Chapter Seven: The Half–Born

The forest blurred around him, every branch and shadow streaking past like the tail of a comet. Ethan moved faster than any natural creature, the wind screaming against his skin as he vaulted over moss-covered logs and ducked under ancient limbs. The night pulsed with energy — thick, electric. His ears rang. His blood burned.

Whatever had awakened was stirring the primal world into chaos.

His feet barely touched the ground. His instincts told him to keep moving. Run. Not from fear — no, fear had been burned out of him years ago — but from something deeper. Something ancestral. The blood in his veins, cursed and tangled, cried out against itself. His wolf wanted to fight. His vampire wanted to flee.

The farther he ran, the more the woods began to change.

The trees grew older here, thicker, darker, as if they remembered things no man should. Moonlight barely touched the ground. It smelled of wet earth and ash, of things buried and waiting. His breath came slower now, more controlled, but every sense was wide open.

Then he stopped.

Not by choice.

The air around him shifted.

Silence.

No crickets. No birds. No rustle of night creatures. The forest had gone still, watching.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. His ears twitched.

Then he heard it. Padding. Low. Steady. Predatory.

He turned.

From the dark stepped a wolf.

Not a man in half-form. Not the snarling bipedal beasts used in werewolf horror tales. No. This was a real wolf, massive, fur black as void, eyes like old gold coins tarnished by time. It stood tall, its hackles raised, its presence regal and ancient.

Another joined it. Then another.

They emerged in a slow, deliberate circle — six of them, all black-furred, all enormous, all marked by runes scored into their flesh by claw or brand. They weren't shifting now. They had surrendered fully to the wolf.

Old Blood.

Ethan tensed.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.

One growled, low and guttural, its lips curling over yellowed fangs.

Ethan stepped back — not in fear, but calculation. They were flanking him. Herding him.

"You know I don't belong to your pack," he said aloud, voice calm but taut. "You don't have claim."

The wolves didn't answer. But something in the air shifted again — a tension tightening like pulled wire.

Ethan bolted.

The moment he moved, they chased.

He dodged left, forcing his legs into overdrive. His speed was supernatural, inhuman. He was faster than them — had to be. His vampire half surged, lending him that blurred movement through branch and leaf.

But the wolves weren't chasing to catch.

They were chasing to corner.

To drive him.

And that's when he saw the glint — too late.

He ran straight into it.

A thundering snap! echoed through the trees as the net closed around him, thick as chains and glowing faintly with runes. He hit the forest floor with a grunt, his limbs tangled and pinned. The net wasn't ordinary — it sapped something from him. A silver thread ran through it. Not enough to kill. Enough to sting. To bind.

Ethan snarled, fangs flashing. "Cheap tricks."

Footsteps approached. Not paws. Boots.

From the treeline emerged a broad figure — cloaked in fur, his beard streaked with gray, his eyes hard and yellow.

Rufik.

The Alpha of the Emberfang stood tall above the fallen hybrid, his expression unreadable.

"Well," he said, voice gravel and iron. "You're faster than I remember."

Ethan struggled, growled. The silver itched. "Let me go, Rufik."

"You think I tracked you across three bloodlines and two territories just to let you run again?" Rufik crouched beside him. "You felt it, didn't you?"

Ethan didn't answer. He didn't need to.

Rufik smiled grimly. "The seal is broken. The blood calls. He's stirring."

"Then fight him yourself."

Rufik's eyes darkened. "I can't."

"You've got half a dozen full-blooded packs. Call the others."

"No one else can stand against him. Not the covens. Not the witches. Not even the Ancients."

Rufik leaned closer, the air between them tight.

"But you," he said, "you are something he won't expect. You walk in both worlds. A half-born cursed by two kings. And you are stronger than all of us."

Ethan spat at his feet. "You hunted me like a dog."

"Because we feared you." Rufik's voice lowered. "Because we knew one day we'd need you."

The wolves behind him closed in, their eyes sharp.

Ethan stared up at him, breathing heavy.

He could feel it again — that pulse. The same one from before, but closer now. Closer still. A darkness rising from deep beneath the world. It was calling. No… summoning.

He clenched his jaw.

"If I help you," he said slowly, "when this is over... I walk. For good."

Rufik gave a slight nod. "So long as there's a world left to walk in."