The back door did not just break. It exploded into a cloud of jagged splinters.
The first Orc burst into the kitchen with a roar that shook the copper pans hanging from the ceiling. It was a massive, gray-skinned wall of muscle, its transition from human to monster not yet complete. Patches of hair and pink skin still clung to its distorted face, making it look like a nightmare half-formed.
"Get back, Elena!" Mark shouted.
At thirty, Mark was the strongest of the siblings. He charged down the stairs with Mason right behind him. Both brothers were hauling heavy iron wood-axes they usually used for the winter timber. They didn't have armor. They didn't have magic. They only had the desperate need to protect their sisters.
Mark swung his axe with a grunt of effort. The blade bit deep into the Orc’s shoulder, but the creature didn't even flinch. It backhanded Mark, sending him flying across the room. He crashed into the sturdy oak dinner table, snapping one of its legs like a dry twig.
"Mark!" Elena cried out.
She was still on the floor, her hands pressed against Betty’s glowing wound. The golden blood was warm and sticky, staining Elena’s apron. The Fae woman was drifting in and out of consciousness, her breath a shallow rattle.
Mason stepped over his fallen brother, his face a mask of grim determination. He was twenty-seven and leaner than Mark, moving with a quickness born of years of manual labor. He dodged a swipe from a second Orc that had squeezed through the ruined doorway. Mason buried his axe in the creature's thigh, drawing a spray of thick, black sludge.
"Beatrice, take the girls upstairs!" Mason yelled over his shoulder.
Hilary, the twenty-five-year-old sister, had rushed into the kitchen to help. Unlike the others, Hilary was the peacemaker of the family. She wasn't a fighter, but she was Elena’s favorite. She was the one who always shared her extra crust of bread, the one who combed Elena’s hair when the world felt too heavy.
Hilary reached out to grab Elena’s arm, trying to pull her away from the carnage. "Elena, please! We have to go!"
But the third Orc was faster.
It lunged from the shadows of the larder, its claws extended. It wasn't interested in the men. It wanted the golden blood. As it leaped, Hilary threw herself in front of Elena.
The sound was sickening. A wet, tearing noise followed by a sharp gasp.
Hilary fell to her knees, her hands clutching her stomach. Dark red blood began to seep through her fingers, staining her simple cotton dress.
"Hilary!" Elena’s voice was a broken whisper.
Time seemed to slow down. Elena watched as her favorite sister collapsed, her face turning a ghostly shade of white. The kitchen was a chaos of violence. Mark was struggling to stand, his face covered in soot and blood. Mason was being pinned against the wall by two of the shapeshifters. Their parents, Raymond and Amanda, were at the top of the stairs, held back by the sheer force of the struggle below.
Elena looked at Hilary. She looked at the blood. She looked at the Orc that was now looming over them, its jaw unhinged to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.
Something inside Elena didn't just break. It snapped.
The dull throb behind her eyes turned into a searing, white-hot explosion. The pink light didn't just glow. It erupted. It filled the kitchen, the parlor, and the forest outside. It was a wave of pure, ancient power that smelled of ozone and the cold, distant moon.
Elena stood up. Her feet didn't seem to touch the floor. Her dark curls drifted around her head as if she were underwater. Her eyes were no longer brown. They were two orbs of brilliant, pulsing rose light.
"Enough," she said.
The word was not a shout. It was a command that vibrated in the very atoms of the room.
The Orcs froze. Their predatory rage turned into absolute, soul-crushing terror. They tried to growl, but the sound died in their throats. Their massive, gray bodies began to shrink. Their bones cracked and reset at an impossible speed. Their skin didn't ripple this time. It folded and tightened.
In a matter of seconds, the four terrifying monsters were gone.
In their place, four small, brown mice sat on the kitchen floor. They looked up at Elena with tiny, black eyes, their whiskers twitching in fear. With a collective squeak of horror, the mice turned and scrambled out through the cracks in the wall, disappearing into the rainy night as if the devil himself were chasing them.
The pink light faded slowly, leaving the kitchen in a dim, flickering orange glow from the tipped-over candles. Elena collapsed to her knees beside Hilary, her breath coming in ragged sobs.
"Hilary... oh gods, Hilary, stay with me," she wept, her power gone as quickly as it had arrived.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the atmosphere in the Obsidian Castle was significantly less dramatic.
Aiden, the five-hundred-year-old Vampire Prince, was currently standing in the middle of his grand dressing room. He had felt the surge of power. He had felt the moon goddess’s daughter wake up. His soul had burned with a legendary, destiny-filled fire.
He had reached for his ceremonial black cape, ready to leap from the balcony and sprint across the kingdom to find his bride.
But then, he stopped.
He looked at his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling silver mirror. His dark hair was slightly messy from his five-decade nap. His silk tunic was a bit wrinkled. Most importantly, he realized he was holding a very large, half-eaten chicken leg.
"My Lord?" his butler, a very old and very tired vampire named Silas, asked from the doorway. "You seemed to be in a hurry. Is the world ending? Or did you finally find that missing sock?"
Aiden looked at the chicken leg. He looked at his cape. He felt the pull of the goddess in his chest, but he also felt the fact that he hadn't had a proper bath since the last century.
"She is awake, Silas," Aiden said, his voice deep and serious. "The daughter of the Moon. The one the prophecies spoke of. I can feel her soul crying out."
Silas looked at the chicken leg. "Is she crying out for poultry, Sire? Because you are currently wearing your slippers. The ones with the fluffy rabbit ears."
Aiden looked down. He was indeed wearing the rabbit-ear slippers a confused Duchess had gifted him in 1742. They were very comfortable, but they did not exactly scream 'Ruthless Vampire Prince.'
"I cannot meet my destiny in these, Silas," Aiden muttered, his dramatic aura deflating like a popped balloon. "And I am actually quite hungry. Five hundred years of sleep does terrible things to the metabolism."
"Quite right, Sire," Silas sighed, taking the chicken leg from him. "I shall draw a bath. Perhaps you can save the kingdom tomorrow morning? After breakfast? I believe we have some aged blood and perhaps some toast."
Aiden sighed and slumped back into his velvet chair. The connection to Elena was still there, humming in his blood, but the thought of running through the rain in his pajamas was suddenly less appealing.
"Fine," Aiden grumbled. "But find my silver armor. And Silas? Make sure the rabbit slippers are hidden. If the prophecy mentions them, I will burn the library to the ground."
Back at the cottage, the silence was broken only by Hilary’s labored breathing and the sound of the rain. Elena held her sister’s hand, unaware that her "beast" was currently debating whether or not to have a second helping of chicken before coming to her rescue.
