The howl faded. The silence that followed hit like a drop into a bottomless pit.
Aric collapsed onto the blood-slick concrete, no longer suspended by rage or instinct. His limbs sprawled at awkward angles, his body damaged and torn. His chest lifted only enough to prove that death had not claimed him… yet.
Emily stared at him in a daze, her breathing ragged. She was too injured and shocked to speak. Her muscles locked, refusing to obey even the smallest command. Her mind was a frozen only one thought glimmered weakly:
He's alive.
The warehouse itself seemed stunned. Shattered crates, twisted steel, collapsed shelves. Everything stood frozen beneath the flickering light tubes above. Even the dust refused to settle.
Hans remained upright irritated but composed. He flicked dried blood from his fingertips as if flicking off raindrops. His red eyes narrowed at Aric's motionless body.
"Well… that was anticlimactic."
Emily didn't answer. She simply stood there, shielding Aric with her presence, even if her legs looked moments from folding.
Hans smiled sharp, cruel, certain of the ending.
He took one step forward.
Then something moved.
A rustle. A shift of dirt outside the broken rear wall. A wind pressed inward wrong, cold, and hungry.
Hans paused, expression tense. He scanned the darkness beyond the gaping breach.
Two blue points stared back from between the trees.
Eyes. Unmoving. Focused.
Hans straightened. His jaw tightened a fraction.
More eyes blinked into existence around the first pair. Half a dozen… then a dozen… then too many to count without fear settling in the gut.
Omegas.
Not just one. Not a small pack.
A horde.
They crept forward, paws silent on the dirt before claws scraped across concrete. Their bodies twitched with violent anticipation. Breath rattled through bared teeth. Some drooled, others shook, all of them radiating a savage hunger unchecked by reason or rank.
Hans's face turned pale.
" What!"
The first Omega burst into the warehouse at full speed, launching through the opening with bone-snapping force. It was a massive, rabid-looking thing fur clumped, ribs visible beneath skin stretched too tight.
Hans swiped his hand, blood sharpening into a blade across his palm. The Omega's momentum worked against it, its head parted from its shoulders in a crimson spray. The body hit the ground and slid, legs still kicking pathetically.
The kill did nothing to slow the flood.
Another Omega leapt through the side window, glass exploding outward. Hans twisted, a blood spike bursting from his elbow and skewering the beast mid-air.
A third sprinted straight through the collapsed front entrance. Hans pivoted and kicked it so hard its spine bent unnaturally, but it scrambled back up.
The room filled with bodies fur slamming against steel, yelps turning into snarls, claws tearing trenches into the floor.
Emily jolted from her paralysis. Instinct exploded through her. She turned, grabbed Aric under the arms, and dragged him, slipping over pools of blood. She could barely breathe, muscles screaming from exhaustion and injury. But she forced herself into motion.
She slung his unconscious body onto her back. The weight nearly dropped her. She stumbled, steadied, and limped toward the nearest exit far from the wolves flooding the building.
Her breaths came in quiet gasps.
She didn't look back.
Hans was drowned in movement.
He struck down another Omega with brutal efficiency, ripping its throat open with a serrated lance of hardened blood. The beast's body swung limp before collapsing. But more crashed in from every direction, through broken windows, from above the rafters, squeezing under collapsed steel panels.
The warehouse shook under the stampede.
Hans fought like a whirlwind of crimson. Bullets of blood blasted skulls apart. Blade-like arcs severed limbs. He ducked, spun, and lashed out with deadly precision.
But he couldn't stop everything.
An Omega crashed into his side, teeth sinking into his thigh. Hans grabbed its skull and crushed it with a violent twist. Another leapt from behind its claws raking down his back. He roared and impaled it against a shattered beam, blood spraying in irregular bursts.
He was covered in teeth and claws.
His breathing accelerated.
More bodies piled around him. He slipped once just a fraction but the pack noticed.
And they punished him.
Three Omegas pounced simultaneously. One clamped onto his arm. Another snapped its jaws around his shoulder. The third landed on his chest, pushing him back, claws digging into muscle with the sole purpose of ripping through to bone.
Hans's attack faltered.
He snarled and slammed his fist into the ground. A shock of hardened blood erupted outward, spearing two creatures in jagged shards. They dropped, twitching. He tore his arm free, spraying meat and fur.
But killing one or two didn't even make a dent.
They were everywhere.
A wolf barreled into him from the side, throwing him to the floor. His skull bounced off the concrete hard enough to disorient him. Dark shapes surged over his body growling, biting, thrashing. The sound of flesh tearing and bones cracking drowned out everything else.
Hans struggled against the weight of a dozen bodies.
"Filthy… animals. I am—"
His words cut off with a wet crunch as teeth wrapped around his jaw. The Omegas tore downward. His skull split open. Blood splashed across their snarling faces. They didn't react to his power anymore just the taste.
Hans's legs kicked wildly for a moment. One foot slammed into a wolf's ribs, breaking them. But the Omega only bit deeper, froth bubbling from its mouth.
Hans's chest sank under the feeding frenzy. His ribs broke. His spine twisted. His arms vanished beneath snapping jaws. The pack ripped him apart in frantic, jerking motions.
Wet cracks. Low snarls. Tearing muscle fibers stretching, snapping.
His heart was exposed pulsing weakly. Three Omegas fought for it. The biggest one won.
Hans's body spasmed once. Twice.
Then nothing.
The red glow in his eyes faded. Completely.
No regeneration. No return. No power left to drag him back from annihilation.
Hans was dead.
The Omegas didn't slow. They kept tearing, competing for chunks of meat. Limbs dragged away. A hand caught between teeth and swallowed. A spine stripped clean.
The feeding continued until there was almost nothing recognizable left.
Eventually, the frenzy dwindled into heavy, panting breaths. The wolves lifted their blood-clotted snouts. Blue eyes blinked through the haze of instinct and slaughter.
They looked around.
Aric was gone.
Emily was gone.
But their scent was not.
A low growl built through the pack a warning shared between beasts that still hungered.
They turned as one toward the trail of blood leading out of the warehouse.
The direction Emily had fled.
They stepped away from Hans's remains without hesitation. Without guilt or triumph.
They had devoured the loud threat.
Now they wanted the silent one.
A paw scraped the concrete.
Another followed.
The pack moved into the night blue eyes flickering, bodies melting into the trees as they hunted their next prey.
Silence returned to the warehouse.
But this time, silence meant danger.
The night was not yet over.
Not even close.