Aiden POV
The ergency signal howled through the night - five long calls that ant "danger to all packs." I grabbed my phone and saw twelve missed calls from Alpha leaders across the country. Sothing terrible was happening everywhere.
"Dad!" I shouted, running to his office. "Are you getting the ergency calls too?"
Alpha Marcus looked up from his desk, his face pale. "Every pack west of the Mississippi is under attack. The Council of Alphas has called an ergency eting. We leave in one hour."
My stomach dropped. The Council only t during the worst crises. The last ti was during the Great Fire of 2018 when three full packs had to be relocated.
"What kind of attack?" I asked, though I already guessed the answer.
"Reports are scattered, but they all ntion the sa thing - pack mbers with black eyes who don’t act like themselves. Sound familiar?"
I nodded grimly. The Void Walkers weren’t just threatening Silver Peak. They were spreading across the entire werewolf country.
An hour later, we were on a plane going to the ergency eting point in Colorado. I stared out the window, thinking about everything that had happened. Lily’s sacrifice had saved our pack, but at what cost? And now it seed like her answer might be the key to saving everyone.
The problem was getting the other Alphas to listen to ideas from soone they’d never heard of - especially soone who had given up her pack bonds.
We arrived at a private airfield in the mountains. Black SUVs waited to take us to the eting spot. I’d never seen so many Alpha cars in one place. License plates from Washington, Texas, Florida, New York - packs from everywhere.
The eting was held in an old house that had been neutral ground for decades. As we walked in, I could feel the stress in the air. Alphas who generally competed with each other were working together, which ant the threat was bigger than any of us had faced before.
"Aiden Silver," called a voice across the room. Alpha Rodriguez from the Desert Moon Pack approached us. "I heard your pack dealt with these things already. How many did you lose?"
"None, actually," I said, and his eyebrows shot up.
"None? That’s impossible. We lost half our pack before we managed to escape the rest."
Other Alphas crowded around us, all talking at once.
"The Mountain Ridge Pack is completely gone," said Alpha Chen. "Every single mber possessed."
"We managed to save thirty wolves out of two hundred," added Alpha Thompson. "They’re in hiding, but we don’t know for how long."
The stories went on and on. Pack after pack had been destroyed by the Void Walkers. So Alphas had lost their entire families. Others were the only survivors from their areas.
"How did Silver Peak survive?" asked Alpha Rodriguez. "What did you do that the rest of us couldn’t?"
Before I could answer, the Council Leader called for order. Alpha King Marcus - not my father, but the chosen leader of all North Arican packs - stood at the front of the room.
"We face an enemy unlike any we’ve encountered," he announced. "Traditional guns are useless. Our best fighters have been turned against us. If we don’t find an answer soon, there will be no packs left to save."
He pointed to a map covered in red pins. "These are the locations where Void Walker attacks have been proven. As you can see, they’re spreading fast."
The picture looked like a disease spreading across the continent. Red pins covered most of the western states and were starting to show in the east.
"Alpha Silver," the Council Leader said, looking at my father. "Your pack is the only one that has successfully repelled a full Void Walker attack. Tell us how."
Dad stood up slowly. "The answer ca from an unexpected source. Our pack’s Triple Moon bearer found a way to sever the bonds that the Void Walkers feed on."
Murmurs spread through the room. Several Alphas looked confused.
"Triple Moon bearer?" asked Alpha Rodriguez. "Those are myths."
"I thought so too," Dad admitted. "But Lily Carter showed otherwise. She found ancient texts that described how to perform sothing called the Great Severance."
"And where is this miracle wolf?" Alpha Chen asked sarcastically. "Why isn’t she here to explain this solution herself?"
I felt my heart clench. "She sacrificed her own pack ties to save us. The process... it cut her off from everyone she loves. She can’t even rember being part of our pack."
The room fell silent. Every Alpha knew what that ant. For a werewolf, losing pack ties was worse than death.
"So your solution is for all of us to give up our pack connections?" Alpha Thompson asked angrily. "That’s not saving our packs - that’s destroying them!"
"There has to be another way," I said, standing up. "Lily found the first answer in just a few days. With all of our joint knowledge, we can find a better one."
"Your oga girlfriend isn’t here," Alpha Rodriguez snapped. "And even if she was, why should we trust the word of soone who’s no longer pack?"
I felt my anger rise. "Because she’s the only one who’s actually beaten them!"
"Enough!" the Council Leader shouted. "We’re here to find solutions, not argue about rank."
An aide rushed into the room and whispered sothing important in the Council Leader’s ear. His face went white.
"What is it?" my father asked.
The Council Leader looked around the room seriously. "The Void Walkers have just attacked the Ergency Bunker where we sent the evacuated pack mbers. Three hundred wolves were supposed to be safe there."
"And now?" Alpha Chen asked, though we all knew the answer.
"Now they’re all possessed. And they’re going straight for this location."
The room exploded in chaos. Alphas shouted orders, grabbed phones, demanded escape routes. But I felt a cold confidence settle in my stomach.
"They knew," I said softly, but sohow everyone heard . "The Void Walkers knew we were eting here. They wanted us all in one place."
The Council Leader nodded grimly. "Every Alpha in North Arica is in this room. If they take us..."
He didn’t need to finish. If they owned every Alpha, they’d control every pack on the continent.
"How long do we have?" my father asked.
The helper checked his watch. "The infected packs are moving fast. Maybe twenty minutes before they arrive."
I looked around the room at fifty of the most powerful wolves in North Arica. All of us trapped, with no way out and no answer.
"Wait," I said suddenly. "Lily might not be able to co here, but she left us sothing."
I pulled out my phone and showed them a video ssage she’d recorded before the Great Severance. In it, she described exactly how the ancient ritual worked.
"She knew this day would co," I said. "She prepared for it."
But as I started to play the movie, my phone went dead. Every phone in the room went dark at the sa ti.
"They’re jamming our communications," the Council Leader said.
Through the windows, we could see lights moving through the trees. Hundreds of lights, getting closer.
"The possessed packs are here," soone whispered.
We were the last free Alphas in North Arica, and we had less than five minutes before the Void Walkers took us all.
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