Chapter Fifteen: The Final Reckoning
Cain's body was a ruin of bruises, gashes, and broken bones, but he stood. Blood slicked his chest, and every breath felt like inhaling fire. Across the shattered chamber, the First Wolf loomed—undeterred, untouched by time or mortality. Where it moved, the walls wept shadow, and ancient symbols crumbled to ash.
Rowan knelt at the pedestal, dragging a jagged knife across his palm. Blood poured onto the cracked obsidian runes, sizzling where it touched. His voice, weak and hoarse, chanted the remnants of a binding prayer once taught by the priests of the forgotten moon cult.
Cain didn't look back.
He couldn't.
He stared into the abyss and saw himself staring back.
"You're wasting your time," the First Wolf rasped, its voice like gravel in the dark. "You think the old words can stop me now?"
Cain spat blood. "They won't."
He took a step forward. Then another.
"I will."
With a roar, he charged the beast again—not with claws this time, but with fire.
Cain had taken something from Graves before he died: a silver-fused incendiary grenade, tucked into the hunter's satchel. The weapon was meant to cripple wolves. It would likely kill him too.
But he didn't care.
He dove beneath the First Wolf's grasp, stabbed the grenade into its underbelly, and tore the pin free.
The explosion ripped through the chamber like thunder. Fire roared. Stone screamed. The First Wolf howled, a sound so shrill the living wolves in the tunnels above howled in terror. The flames licked its ethereal hide, carving away darkness and revealing raw, ancient flesh beneath.
Cain hit the ground hard. His back arched, lungs spasming. His skin blistered. He couldn't move. Could barely breathe.
But the beast was reeling.
Rowan shouted, voice breaking. The pedestal glowed brighter.
Cain felt it. The magic was stirring. Responding to sacrifice.
He crawled. Fingers dug into ash and bone. He clawed his way toward the First Wolf.
"You want a vessel?" he rasped. "You want power?"
The beast turned, face half-peeled from the fire. You are mine.
"No," Cain whispered. "I. Am. Not."
He plunged his claws into the First Wolf's chest.
And pulled.
The spirit screamed.
Light and darkness exploded around them, and for a moment, everything became still. The chamber disappeared. The blood. The stone. The wolves. Even Rowan's chanting faded.
Cain stood in a void.
The First Wolf stood opposite him. No longer a monster—now a man. A reflection of Cain, twisted and burned, eyes filled with sorrow.
"You could've ruled," it said.
Cain shook his head. "I don't want to rule. I want it to end."
The figure stepped back. "Then end it."
Cain closed his eyes.
He opened himself to the curse.
The blood moon rose behind his eyes, bright and blinding. He screamed—not from pain, but from release. He felt the chain of power unravel. The bloodline shatter. The darkness recoil.
The curse broke.
Cain fell.
---
He awoke days later.
In the forest.
Snow drifted through branches above. Ravens cawed in the distance.
Rowan sat nearby, sharpening a blade with quiet focus. When he saw Cain stir, he gave a short nod.
"You're alive," Rowan said.
Cain coughed. "Barely."
"You stopped it. Whatever that thing was—it's gone."
Cain sat up slowly. "The curse?"
"Broken. At least... mostly. Some of us still feel the bond, but it's weaker. Like a fading dream."
Cain looked at the moon, pale and distant in the morning sky. "Good."
Rowan tossed him a flask. "What now?"
Cain drank, then wiped his mouth. "Now? We rebuild. Or we vanish. Doesn't matter."
"You could lead them," Rowan offered. "Be the Alpha they need."
Cain stared into the trees.
"No," he said. "No more kings. No more packs. The blood moon took enough from us."
He rose, his body still stiff, but his soul lighter.
"I'm going north. Beyond the ridge. There's quiet there."
Rowan watched him go.
"Will you come back?" he called.
Cain didn't answer.
But in the clearing where he walked, the snow melted just enough for a pawprint to remain.