Chronicles of Rohan: The Birth of the True Alpha

Chapter 14: The Silent One

The man with pale eyes didn’t move.

Lucas stared back, heart racing. Something about him didn’t fit. He wasn’t kneeling like the others. He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink.

There was a strange stillness about him—an intensity that hummed just beneath the surface. Not threatening. Not welcoming. Just… unreadable.

Skylar whispered, “You see it too?”

Lucas nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

The air between them grew heavy.

Dylan stepped forward, voice low and wary. “That’s Kalen. Former second-in-command of the Crimson Fangs. He vanished after the blood cull.”

Dan looked confused. “Should we be worried?”

Skylar answered, “Very.”

The fire crackled. Sparks danced into the sky as Kalen finally stepped forward, his boots crunching over frost-bitten leaves. He moved with calm precision, each step deliberate.

Lucas tensed, feeling the shift rise inside him. Not fear—something older. Recognition. Like an old dream resurfacing.

Kalen stopped a few feet away.

“You bear the mark,” he said finally, voice like stone. There was no awe in it. No fear. Just cold observation.

Lucas held his ground. “And you don’t bow to it.”

Kalen’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve bowed to false kings before.”

The statement struck deeper than it should have. Lucas didn’t flinch, but something in his chest coiled tighter.

Dylan growled. “Careful how you speak.”

Lucas raised a hand. “Let him talk.”

Kalen circled the fire like a wolf testing the strength of the pack. “Words are wind. Fire burns regardless. If you’re the True Alpha, prove it not by glowing eyes—but by choices.”

Lucas studied him. His posture, his voice, the weight of every word he used. This wasn’t a challenge. It was a test.

“Then fight with us. Stand with us. Judge me by what I do next.”

Kalen didn’t reply.

Not immediately.

He looked around at the gathered wolves, their hopeful faces turned toward Lucas. Then, without another word, he walked past the fire and disappeared into the trees.

Skylar sighed. “So that’s a maybe?”

Dylan shook his head. “That’s Kalen’s way of saying, ‘I’ll watch, and I’ll strike if you fail.’”

Dan tossed a log into the fire, watching the embers scatter. “Fantastic.”

The next morning, the new pack gathered. Nearly thirty wolves in human form. Fighters. Survivors. Each bore scars—some visible, others not. The air was thick with resolve.

Lucas stood before them. The frost had settled into the ground. Mist hung low over the grass, curling around boots and blades.

“You know what’s coming,” he said. “The Ash Queen won’t wait. Malcolm’s not done. We have to strike before they do.”

His voice cut through the chill like a blade.

A woman stepped forward, her arms crossed. “Where?”

Skylar stepped beside Lucas. “There’s an old hunter compound outside Eastvale. It’s shielded. Hidden underground. Intelligence says it’s storing genetic records and relics—things they’ve taken from fallen packs.”

Lucas’s eyes burned gold. “We take it. Destroy the data. Recover what we can.”

Murmurs passed through the group like a current. Some were unsure. Others burned with quiet fury.

Then, one by one, heads nodded.

They moved fast.

By nightfall, they reached Eastvale’s outskirts. The air there was sharper, the trees denser. The land felt like it had been silenced long ago.

Dan scouted ahead with Skylar. Dylan led the rear unit. Lucas walked among the wolves—his wolves—feeling something stir. The connection. The bond. He wasn’t alone anymore. And neither were they.

They were becoming more than a group.

They were a force.

The compound was built into a cliffside, mostly hidden by natural overgrowth and shadow. Camouflaged. Guarded by sensors and two outer patrols.

Skylar laid out the map, her finger tracing lines in the dirt. “We go silent. Two teams. I take the right flank. Lucas, you lead the breach team.”

Dan handed Lucas a small pouch. Inside were smoke charges. “Non-lethal. But they’ll blind everyone not enhanced.”

Lucas nodded. “No mistakes. No deaths unless we have no choice.”

The wolves split into teams and surrounded the entrance. They crouched in silence, cloaked in shadow.

Lucas gave the signal.

Smoke exploded outward in thick plumes, flooding the entrance.

Guards shouted, caught off guard. Some stumbled blindly, coughing. Before they could fire, they were down—disarmed, unconscious, secured.

Lucas led the breach through the main door.

Cold metal halls greeted them. Fluorescent lights flickered. An alarm began to blare, shrill and distant.

Skylar’s team entered from the side corridor, her voice sharp and quiet over comms. “South wing clear. Moving to central.”

They swept the compound quickly and efficiently. Rooms were breached and cleared. Cabinets were emptied. Files were burned. Drives crushed beneath boots.

But not everything was destroyed in time.

In the central vault, Lucas found it.

A steel container. Locked, but not sealed.

Inside—

Photos.

Old, worn. Black and white.

Of his parents.

And a medical report, yellowed around the edges. Stamped confidential.

Lucas read the first line:

“Subject L-17: Gene-split confirmed. Legacy of dual bloodlines—True Alpha and Variant.”

His hand trembled.

Skylar stepped beside him, silent. Her eyes scanned the page.

“They experimented on your family. Before you were even born.”

Lucas stared at the file, his chest tight.

All this time, he’d been trying to understand what made him different. Now, part of the answer lay in front of him—and it felt like a betrayal.

He dropped the file.

Footsteps echoed behind them.

Dylan burst in. “We’re done. Extraction’s clean. No losses.”

Lucas nodded, eyes still on the steel case. He reached in and pulled out the photo of his parents. It was faded but intact.

He slipped it into his jacket.

“Burn the rest.”

Outside, the forest flickered with firelight. The cold had deepened, night falling like a curtain.

Lucas stood alone at the treeline, away from the others. The wind pulled at his jacket, and the faint sounds of the pack celebrating victory echoed behind him.

But he wasn’t celebrating.

He was thinking.

Of the files. Of his parents. Of what it meant to be born into something you never agreed to.

Footsteps approached.

Kalen appeared from the trees.

No words. Just silence. He stood beside Lucas, his face unreadable as always.

Then, without ceremony, he tossed something at Lucas’s feet.

A hunter’s badge. Severed. Blood still fresh on the leather strap.

Lucas looked up.

Kalen finally spoke. “You fight like a wolf. You think like a leader. That’s a start.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “We’ll need more than starts. We’ll need finishers.”

Kalen smirked, just slightly.

Then he turned and vanished into the dark once more.

Dan approached a few minutes later, rubbing his hands together. “That guy give you the chills too?”

Lucas chuckled. “Yeah. But I think he’s on our side now.”

Dan grinned. “Well, that’s something.”

Behind them, Skylar emerged from the compound holding a small, recovered data drive.

“Lucas,” she said, voice tight. “There’s more. This drive... it has coordinates. One of the sites marked is called Ashmoor.”

Dylan stiffened, walking up beside her. “Ashmoor’s not a base. It’s a graveyard. A resting place for Alphas.”

The words carried weight. Even the wind paused.

Lucas took the drive from Skylar, eyes scanning the embedded map. The name alone seemed to pulse with dread.

“Then we go there next.”

Skylar looked uneasy. “No one’s ever come back from Ashmoor.”

Lucas’s eyes glowed softly in the dark.

“Then we’ll be the first.”