Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride-Chapter 373: The Old Wolf Howls at the Moon

Viktor Volkov POV

——

Darkness wasn't the worst part.

It was the stillness.

No chains clinking. No chanting. Just breathe—his own—and the quiet, clean sound of razors being washed in cold water.

They always cleaned their tools. That was the worst part. The care they took.

Viktor didn't move. Couldn't, really, with both arms pinned to the wall, wrists locked against carved stone. He couldn't feel his legs. Didn't know if they were still attached or just numb.

He could smell iron. His blood and something foul beneath it—preserved rot, the stink of old magic and powdered bone.

The Bone Saints didn't speak. Not in words. They wore masks, all ivory, their robes stitched with runes. The air around them was heavy, like wet fabric draped over his chest.

One of them moved beside him.

A tool clicked.

Another leaned close and whispered—not with breath, but inside his head.

You are not old.

Your line is ending.

Your teeth will become dust, your howl forgotten.

Their voices, like a banshee's cry, distorted noise in the form of words, echoed constantly with a deep reverbial hiss in the back of his mind, repeating each moment.

He didn't answer.

His mouth wouldn't open anymore.

Viktor's dry, swollen tongue was sore and cracked as he shifted. He hadn't been given water in days. Maybe weeks... he could no longer tell. They played with time down here, made the darkness last longer, and the silence louder.

Another cut ripped through his arm, shallow this time. These undead fiends didn't rush, never rushing, always measured and slow.

They didn't want answers quickly.

They wanted him empty.

He let his eyes drift open. Only a sliver of light came through the slit in the door. A guard, maybe. Or a torch. It didn't matter.

Viktor couldn't remember the last face he'd seen.

Maybe Nikolai's... or even his son Ivan?

The memories blurred together in a vague mist of images and video reels.

He didn't expect to survive, and part of him didn't want to. Not really.

Not if the boy was dead.

Not if the name died with him.

Viktor didn't even notice when one of the Bone Saints lifted his hand, snapped his fingers back just a little too far with a sharp snap. He no longer felt the pain, only a brief huff and grunt.

Just the quiet click of bone starting to heal, like this, they would keep him alive. Long enough for something.

He didn't know what.

And for the first time in his long, brutal life, Viktor Volkov started to wonder if this was how it ended. Not in battle. Not by betrayal.

But forgotten, rotting in a tomb of silence and white-masked ghosts.

——

The door groaned open. Not a rush, not loud—just the kind of creak that said someone didn't care if they were noticed.

Viktor didn't lift his head.

The air shifted; it didn't become colder, but heavier. Denser. Like whatever walked through that door didn't fit into the space the same way men did. Not anymore.

He heard the sound of boots on stone. Slow, deliberate steps. Measured weight.

It wasn't the Bone Saints, nor the undead. They never walked like that. These were the steps of something different, something alive and powerful.

The Saints moved like echoes—no sound, no breath, only a dark, foul-smelling aura. But this? This was a man.

A familiar man... someone he couldn't mistake.

A shadow passed into Viktor's limited view. Then a pause.

One of the Bone Saints hissed—he didn't see which, maybe the one with the carved rib scalpel. It moved toward the figure standing in the dark, like it meant to drive him back.

There was no warning.

No roar. No flash.

Just a low, hard sound—like bone cracking against stone. Something moved too fast for his strained vision to follow.

And then…

Silence.

The Saints were gone.

The cold they brought didn't vanish, but it sank, as if whatever force they answered to had recoiled.

All that remained was dust.

Viktor blinked once. The dull pain in his shoulders felt more real for a moment.

A familiar face stepped into view.

Alaric Drago. Older than the others, skin darkened from sun and blood, eyes sharp as ever. His bald head gleamed faintly in the flickering torchlight near the door.

He crouched beside the stone slab quietly, with none of the weight he used to throw around when marching into a room.

His eyes met Viktor's.

"Still alive," Alaric said, his voice calm, low. "That's something."

Viktor's throat was too dry to speak right away.

Alaric looked over the restraints, the blood, the dried filth along Viktor's wrists where skin had torn from too many days without healing.

"You've gotten old, Leader."

There was no pity in his expression, and only calculation. He looked around before letting out a sigh, "it seems they are already on their way back." He placed his hand above Viktor's chest, just above the heart.

He leaned beside Viktor's ear and spoke in a low whisper.

"The throne no longer waits, old friend.

The moon has shifted. Winds now bend."

Viktor blinked once. Breathing shallow.

"The young wolf moves with quiet fangs—

And those who laughed now fear his name."

Alaric paused. His breath smelled of ash and old wine.

"He carries pain. He hides his fire.

But mark my words—he climbs the pyre."

"He fights alone, but not for long.

The wolves have heard their alpha's song."

The words sounded like a silly folk tale at first, but the more Viktor listened, the more he became focused, awake and something pulled behind Viktor's chest.

Not a memory.

Not hope.

Instinct.

"He took the seat you left behind—

Bleeding, broken, still defiant."

"They'll say he's soft. Say he won't last.

But every step is stronger than the last."

Viktor closed his eyes.

Not to sleep.

Not to die.

To feel it, for just a second, the meaning in his words... Alaric's words told a tale about how Nikolai stepped up and became the new patriarch.

A Volkov's footsteps.

Alaric stood. His hand left Viktor's chest. His shadow shifted again as he turned to leave.

Before stepping away, he spoke plainly—no rhyme, no ceremony.

"The Young Wolf has taken the throne. Your blood's still running. So don't give them what they want, old friend."

Viktor opened his eyes.

The door creaked shut.

The light disappeared.

But something inside him stayed lit.

His fingers moved—just a twitch.

His breath came easier.

And then, for the first time in weeks, he smiled.

It was a crooked thing. Ugly. Half-lip torn. Teeth cracked.

But it was there.

"…after all," Viktor rasped, his voice like sand, "the little wolf was a Volkov."

He let his head rest against the stone, eyes glinting in the dark.

"I must be getting too old…"

The door closed behind him, but Alaric didn't look back.

The air outside the cell was cleaner, but not by much. The stench of rot ran deep in the stone of this place. It clung to his coat, to the edges of his thoughts. The kind of stink that lingered under the skin even after the blood was gone.

Two Bone Saints had stood in the hallway before. Now they were gone. He hadn't killed them. He hadn't needed to. Some things were left when he arrived, not because of power, not exactly, but because the dead remember who they should fear.

He adjusted the collar of his coat, breathing out slowly through his nose. No rhyme now. No need.

That had been for Viktor.

A gift for a dying man.

Or a sleeping one.

Alaric didn't know which yet.

He climbed the stairwell in silence. Slow, heavy steps. The sort of pace men took when they were thinking too much, too deeply. He could feel the tension in his shoulders settling in again.

No doubt. Just pressure.

Viktor was alive. That was good.

But it meant the games were beginning.

The Nosferatu weren't fools, and understood that Viktor couldn't be broken easily and what he'd built. They'd cut out his voice, buried him in that cell, thinking silence would mean decay. They didn't realise what that silence had bred.

They didn't see the wolf waking in the dark.

Alaric's hand slid across the railing as he reached the top level. The guards there shifted slightly as he passed. They didn't speak back today, maybe because of his help. The Nosferatu would soon move the old man, but this was their plan.

He preferred it this way because it meant Nikolai's plan wasn't wrong.

As he stepped into the outer hall, his eyes scanned the dark horizon through the stone-cut windows, but Alaric still worried about what might happen in the future.

Could they manage to keep this up and save Viktor, or would something happen and ruin everything? The view in his eyes flickered and made him hopeful.

It was still early—blue shadows hanging over the valley.

The scent of coming snow on the wind.

His fingers bent, forming a fist.

Soon.

Very soon.

The Young Wolf would stop surviving.

And start hunting.