Chapter Six: The Call

Elsewhere, the shockwave of Dracula's return sends a howl through the wild ... a call only the old blood can hear.

 The werewolf packs sense the Seal has broken.

 Rufik, the werewolf Alpha, calls an urgent gathering.

........The Call........

 The tremor passed unseen by human eyes, but not unfelt.

 It wasn't an earthquake, nor a storm, nor any natural force the world could name. It was older than names. Older than man. It moved like a whisper through the bones of the earth, threading through root and ruin, blood and memory. Somewhere far below, in chambers where no light dared crawl, something had awakened .... and the world held its breath.

 In the silence that followed, the supernatural reeled.

 Far to the east, the fires of a hidden coven turned blue and sputtered to ash. One of the high priestesses screamed mid-chant, clutching at her skull as symbols seared into her skin without touch. In the south, the dead stirred in their graves....not rising, not yet, but turning. A necromancer near the Iron Hills shattered her scrying mirror when her own reflection began to bleed. Across the Veil, even the spirits faltered, their murmurs turning sharp and panicked.

 But it was the werewolves who heard it clearest.

 The call wasn't a sound. It was older than sound. It moved beneath the skin, through marrow and instinct. A vibration felt only by those with old blood in their veins .... not the watered lineages of modern packs, but the deep, primal kin, born of night and moon, shaped by curses that predated the written word.

 In the Blackthorn Wilds, the howling began.

 A dozen packs scattered across the forestland all howled at once, their cries overlapping in a discordant chorus that turned the air to glass. Wolves leapt through the dark like shadows with teeth, drawn by something they did not yet understand but could no longer ignore.

 Rufik, Alpha of the Emberfang, – stood motionless at the edge of a cliff, his yellow eyes staring toward the northern ridges. Behind him, his pack gathered in silence, waiting.

 He did not speak at first. The air had changed. Not in temperature or scent, but in weight. It pressed against the skin, against the heart. The kind of shift one felt when a predator entered a room. Or when the dead refused to stay buried.

 He turned his head slowly, gaze distant.

 "It's him," he said.

 His voice was low, barely audible over the rustle of wind through dry leaves, but every ear caught it.

 "It can't be," murmured Jorra, his second-in-command. "The Heartward Seal"

 "Is broken," Rufik said. "I felt it shatter. The balance is gone."

 A few of the younger wolves exchanged glances. One stepped forward, uncertainty in her voice. "What does that mean? Will… will he rise?"

 Rufik didn't answer immediately. Instead, he crouched and pressed one clawed hand against the dirt. The earth felt hollow beneath. Like something had been pulled from its roots.

 "He already has," he said finally. "This… is the Call."

 The word landed heavy in the clearing. Even the fire in their camp had dimmed to a low, flickering red. Something sacred had been disturbed. Something ancient.

"This wasn't just a ripple," Rufik continued, rising to his full height. "It's a summoning. It doesn't speak in words. It doesn't ask. It remembers those it once touched, and it reaches for them now."

 Another beta stepped forward, frowning. "Then why us? Why now?"

 Rufik turned toward the gathered pack, his voice growing sharper, firmer.

 "Because we are of the old blood. We remember. We descend from the Wolf Lords who once defied him. Dracula. The Nightfather. The Undying King." He spat the name like venom.

 "Legends"

 "Warnings," Rufik snapped. "He's not myth. He is history kept quiet. Power held in sleep. And now he stirs."

 The wind rushed past again, curling through the trees like a whisper. Across the valley, another howl rose .... this one deeper, older. Not Emberfang. Another pack. Distant, but afraid.

 They all knew.

 Jorra broke the silence. "If he's truly awake… we can't stop him."

 "Not us," Rufik said. "But there is one."

 The air tightened.

 "No," Jorra said quickly. "We swore never to"

 "He's the only one born with both bloods. The only one who could withstand Dracula's call without kneeling."

 "He's a mistake."

 "He's a weapon," Rufik said. "Whether he likes it or not."

 Silence followed. The name was unspoken, but all of them felt it. A scar on their memory. A story they had buried because it unsettled them too much.

 Half wolf. Half vampire. Neither and both. A hybrid born under cursed moons, unwanted by either side.

 Ethan.

 "He left the pack," someone muttered.

 "We drove him out," Rufik corrected. "And he survived. That should've told us enough."

 "He won't come willingly."

 "Then we bring him," Rufik growled.

 ---

 Far from the clearing, in a ruined chapel choked with vines, Ethan opened his eyes.

 He'd been still for hours, seated cross-legged beneath a broken stained glass window. His fingers rested against the cold stone, his back to a shattered altar. But now, his body was rigid. Alert.

 He felt it in the air.

 No ..... in his blood.

 A pulse. Not his heartbeat, not even a rhythm he knew. It echoed through him like a drum made of bones. A calling deep beneath the skin.

 His fangs sharpened without warning. The shift tried to come, the wolf in him snarling at the taste of something foul rising. Not nearby. Above. All around.

 He stood slowly, his eyes flashing gold with a glint of deep, unnatural red at the core.

 "…He's awake," Ethan whispered.

 He didn't know how he knew. But he did. And somewhere in the marrow of his being, – both sides of him, the cursed blood of wolf and the darker hunger of the vampire,stirred at once.

 Then, without a sound, he vanished into the trees like a flash in thin air.