Caleb’s P.O.V
The night air was thick with something heavier than just cold. There was a stillness, a silence that pressed down on our chests like a weight we couldn't shake off. I stood just outside the morgue’s back entrance, the metallic scent of old blood and disinfectant wafting from within mixing with the distant scent of pine. My arms were crossed, trying to keep still, to stay grounded, but my fingers twitched every so often. Jade was pacing, his boots scuffing against the cracked pavement, and Shane leaned against the wall like he was trying to disappear into it, his jaw tight and eyes locked on the ground.
Alpha Camden stood ahead of us, stoic as always, his broad back tense and unmoving. Beta Raymond was right beside him, arms folded, brow furrowed so deep I thought it might never smooth again. We were all trying to process what we had just seen. Those rogue wolves... their bodies had simply decayed before our eyes. Collapsing in on themselves like time had fast-forwarded decades in mere seconds. And the blood... god, the blood.
“It was black,” I said, more to myself than anyone else, my voice hushed and disbelieving. “It was black like sludge, like motor oil.”
Jade stopped pacing. “You saw how fast it happened, Caleb. One moment they were whole, and the next—” he exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “That’s not normal. That’s not natural.”
“Because it isn’t,” Shane finally said, pushing off the wall. His voice had that edge, that tightly controlled panic he always tried to hide behind sarcasm and bravado.
“Dead bodies don’t just rot like that. Not in seconds. And blood doesn’t turn black unless—” he paused, looking between us, his face twisted in a mix of confusion and fear, “—unless it’s been dead for a long time. Or something else is messing with it. I swear, it feels like we’re not dealing with just rogues. This feels like… like black magic.”
That word seemed to suck the air out of the circle. Alpha Camden turned slowly, his sharp eyes settling on Shane with a kind of unreadable weight. “Careful with accusations like that,” he said, his voice like gravel and thunder. “Black magic is forbidden. Rare. Dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Shane snapped. “But how else do you explain what just happened? We fought them. We killed them. They bled. They screamed. They felt alive. And then they just… decayed. Like corpses finally remembering they were corpses.”
“I hate how much sense that makes,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. I looked toward the door we were all avoiding, like the truth was too much to step into. “What if they were already dead?”
Before anyone could respond, the door creaked open, and the morgue’s overhead light spilled out like a harsh, sterile spotlight. The doctor stepped into it, peeling off his gloves, his expression grim, pale, and shaken in a way I’d never seen on the man before. He was one of those types that dealt with the aftermath of carnage daily. Nothing rattled him. But this had.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he began, voice low and steady, though I caught the tremble he was trying to hide. “But your theory... it’s not far off.”
We all straightened at once. “What theory?” Beta Raymond asked sharply.
The doctor looked at us, his eyes moving from Camden to Raymond, then finally resting on me, Shane, and Jade. “Those wolves… the ones you brought in?” He paused, licking his lips like they’d dried out from fear.
“They weren’t alive. Not in the way you think. Their tissues—what little was left—show signs of extensive decomposition. I'm talking for weeks. Months, maybe. It’s like their bodies had been dead for a long time. The only thing preserving them must’ve been—”
“Black magic,” Shane filled in for him, nodding slowly.
The doctor hesitated, then gave the faintest nod. “There’s no biological explanation for it. Blood that black… that rotten… it’s what you see in corpses long buried. They shouldn’t have been able to move. They shouldn’t have been able to fight. But somehow... something gave them life again. Temporarily. Whatever it was, it didn’t last. Once it wore off… they turned to what they really were. Dead things.”
Jade took a step back like the information had physically struck him. “We were fighting corpses. Reanimated. That’s why they didn’t speak. That’s why they didn’t stop.”
I felt a chill crawl down my spine, every hair on my body standing on end. “Then the real enemy wasn’t them,” I murmured. “It’s whoever brought them back.”
Alpha Camden didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. His silence was louder than any howl. The war we thought we’d been fighting just changed shape.
And we were already too deep in it.
I stood there, arms folded tightly across my chest, trying to make sense of the rising chill that seemed to have seeped into the very air we breathed. The hallway was dimly lit, a faint hum of tension vibrating beneath the sterile silence. And then, Alice stepped out of the room, the door clicking shut softly behind her.
She looked pale, her eyes flickering with that haunting sort of knowledge—the kind that weighs heavier than words can carry. The doctor lingered behind her, his expression unreadable, as if he too hadn’t yet fully grasped the implications of what they’d just discovered.
Alice swallowed hard before speaking. “The bodies… they’re gone.”
My brows furrowed. “Gone?”
“Decayed,” she clarified, voice thin and brittle, like a thread about to snap. “They didn’t just decompose. They… reverted. It’s like… whatever was holding them together—some kind of magic—it just gave out. The bodies turned to dust. Literally.”
Murmurs rippled through the group. I caught the slight shift in my father’s jaw as he processed the words, his usual calm beginning to fracture.
“You guys have it right though, they were resurrected,” she said, glancing at the doctor, who gave a small, silent nod of confirmation. “Something brought them back… and when that force faded, they returned to what they should’ve been all along. Dust to dust.”
A sick weight settled in my stomach. My gaze lingered on the spot just beyond Alice, as if I could bring the bodies back into existence—anything to disprove what I already knew was true. I turned to my father slowly, my voice quiet, but laced with the sharp edge of suspicion. “Is history repeating itself?”
His brows drew together as he turned to face me. “What do you mean?”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice, though my words held the heat of panic barely restrained. “This feels too familiar. You remember what happened with Aurora’s stepfather, don’t you? He was dead, for three days, and then—he showed up to terrorize Aurora. And now this?” I gestured toward the room Alice had just emerged from. “These rogues died, but they came back. And now they’re dust. This isn’t just necromancy gone wrong. There’s a pattern.”
Father’s eyes narrowed, flickering with the kind of intensity I knew all too well. “Caleb… Harmona and Lucas died. We saw them. You saw what happened to them. They were crushed. Bones shattered. You won't come back from that.”
“But what if it didn’t matter?” I pressed. “If they were using magic to keep themselves alive for centuries, what’s a broken body? What if there’s a spell that activates after death? Or worse—what if someone else is pulling the strings? Someone powerful enough to mimic what happened before.”
Alpha Camden looked around the room, tension rippling through his shoulders. He didn’t like where this was heading—I could see it. “If someone is behind this, then they’re playing a long game,” he muttered. “One I don’t think we’re prepared for.”
“No,” I agreed, running a hand through my hair. “But we need to find out who. Because if this is anything like what happened before… then we’re already steps behind. And we both know what happened the last time we were caught off guard.”
Father looked at me for a long moment, eyes dark and calculating. “Alpha Jackson confirmed their deaths,” he said, as if speaking the memory out loud would somehow anchor it in reality.
“And I believed they were dead,” I said, my voice softening. “I really did. But so was Aurora’s stepfather. And Harmona and Lucas brought him back.” I met his gaze fully then. “Tell me this doesn’t feel the same. Tell me you don’t feel it too—that pull in your gut that says this is more than just coincidence.”
The silence that followed was deafening.