The forest was no longer quiet.
Wind tore through the trees like screaming steel, and the animals had vanished — even the crows, always watchers, had fled. A storm unlike any Blackridge had seen gathered above the ruined chapel, darkening the sky and turning the world below it to dusk.
Caleb Thorn moved fast. Through underbrush, past the ash-marked scout's remains, the voices of his pack echoing behind him.
But it wasn't the Hollow that terrified him now.
It was Lena.
His daughter.
His blood.
A child of prophecy born from shadow and legacy.
And the Hollow had her heart in its jaws.
The ruins came into view through the trees — twisted and glowing with unnatural light. The sigil beneath the altar now pulsed like a heartbeat. The cloaked figures knelt in perfect silence, their faces obscured, some already beginning to sink into the earth.
At the center stood Lena.
Hair wild.
Eyes glowing.
The shadow behind her had grown — no longer formless. It wore the shape of a wolf, but one made of black mist and flickering starlight, a beast with seven eyes and no mouth. It hovered behind the child like a crown of nightmare.
Caleb stepped into the clearing.
"Lena."
The girl turned.
And for a moment — just one — the light in her eyes flickered.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"I'm your father."
The Hollow roared.
Wind exploded outward, slamming into Caleb with enough force to knock him off his feet. The trees bowed, the ruins trembled. The sigil beneath Lena cracked wider, revealing a swirling void of stars and whispers.
From the trees, Ronan, Bex, and Lucien burst into the clearing.
"Get the girl!" Lucien roared.
"No!" Caleb shouted. "She's still in there!"
But Lucien didn't listen.
He lunged — shifting mid-leap, his wolf form blazing with silver fur and fury. He cleared half the distance before the Hollow struck him midair, sending him crashing into a tree with a sickening crack.
He didn't get up.
Lena screamed.
Not in pain.
In rage.
In confusion.
Her body hovered several feet off the ground now, arms raised, her voice overlapping with a deeper, older one.
"The Alpha betrayed us. The Alpha sealed us. The Alpha must bleed."
"No," Caleb growled, rising to his feet. "I didn't seal you. I refused you."
The Hollow flinched. Just slightly.
Elias and Marla emerged from the woods, chanting a protective ward around the clearing, carving sigils into the ground with iron knives.
"Keep him talking!" Elias shouted.
But the Hollow wasn't waiting.
It opened its eyes — all seven — and the earth split open.
From the depths rose creatures.
Twisted forms, part wolf, part shadow, part nightmare. Their limbs too long. Their jaws hanging loose. Eyes glowing with hunger. They poured from the cracks like smoke given shape.
Ronan bellowed, shifting instantly, his massive wolf form charging into the first wave.
Bex followed, blades in hand, slicing through shadows that hissed and reformed.
Elias began weaving ancient spells, his voice trembling as the very air around him shimmered.
And Caleb?
He stepped toward Lena.
"I know you're still in there," he called. "I know this thing is using you. But you're not it."
Lena twitched.
"You were born to protect," he said. "Not destroy. You're my daughter, Lena. You're not the Hollow."
The girl screamed, clutching her head.
"I don't want to be this!" she cried.
And then, in a rush, he was inside her mind.
Lena's Mind – The Hollow
It was a black ocean. Endless. Stars drifted like lanterns in the void. She stood alone, a small figure trembling in the dark, her light flickering.
Behind her loomed the Hollow's form — immense, watching, waiting.
"You belong to me," it hissed. "You were born from broken blood. A cursed line. An Alpha's weakness."
"No," Caleb said, stepping forward.
He reached for Lena.
She stared up at him, eyes wide. "Why didn't you save me before?"
His voice cracked. "Because I didn't know. But I'm here now."
The Hollow lunged.
Caleb shoved Lena behind him, arms spread wide.
"You want an Alpha?" he growled. "You have one."
And with a snarl, he shifted — not fully, but enough. His eyes burned gold. His hands became claws. And the Hollow howled in recognition.
Not of a threat.
But of its enemy.
Back in the waking world, Caleb collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from his nose. Lena gasped, the glow in her eyes dimming.
Ronan slammed another shadow-creature into the ground beside them. "Now, Caleb! End it!"
Elias roared from across the circle, "The sigil — if you bleed on it, you can sever the bond!"
Caleb looked to Lena.
Torn. Shaking.
She was just a child.
But she nodded.
"I trust you," she whispered.
He pressed his palm to the broken altar.
Blood hit the sigil.
The light exploded.
The Hollow screamed — not from the child, but from the sky, the air, the bones of the earth. Its shadow-beasts disintegrated. The ground sealed. The cracks vanished.
The cloaked figures dropped.
And Lena collapsed into Caleb's arms.
It was over.
For now.
Lucien did not survive.
The tree had snapped his spine on impact.
The pack buried him at dawn, beneath the old stones by the river, where fallen warriors rest.
Lena stood beside Caleb. Still pale. Still haunted.
But free.
Ronan placed a hand on Caleb's shoulder. "You've brought us back from the edge."
Caleb nodded. "But someone still opened the Hollow before I returned. Someone who knew what they were doing."
Bex stepped up, blood still drying on her cheek.
"I searched the bodies," she said quietly. "One of the cloaked ones. I recognized the scent beneath the robes."
She handed him a ring.
A wolf's head sigil, carved into obsidian.
Elias's eyes widened. "That's a Council ring. From Blackridge's original founding pack."
Caleb clenched it in his fist.
The traitor wasn't just one of them.
The traitor was someone older than the pack itself.
Someone who had waited for the Hollow to rise again.