. "When you say it like that, it sounds rude."
A silence followed—thick, suffocating, ancient. The kind of quiet that didn't belong to nature but to something older… something that remembered wars fought before human language had words for them.
Somewhere far off, a branch snapped.
Neither of them looked.
Then Cane smiled.
It wasn't wide.
It wasn't warm.
It was the sort of smile historians later described as concerning.
"Good," he murmured. "Now we're finally communicating on the right level."
And just like that, the fragile illusion of restraint shattered.
What sparked between them wasn't anger.
It wasn't even hatred.
It was recognition.
Two apex predators acknowledging the other was not prey.
Kael moved first.
His body seized as the shift tore through him.
Bones cracked—sharp, violent reports like gunfire punching holes in the quiet. His spine arched, ribs expanding with brutal force as muscle split and rewove itself stronger. The sound alone could make a grown warrior reconsider every life choice that led them here.
Pain flashed across his face—
—and vanished beneath something far more dangerous.
Relief.
Freedom.
The wolf that burst from him was enormous.
Silver fur rippled like molten moonlight, each strand catching the glow until he looked less like a creature and more like a weapon forged by the night itself. His breath steamed in thick clouds, nostrils flaring as fury rolled off him in palpable waves.
If rage had a physical form…
It would step aside out of professional respect.
Cane didn't flinch.
Didn't step back.
Didn't even blink.
"Oh good," he muttered, already shifting. "You brought the large version."
His transformation flowed rather than shattered—darkness swallowing him whole. Where Kael was moonfire, Cane became the abyss between heartbeats.
Midnight-black fur drank in the light. His eyes ignited, twin embers glowing from a body that looked carved from shadow itself.
If Kael was wrath—
Cane was inevitability.
For half a breath, they circled.
Snow crunched softly beneath massive paws.
Hot breath curled into the freezing air.
The world narrowed until nothing existed beyond fang, claw, and the ancient instinct screaming:
Destroy.
Then they collided.
The impact thundered through the clearing, shaking snow loose from branches overhead in a cascading white storm. Birds exploded from distant trees, fleeing a battle they wanted no part of.
Claws tore through fur.
Teeth snapped inches from throats.
Their bodies slammed together again and again, each strike strong enough to fracture bone—or legends.
Kael lunged, jaws closing on Cane's shoulder. Cane twisted with terrifying speed, raking claws down Kael's flank in retaliation. Blood welled instantly, black in the moonlight, steam rising from it like the earth itself recoiled.
Neither retreated.
Neither slowed.
Mercy wasn't invited.
It wouldn't have come anyway.
Around them, the watching wolves remained frozen—not out of fear, but instinct. This was not a fight you interrupted unless you had a death wish and poor long-term planning skills.
Kael drove forward with relentless brutality, every movement fueled by a fury that had been waiting far too long for release.
Cane fought differently.
Precise.
Measured.
Almost surgical.
Where Kael was a wildfire, Cane was the blade that quietly slit its path in two.
They crashed through a fallen log, splintering it like brittle glass.
Snow turned red beneath their feet.
The clearing—once serene, almost sacred—became something feral. Something ruined.
War didn't announce itself with trumpets.
Sometimes…
It began with two monsters meeting under the moon and deciding the world simply wasn't big enough for both of them.
No quarter given.
No mercy asked.
Only the savage poetry of claw against flesh—and the unspoken promise that when this night ended…
only one of them might still be standing.
The dark wolf launched again—a streak of living shadow cutting through the frozen air, silent and lethal. His jaws parted as he flew, fangs glinting like drawn daggers, aimed with terrifying precision at the one place no wolf could afford to leave unguarded.
The throat.
A killing bite.
Clean. Final. Legendary, if anyone survived long enough to tell the story.
But Kael was not "anyone."
The silver wolf twisted mid-leap with impossible agility, muscles bunching and releasing in a fluid spiral. At the last possible second, he turned what should have been a fatal strike into an opening.
His jaws snapped shut.
Not on air.
On Cane.
Teeth punched through thick fur and into hard, living muscle.
The sound that followed was wet. Heavy.
Bone-threatening.
Cane snarled—not in pain, exactly, but in furious surprise. It had been a very long time since anyone had managed to get their teeth into him like that, and he clearly did not appreciate the nostalgia.
They slammed into the ground together.
Snow erupted around them in a violent plume, the pristine white instantly corrupted by streaks of red. Their bodies rolled—massive, unstoppable—flattening everything in their path. A young pine snapped beneath their weight with a sharp crack, as if the forest had also decided it wanted no part of this disagreement.
Kael tightened his grip.
Cane retaliated instantly, hind claws raking deep across Kael's ribs. Fur tore. Blood welled hot against the cold.
Still neither let go.
Still neither yielded.
They crashed once more—
A brutal collision of fang, muscle, and ancient hatred.
And then—
Something changed.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't dramatic.
Just a thread in the air.
A scent. Faint… but unmistakable.
Both wolves froze.
It hit them at the same time.
Human.
Fresh.
Warm.
Alive.
Wildly, catastrophically out of place.
Kael's ears snapped forward. Cane's head lifted a fraction, nostrils flaring as instinct took the reins before thought could even lace up its boots.