Chapter 118: Reborn

As they walked down the path, the scent of a werewolf grew stronger. Sitting on an outcropping of rock was a werewolf, seemingly biding his time. His hood was drawn over his head, obscuring his face in shadows, but he held himself like a warrior. Adolph glanced over him, finding him strangely uncanny in the way he carried his weapons.
He was armed as if he had stepped out of his first trip over the vampire border. Adolph knew, somehow, that the man was aware of them before they’d come into sight. He turned just enough to reveal his uncovered eye and the eyepatch over his other eye before he dropped to the ground.
The patch on his shoulder bearing the symbol of a gray ash tree made him tense.
“I’m told… you have a grudge against my son.”
The man looked at him briefly before turning and leading him further down the path. Adolph darted ahead, cutting him off to look down at him.
“You have nothing to say?”
His eyes were dark as he opened his mouth and Adolph’s stomach plummeted with horror at the man’s lack of tongue. He closed his mouth without a sound and looked up at Adolph. The man’s face, though aged and scarred, was familiar to him.
“You…” Adolph frowned. “I… should remember you, shouldn’t I?”
The man’s eye widened, seemingly struck.
“You were…” Adolph frowned, pushing through his memories and trying to pinpoint where he knew the man from. He scanned the man’s form looking for another clue before seeing a small talisman hanging from his holster.
“You’re a member of the Fifty-First…” Adolph gasped, his fingers twitching to run his hand over the edges of his talisman. He’d kept it since that ambush as a reminder of the men he’d lost. He expected to find them all among the half-crazed werewolves that the vampire queen let free on the battlefield.
He’d found most of the ten.
“...Noah?”
The man’s eye glossed over and he turned sharply to walk around Adolph. Adolph cut him off again.
“You’ve… been alive… Your mate?” Noah glanced at him and nodded. Relief filled him, “... Your brother?”
Noah nodded. Adolph felt a part of him relax. At least, they were together again. At least, the man knew about his brother.
“Your niece?”
A soft, paternal smile graced his face as he nodded. Adolph nodded again.
“That’s… that’s good. There isn’t… I don’t…”
Noah held up his hand and gestured behind him. Noah made a series of motions that made Adolph’s heart burn with nostalgia. They were on a timetable. The attack was meant to commence as the sun was setting just before the cast became active.
The path ahead would take them as close to the castle as possible. He warned him that once beyond the barrier all bets were off as to what would happen, but he would lead them through the passage that would lead them into the heart of the castle.
“How did such a path get discovered?” Adolph asked, skeptical.
His lips twitched and he gestured again. His new captain had found it. He could only imagine that it was Eden. Adolph nodded.
“Then, we’ll take your lead, Noah.”
Noah nodded and walked ahead. The path turned through barren trees and growing mists. Perhaps one day he would find out what caused that mist to rise between the trees like that. Noah held up a hand and Adolph held up his to single the group to stop. Adolph peered ahead, straining his hearing to hear what Noah could be hearing. Silence passed for several heartbeats before a soft song drifted on the wind like a bird’s song.
Noah shifted into his wolf form. Adolph followed suit and he felt the rest of the group follow suit as Noah led them forward. He took a few steps before he heard the babbling of a river, heavy and dark nearby. It rushed through a gate a few feet away from them and dropped into a moat. They walked through the water. It grew deeper the closer they drew to the gate until they had to swim in slow, smooth strokes around the gushing fall to another bank. Noah shifted into his human form as he pulled himself out of the water and led them around the corner. He drew his daggers and darted forward. Adolph drew his sword and followed in a flash of movement, incapacitating the two vampires who were there before they could make a sound. He caught the vampire in his arms as Noah grabbed the one he’d killed and he lowered him to the ground without a sound.
Noah looked back at him with a little nostalgic grin before leading him forward towards a cellar door. Noah lifted it and nodded them in. Adolph glanced up at the edifice of the castle, finding it taller than he imagined, but no less ominous. The stone seemed darker than was natural with veins of silver running through it. The coming night twinkled above it making it look almost abandoned with how quiet the castle was.

Morrigan chuckled as she shifted as the body stopped moving. The werewolf’s breath rattled to an end as he slumped in his chains. His blood pooled beneath him in a shallow basin that flowed into a large river of blood that ran through the castle and fed the magic of the castle.
How painful it would be for Adolph the Invincible to know that the blood of his kind fueled the very barriers that kept her hidden. She smirked. It was a delicious thought. A knock sounded on the door and she glared at the door, hearing the beating heart outside.
“You had better brought me a better plaything,” she hissed.
The door opened and she froze, seeing the man walk in. It was a horrible thing to see. She had not thought of the man in years. Dressed like any other Wiccan warrior in solid black armor. A sword on his belt and his aura teeming with magic.
“Talal?” She asked, glaring at the specter as he closed the door behind him.
He stepped closer into the pool of firelight that lit the center of her throne room. Fire jumped around the room, lighting every torch and she froze meeting gray eyes she only ever saw in the mirror or the eyes of her young daughter, useless as she was.
Eden had wondered how she would react to seeing him after all these years. To her, he had been drained of blood and dead for centuries, just as his father had been. To hear her call him by his father’s name infuriated him.
“Try again, Morrigan,” Eden said softly, narrowing his eyes at her.
She blinked at him and tilted her head at an unnatural and unnerving angle. It was less a trick to scare and a natural tick of vampire kind to use the full range of motion that would have been uncomfortable for a human. She took a step to the left, eyeing him carefully.
“I was under the impression that *mistake* had been taken care of,” she glared at him. “I suppose you’ve inherited some tenacity of the Ash line, Eden.”
“How touching you know my name.”
“I named you,” she said with a delicate shrug. “Though I had intended for you to be a daughter.”
Eden scoffed, “You intended to be able to control me, you wretched bitch.”
Morrigan smiled, cold and flattered, “What a sweet compliment after all these years.”
“I bet,” Eden said, lifting his blade. “Well, don’t keep me waiting, Morrigan.”
She hissed. Her eyes flashed bright amber, “Lower your blade, half-breed!”
He let his eyes turn gold, “Make me.”
She lunged forward with a shriek, aiming for his throat. He blocked her with a swing of his sword as her talons clanged against the metal and broke. She shrieked.
“What–”
“Moonlight steel,” he said, charging her and shoving her back. She stumbled back before lunging at him. She struck his shoulder and turned swiftly, divesting him of his blade and knocking him back. He stumbled and she darted forward, driving him back to the far wall. He shifted, barely missing one of the spikes on the wall.
She cackled, “All these years and this is the best you–”
He drove his head forward into her face and spun them around, slamming her against the wall and pinning her there with a thread of magic. She struggled before her eyes widened in shock.
He grinned at her, cold and vicious, “Not happy?”
“You– Release me!”
He chuckled, “Come now, oh Great Queen of Darkness, try a bit harder.”
Her eyes flashed, “Release me!”
He felt the compulsion wash over him like absolution as he reached into himself, undoing the restraints he kept on his vampiric nature as he heard her screaming in fury. He glared at her as he felt his fangs lengthening.
The horror in her eyes was delicious. He grabbed a fist hull of her hair and yanked her neck aside.
“You can’t,” Morrigan hissed. “Filthy half-breed. You’ll never be strong enough to handle my blood.”
His stomach turned with trepidation as she cackled, “Scared? All these years of planning and you aren’t man enough to do the deed?”
Eden clenched his jaw and sunk his teeth into her neck.