Chapter 36: The Continental Call
Hazel's Pov
The Oni and the Hollowed vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving nothing but scorched earth and a chilling silence.
They didn't need to stay. Their point had been made. Now, it was our turn to respond.
The three of us began the preparations for a Blood Summon.
In the world of the supernatural, a Blood Summon isn't just a howl. It's a Remembering.
I carved the sigil at dawn, my palm pressed to the earth that still smelled of smoke and old rain. Flora rose within me—ancient, steady, neither pleading nor commanding. The call traveled the way roots do: underground, patient, and unavoidable. It moved through ley-lines and scars in the land; it vibrated through bloodlines that had gone quiet out of fear, but had never truly forgotten.
[Come, if you still remember who you are.]
I felt the answer before I heard it. Across states and borders, something stirred. Not obedience. Recognition.
Caleb stood a few paces back, watchful. He didn't touch me while the power was moving through me like this—raw and precise. When the ritual finished, the air finally loosened, as if the atmosphere itself had been holding its breath.
"It's done," I said, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears.
He nodded once. "Where first?"
We didn't plan routes the way traditional armies do. We followed the Pull.
The Gray Valleys: A fractured pack tucked into an industrial zone where the river ran poisoned and gray.
The Peaks: A mountain clan that hadn't sworn allegiance to any crown in three centuries.
The Ghosts: Wolves who lived as truckers, night-shift guards, and shadows.
Some didn't trust me. Some didn't trust Caleb. Most, however, trusted the Call.
Every meeting was a battlefield of its own. Some Alphas tested me with sharp questions. Others tested Caleb with heavy silence. A few bared their teeth, their old pride flaring like a dying ember.
We didn't dominate them. We listened.
I told them the truth: The Royals were dead. The vacuum was filling. Helena was moving, shaping the world in her image. The Oni were awake, and they weren't the only ancient things rising.
"Choosing nothing," I told an Alpha whose fur was scarred by silver, "is still a choice. It just means you've chosen to let her decide how you die."
Caleb spoke when it mattered. He didn't give speeches or empty promises. He talked about logistics, supply lines, and evacuation corridors. He talked about keeping cubs alive. He spoke of retreat as a strategy, not cowardice.
The Alphas respected that. They saw a leader who cared about survival, not just glory.
At night, we disappeared.
We stayed in motels with flickering neon signs and threadbare carpets, or forest clearings where the stars cut clean through the canopy. Once, we found a ranger's cabin that smelled of pine and oil.
A quiet settled between us during those hours—earned and careful. We shared meals from the same plate and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with maps spread between us. Our knees touched; our fingers brushed, and for the first time, we didn't pull away.
Sometimes I woke up with his hand resting at my waist. I knew Flora was responsible for the proximity, but I didn't care. It wasn't a claim; it was an Anchor. Sometimes he woke to my breath against his throat, my power humming low and content.
No urgency. No taking. Just a closeness that didn't ask for forgiveness.
One night, rain pinned us inside a motel room with a heater that rattled like a dying engine. Caleb sat on the edge of the bed, his shirt damp, his eyes heavy with the weight of the coming war.
"You're carrying them," he said quietly. "All of them."
"I have to," I replied.
He didn't argue. He just reached for my hand and held it like it was something both steady and breakable. "You don't have to do this alone, Hazel."
"I know."
Saying it out loud felt like breaking a different kind of ward.
We finally talked. He apologized, and frankly, with a continental war on the horizon, I didn't have the energy for grudges. I had already lost Helene—a loss that stung more now that I needed her wisdom. I couldn't afford to lose anyone else.
We rested our foreheads together. The bond was warm and restrained—no surge, no forced claim. Just awareness. Choice.
By the time we crossed the third state line, the answers were louder.
Packs were falling in behind us. Some marched openly; others trailed at a distance like guardian ghosts. Word spread through the underground without names attached:
The Red Wolf is moving. The Alpha walks beside her, not ahead.
The continent was listening.
And somewhere, far off in a palace of her own making, I felt Helena pause. Just for a heartbeat.
She wasn't afraid. She was Alert.
Good.
Because when the call finishes echoing, there is only one thing left to do.
Answer it with action.