<h4>Chapter 395: Chapter 395 SEEDS OF CONFUSION</h4>


    CHRISTIAN’S POV


    In my time as Alpha, I hadmanded Nightfang through many wars.


    Territorial disputes. Blood feuds. Rogue incursions that tested the borders and the strength of our pack.


    I had seen fear before.


    I had seen hesitation.


    I had seen men break under pressure, then rise again under an Alpha’smand.


    But what I witnessed that night was something else entirely.


    Before he left, Kieran entrusted Nightfang to me with enough context to understand the scale of what we were facing.


    What were the odds that Nightfang being attacked by rogues on the very night they went to confront Catherine was a coincidence?


    Zero.


    As if that wasn’t enough, young Daniel had had a prophetic dream during his nap earlier that afternoon, and urgently warned of an attack.


    Most would dismiss it as a child’s wild imagination, but knowing who his mother and father were, I took it seriously and immediately arranged for him and Leona to be taken to a safe house.


    By the time the first howl tore through the western perimeter, we were ready for it.


    Beside me, Gavin was already moving, his pace matching mine as we crossed the courtyard without wasting a single word between us.


    We did not need to speak to understand what was happening; the call had been clear, and its urgency left no room for doubt.


    The moment we reached the edge of the western line, the scent hit me.


    Fresh blood, thick enough to coat the back of the throat.


    It was followed almost immediately by the sound of conflict, the deep, violent rhythm of bodies colliding, of snarls tearing through the night, of warriors calling out to one another as they fought to hold the line.


    We broke through thest stretch of trees and stepped into chaos.


    Nightfang’s warriors had already formed a defensive arc along the breach, their bodies positioned with practiced precision as they pushed back against the iing rogues.


    Under normal circumstances, I would have felt a measure of confidence at the sight. Our pack had nevercked discipline, had always thrived under pressure, and with Gavin coordinating alongside me, a rogue assault—even arge one—should have been manageable.


    At first, it appeared that way.


    The rogues came in waves, their movements aggressive but contained, their attacks met with equal force as our warriors held their ground.


    Steel shed in the moonlight, ws tore through fur, the sharp scent of violence and blood thickened with every passing second.


    ‘Push them back!’ Gavin barked through the mind-link as his wolf, Xander, drove one of the rogues off bnce with a well-ced strike. ‘Do not let them past the line!’


    I stepped forward into the fray without hesitation, only half-shifting.


    My presence alone was enough to shift the immediate space around me as I intercepted a lunging wolf and drove it into the dirt with bone-crushing force.


    The impact sent it skidding across the ground, but it recovered quickly, twisting with unnatural speed as it came at me again.


    I ended it before it could reach me.


    For several minutes, the battle held its shape.


    We absorbed the impact.


    We countered.


    We advanced in controlled increments.


    Under normal circumstances, it should have stayed that way.


    But then something changed.


    A hesitation out of ce.


    A shift in posture that did not align with instinct.


    A moment—brief but unmistakable—where one of our warriors faltered when he should have struck.


    My gaze sharpened as I took in the battlefield to find the cause.


    A rogue in human form burst through the front line, lunging at a young fighter who should have deflected the attack easily.


    Instead, the boy froze, his stance copsing.


    I moved on instinct, intercepting the rogue before he couldnd a killing blow, but as he twisted beneath my grip, his eyes met mine.


    Recognition hit like a physical force, and if I were a lesser wolf, I would have frozen in shock, too.


    Because I knew that face.


    Not as an enemy.


    As one of my own.


    The scar that cut across its shoulder had been earned during a border skirmish two summers ago.


    I had been there when it happened. I hadmended him for holding the line when others would have retreated.


    Six monthster, I had stood at his funeral pyre and watched the mes take him.


    And now he was here. Alive.


    Just like Aaron.


    The recognition was obviously not mutual.


    He snarled, snapping human teeth at me with no sign of recognition, no hesitation, no trace of the man I had once known.


    Behind me, I heard a voice stutter, “D-dad—?”


    Another cut off mid-sentence.


    “It can’t be—”


    I turned sharply, scanning the battlefield again, and what I saw made something cold settle deep in my chest.


    It was not just this one.


    It was several.


    Familiar faces, familiar pack members.


    Who should all be dead.


    There were not enough of them to dominate the field or turn the tide based on the confusion they had caused.


    But they were enough.


    Enough for our warriors to recognize them.


    Enough to make them question what they were seeing.


    Enough to break rhythm.


    The rogues sensed it immediately.


    Their attacks sharpened, their movements growing more aggressive as they pressed into the hesitation, exploiting the fractures forming along our line.


    ‘Stay focused!’ Gavin snapped, but even he could not fully mask the tension that had crept into his voice.


    A warrior to my left staggered back, his expression twisted with something dangerously close to disbelief as he faced a friend who had once stood beside him in training.


    “I saw you die,” he said, the words barely audible over the noise. “I saw—”


    The rogue lunged.


    I moved again, driving it back before it could reach him, but the hesitation and confusion in our ranks kept spreading.


    This was not a normal assault.


    Catherine.


    The name surfaced in my mind with such rity that there was no room for denial.


    This was her work.


    Whether she had truly brought the dead back in some twisted form or had created something that merely wore their faces did not matter in that moment.


    The effect was the same. She had turned memory into a weapon and sent it straight into the heart of my pack.


    Rage red, sharp and controlled.


    ‘Listen to me,’ I sent the message down the mind-link. ‘They are not who you remember.’


    Another rogue lunged, and I ended it with decisive force before continuing, my gaze sweeping across the line.


    ‘They are not your brothers and sisters. They wear familiar faces, nothing more.’


    Some of them heard me.


    Many didn’t.


    The hesitation lingered, clinging to the edges of their movements, slowing reactions by fractions of a second that could mean the difference between life and death.


    We were still holding.


    But the line was no longer as clean.


    Victory was no longer as certain.


    Beside me, Gavin drove back two attackers in quick session before ncing toward me, his expression grim.


    ‘If this keeps up—’


    ‘I know.’


    I drew in a slow breath.


    There were moments in leadership where strategy mattered, where careful nning and measured responses dictated the oue.


    And then there were moments where none of that was enough.


    This was one of them.


    I let my power rise—the authority of an Alpha that hadmanded this pack long before most of these warriors had taken their first breath.


    It surged through me, ancient and absolute, as I fully shifted.


    ‘Enough!’


    This time, themand carried. It struck every mind on the battlefield.


    ‘You will hold,’ I said, my voice resonating in their minds with a force that left no room for doubt. ‘You will fight.’


    The effect was immediate.


    The hesitation shattered.


    Instinct reasserted itself. Loyalty anchored it.


    Our warriors moved as one again, their formation tightening, their strikes regaining the brutal precision that had defined Nightfang for generations.


    Xander exhaled beside me, tension easing enough to be reced by focus.


    We pushed forward with renewed cohesion.


    The rogues met us with equal ferocity, but the advantage they had gained through confusion began to slip as our line stabilized.


    Still, the cost had already been paid.


    I saw it in the bodies thaty unmoving on the ground.


    In the injuries that slowed even our strongest fighters.


    In the way some of them avoided looking too closely at the fallen rogues, as though afraid of what they might recognize.


    We drove them back step by step, reiming ground that had been nearly lost.


    And then, just as suddenly as the assault had intensified, it shifted again.


    The rogues disengaged in a manner that was neither chaotic nor driven by fear, but precise, deliberate, and unmistakably coordinated.


    They pulled back as one, their movements controlled as they withdrew toward the treeline, leaving behind only the aftermath of what they had done.


    Xander cocked his head. ‘That’s it?’


    ‘They were never here to take the pack,’ I said quietly.


    He turned to me. ‘Then what was the point?’


    I looked out over the field.


    At the wounded.


    At the fallen.


    At the warriors still catching their breath, their expressions shadowed with something deeper than exhaustion.


    Thest of the rogues disappeared into the forest, their presence fading into the night as though they had never been there at all.


    But the damage remained.


    Not in the ground torn by the fight.


    Not in the blood that stained the earth.


    But in the questions they had left behind.


    In the seeds of confusion they’d sown.