CHAPTER 101: SCATTERED FORCES

Chapter 101: Scattered Forces

"RUN!"

Liana’s scream cut through the confusion as reality continued to crack around them.

The exiled beings poured through the dimensional rifts like a flood of nightmares, quickly clashing with their High Council enemies.

"The ceremonial grounds are lost!" Kael roared, his Alpha voice carrying over the sound of otherworldly war. "Everyone split! Survival formation now!"

The surviving supernatural beings broke apart like startled birds. Wolves bolted for the treeline. Remaining pack members vanished into the shadows.

The carefully planned gathering dissolved into desperate flight. But thirty people running in fear was thirty people who would die. "Wait!" Talia grabbed Liana’s arm, her eyes rolled back and shining with seer power.

"I can see the roads! The safe ones!" Visions flashed through her mind faster than lightning—hidden caves, abandoned buildings, old shelters that existed between the normal world and the supernatural one.

"Northeast!" she gasped, pointing toward a clump of mountains. "There’s a place where the old magic still holds.

They can’t track us there!" "Split up," Kael ordered, his strategic mind working even as explosions of magical energy lit the sky behind them. "Smaller groups are harder to hunt." "No," Liana said strongly. "We stay united. The mate bond—it’s not just between us four anymore. I can feel everyone we’ve touched." She was right.

The Guardian connections she’d made stretched like silver threads to every supernatural being present, even as they fled in different directions. "I’ll take the injured to the refugee camps," Kael decided. "Get them hidden and healing." "I’m hitting back," Jace snarled, his green eyes blazing with anger. "They want a war? I’ll give them one they won’t forget."

"And I’ll call our allies," Rowan added, already reaching out through his diplomatic contacts. "The packs who weren’t here need to know what’s happening."

Liana felt her heart breaking as her mates prepared to part. "What if we can’t find each other again?" "We will," Kael promised, touching her face softly. "The bond is stronger than distance."

"Plus," Jace grinned despite the danger, "I’m too stubborn to lose you now." Rowan simply pressed his forehead against hers, sharing a moment of calm power.

"We’ve survived everything else together. We’ll survive this too." As they split up, Liana felt pieces of her soul spreading to the winds.

Three Days Later - Northern Mountains The cave Talia had seen in her vision was exactly where she’d predicted—hidden behind a waterfall, warded with magic so old it felt like bedrock. "Twenty-three survivors," Kael reported, his voice hoarse from tiredness. "Including six who are badly hurt."

Liana nodded, her hands still glowing slightly from the healing work she’d been doing nonstop. Elder Mira sat in the corner, aged ten years since watching Adrian’s spirit killed. Elena Moonwhisper bandaged cuts with torn fabric from ceremonial robes.

"Any word from the others?" Liana asked. "Jace hit three High Council outposts yesterday," Kael said, pride and fear warring in his voice.

"Small strikes, but powerful. He’s making them nervous." "And Rowan?" " Seventeen packs answered his call. Hidden communities from six countries are going underground. The word is spreading. "

It should have felt like hope. Instead, it felt like watching a fire start with wet kindling—lots of smoke, but would it really catch? Abandoned Warehouse - Eastern Territory Jace crouched in the darkness, watching a High Council patrol search the building below.

Six vampires, two angels, and something that looked like live crystal. "Too many," whispered Sara, a young wolf who’d joined his resistance group.

"We should wait." "They have Marcus," Jace replied, pointing toward the unconscious figure being dragged between two vampires. "We don’t leave pack behind."

He touched the explosive charges he’d put around the building’s support beams.

Not enough to kill the Council members—they were too strong for that—but enough to cause chaos. "When I give the signal, you hit the emergency beacon," he told Sara. "Every supernatural in fifty miles will know we’re fighting back." The blast lit up the night sky like a second sun.

In the wake, as Council members dug themselves out of the rubble, they heard something that made their immortal blood run cold. Howls. Dozens of them, rising from the darkness around the building.

The neighborhood supernatural community had heard Jace’s call and come running. "First rule of guerrilla warfare," Jace said as he and Sara helped Marcus to his feet. "Never let the enemy feel safe."

Rowan’s Secret Location The video call included more faces than Rowan had dared hope for. Pack leaders, vampire covens, fae courts, witch circles—all connected through encrypted channels that Talia’s dreams had helped him find.

"The situation is worse than we thought," he told the gathered supernatural leaders. "The High Council and these exiled beings are fighting each other, but they’re both hunting us."

"What do you need?" asked Helena, Alpha of the South American jaguar shifters. "Safe places. Escape ways. And most importantly, information."

Rowan’s diplomatic training had prepared him for many things, but not for coordinating a global supernatural rebellion. "We need to know what these exiled beings really want." "I might have answers," said an old voice from the screen’s corner.

An older vampire with eyes like old silver leaned forward. "I remember the first war. These ’exiled’ ones—they’re not just the High Council’s enemies. They’re everyone’s enemies." "Explain."

"The High Council made your species to serve them, yes. But the exiled ones wanted to eat you entirely. They see supernatural people as food, not tools."

The implications hit everyone at once. Bad as the High Council was, the option was worse. "So we’re caught between tyrants and cannibals," Helena summarized grimly.

Back in the Mountain Cave Liana jerked awake from a nightmare where she was being hunted by shadows with too many teeth.

The mate bond thrummed with faraway danger—her three partners were all in trouble, but too far away for her to help. "Can’t sleep either?" Talia sat beside her, looking out at the waterfall that hid their entrance.

"I keep thinking we’re fighting the wrong battle," Liana admitted. "Everyone’s focused on the High Council and the exiled ones, but what about the hybrid children?" "What about them?" "River opened the dimensional walls.

But what if that wasn’t an accident? What if the children are supposed to be doing something else entirely?"

Before Talia could answer, her eyes suddenly rolled back, shining with seer power. "Vision," she gasped. "Something big is coming. The children—they’re not random. They’re not just bridges between species or worlds."

"Then what are they?" Talia’s voice dropped to a whisper. "They’re keys. But not to open walls. To lock them. Permanently." "I don’t understand."

"The war isn’t between the High Council and the displaced ones. It’s not even about who rules the magical world." Talia grabbed Liana’s hand, her fingers ice-cold.

"It’s about who gets to exist in reality at all." "Explain." "The exiled ones don’t just want to rule or eat. They want to replace this entire world with their own.

And the only way to stop them is to use the hybrid children as live locks, sealing every barrier between worlds forever." Liana felt her blood turn to ice. "What happens to the children if we do that?" Talia’s sparkling eyes filled with tears.

"They die. All of them. River, every hybrid child born in the last year, and every one that might be born in the future."

The choice was impossible. Save the children and end reality itself. Kill the children and protect the world. "There has to be another way," Liana said desperately.

"Maybe," Talia whispered. "But I saw something else in the vision. The person who has to make that choice?" "Who?"

"You. And you have to make it in the next three days, or everyone—supernatural and human alike—dies when the dimensions fall into each other."

Outside the cave, thunder roared despite the clear night sky. Reality was already starting to crack at the edges.

Time was running out.