Chapter 3 - The Siege of Blackwood Cabin
The wood of the front door groaned under a second, heavier impact.
Clara scrambled across the room, grabbing her father’s old double-barreled shotgun from its rack above the mantle. She checked the breech with fumbling, burned fingers—two shells loaded with heavy salt-and-iron buckshot.
"They won't break it down with brute force," Roman said, gritting his teeth as he forced himself up onto one knee, wrapping the wool blanket tighter around his waist. "Silver-infused timber reinforced with iron runes. Victor built these cabins decades ago. But they'll wait us out. Or worse, they'll set fire to the dry pine siding."
"We have a root cellar," Clara said quickly, pointing to a heavy trapdoor hidden beneath the braided rug near the kitchen counter. "It has a thick stone hatch and a tunnel leading out toward the creek. Built it with my dad three years ago."
Roman nodded, his gaze sharp. "Move."
As Clara wrenched the rug aside and threw open the heavy oak trapdoor, a deafening crash echoed from the front room. The glass in the front window shattered inward, shards spraying across the hardwood floor as a massive, dark silhouette vaulted through the opening.
Bang!
Clara didn't hesitate. She whipped around and fired the first barrel of the shotgun. The blast of iron buckshot caught the intruder mid-air, sending a massive grey wolf howling back out through the broken window frame in a spray of dark blood.
"Go! Down!" Roman ordered, shoving her gently toward the open cellar stairs.
"What about you?" Clara cried, looking back at his bleeding, exhausted frame. "You can't fight an entire pack like this!"
"I am an Alpha of the High Ridge," Roman growled, his voice dropping an octave into a resonance that vibrated through the floorboards. His eyes flashed a blinding, incandescent blue in the dim cabin light. "I don't need to fight them. I just need to remind them whose blood they're hunting."
Before she could argue, Roman stepped directly into the path of the broken window as a second wolf lunged inside. With terrifying speed, Roman caught the massive beast by the scruff of its neck, slamming it against the stone hearth with a bone-racking crash that silenced the room.
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"Get down the stairs, Clara!" Roman shouted over the echoing roars outside. "I'll seal the hatch behind you!"
Knowing arguing would get them both killed, Clara plunged down into the dark, damp safety of the root cellar, pulling the heavy stone-lined trapdoor shut just as a chorus of enraged howls erupted from inside the cabin above.
