CHAPTER 6: THE FIRST CUT

The silence after Kieran left was worse than his shouting.

It was the silence of a battlefield after the declaration of war, before the first shot is fired. Heavy. Metallic. Full of promise.

Rhydian didn't look at me. He looked at the space where Kieran had stood, his expression carved from stone. "Kellan. Double the perimeter guards. Activate the seismic sensors. If a rabbit twitches in the eastern wood, I want to know."

"Yes, Alpha." Kellan's voice was tight. He didn't agree with the war. But he would fight it.

"Thorne." Rhydian's gaze sliced to the scientist, who flinched. "You have forty-six hours. Not forty-eight. Your mobile lab is now a bunker. You will find a defensive application for her null-field, or you will design a containment protocol so perfect the Coalition will see it as a solution, not a threat. Fail, and you will be the first sacrifice I make to buy time."

Thorne paled, nodded, and scurried from the hall like a startled rat.

That left Selene, me, and him in the vast, echoing space.

"Selene," he said, finally turning his head. "You have contacts within the Riverland Pack. Use them. I want to know the Coalition's real mobilization timeline. Not their bluster. Their logistics."

A slow, poisonous smile spread across her face. "Of course, brother. I am ever loyal to the pack's... survival." Her eyes flicked to me, the unspoken word hanging in the air: even if you are not.

She glided out, leaving me alone with him.

The distance between us felt like a canyon. He was still the Alpha on his dais. I was still the anomaly on the floor.

"You should have let him take me," I said. The words were ash.

He descended the steps slowly until he stood before me. The sheer size of him should have been terrifying. In my bubble of silence, it was just a fact. "No."

"One person isn't worth a war."

"You are not a 'person' to them," he said, his voice low and brutally clinical. "You are a pathogen. You do not negotiate with a virus. You eradicate it. The only reason they offered quarantine was to see if I was infected too. I have just confirmed that I am." He leaned in, his gold eyes burning. "So understand this, Nyxara. There is no 'letting you go' anymore. It is victory or extinction. For you. For me. For every wolf who calls this territory home. You asked what you are? You are the hill this kingdom will die on. So I suggest you stop feeling sorry for yourself and start learning how to be a fortress."

He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing like verdicts.

The "bunker" was in the sub-levels of the manor, a sterile, windowless room of white tile and steel. It smelled of antiseptic and fear. My fear.

Thorne had changed. The curious scientist was gone, replaced by a man with a gun to his head. His hands shook slightly as he calibrated a machine with a cluster of crystalline sensors.

"This is an empathy resonator," he explained, voice clipped. "It measures the strength and direction of pack-bond connections. Think of it as a psychic net. Leo's bond to his Beta was a strong, bright thread. When you... interfered, the thread frayed. We need to map the exact frequency of your interference."

"I don't 'interfere' on purpose," I said, sitting on the cold exam chair.

"You don't have to. Your mere presence is a corrosive agent. We need to weaponize the corrosion." He attached sensors to my temples. "I am going to bring in a bonded pair. Low-ranking. Their bond is simple, stable. You will do nothing. We will simply measure the dampening effect of your proximity."

He opened a heavy door. Two young wolves entered, a man and a woman. They held hands, their connection a visible comfort. They glanced at me, anxiety flashing in their eyes, but they took up positions across the room.

The resonator whirred to life. A holographic display shimmered above it a chaotic, beautiful web of glowing lines. One brilliant, humming cord of light connected the two wolves, pulsing softly.

"Baseline established," Thorne muttered, taking notes. "Now, Ms. Vale. Walk toward them. Slowly."

I stood. I took a step. The brilliant cord flickered. I took another. The cord dimmed, like a light bulb on a dying power grid. The woman winced, gripping her mate's hand tighter.

"Fascinating. The field is not a sphere, but a directed tide... it pushes ahead of you." Thorne was scribbling furiously. "Continue."

I took two more steps. The cord was now a feeble, sputtering thread. The man growled low in his throat, a sound of deep-seated distress. "It's... getting hard to feel you," he whispered to his mate, panic in his voice.

"Stop!" the woman cried out, tears in her eyes. "Please, stop!"

I froze. The cord stabilized, but remained weak. Thorne looked disappointed. "The subject's emotional state is disrupting the readings. A more... resilient bond is required."

The door hissed open again. Selene stood there, having changed into a lab coat of all things. A cruel parody of a healer. "I heard you needed a stronger bond to test," she said, her voice sweetly malicious. "I volunteer."

Thorne looked nervously from her to the door, as if expecting Rhydian to appear. "Lady Selene, that is not"

"The bond between the Alpha's chosen heir and the pack itself is one of the strongest known," she interrupted, gliding into the room. She didn't look at the bonded pair, who shrank back from her. "It is not romantic. It is political, psychic, ancestral. Let's see if her little silence can touch that."

This was a trap. I knew it. But Thorne, desperate for results, was nodding. "The pack-bond matrix is exponentially more complex... It could yield invaluable data."

Selene positioned herself in the center of the room. "Begin."

Thorne reset the machine. The hologram bloomed again, infinitely more complex. Where the bonded pair had one cord, Selene was a nexus. Dozens of thick, vibrant lines of light radiated from her, connecting to the walls, the floor a representation of her deep ties to the manor, the pack's history, its power.

"Now, anomaly," Selene purred. "Walk."

I didn't want to. Every instinct screamed this was wrong. But the clock was ticking. I took a step toward her.

Her nexus flickered. A minor dimming. She smirked. "Is that all?"

I took another. The thicker cords the ones tied to the Blackthorne bloodline held strong. But several thinner ones, connections to lesser pack members and newer alliances, wavered.

"Interesting. She attacks the weak links first," Thorne narrated, captivated.

I was three feet from Selene. The air crackled with hostile energy. Her smile was a razor cut. "You see, doctor? She is a weapon for cowards. She cannot break true strength. Only the fragile."

Anger, hot and clean, washed through me. I was tired of being a subject. A weapon. A pathogen. I took one more step, entering her personal space.

The change was instant.

The entire web didn't just dim. It screamed.

A high-frequency whine erupted from the resonator, shattering a glass beaker. The hologram erupted in violent static. Selene's smirk vanished. Her eyes flew wide. She gasped, clawing at her own chest.

It wasn't pain. It was disintegration.

The bonds weren't fraying. They were being unwoven. The history, the certainty, the unshakable knowledge of her place it was all turning to mist in her psyche.

She didn't cry out. She made a sound of pure, existential terror. A whimper from the soul.

"CEASE!" Thorne yelled, slamming the machine's emergency cutoff.

The hologram died. The whine faded. Selene stumbled back, colliding with the steel wall. She slid down it, trembling violently, her perfect hair falling around a face that was sheet-white and empty. She stared at nothing, her breath coming in ragged hitches.

I stood frozen, my own heart hammering. I had done that. Not by accident. I had stepped forward, fueled by anger, and I had pushed the silence at her.

Thorne was staring at me with something beyond fear. It was reverence. And horror. "You... you can direct it. With intent."

The heavy door burst open. Rhydian filled the doorway, Kellan behind him. He took in the scene: Selene shattered on the floor, Thorne gaping, me standing like a statue of guilt.

"What happened?" Rhydian's voice was deadly quiet.

Thorne found his voice, shrill with excitement and terror. "She can focus the field, Alpha! It's not just passive! With conscious intent, she can target specific bonds! The power is controllable!"

Rhydian's eyes locked on mine. The gold was molten. He wasn't looking at a weapon anymore.

He was looking at a soldier who had just fired her first shot.

And from the floor, Selene found her voice. It was cracked, broken, and filled with a hatred so deep it had no bottom. She looked right at Rhydian, then at me.

"She touched my birthright," she whispered, the sound carrying like a curse. "No one survives that."

This wasn't a test anymore. It was the first cut of the civil war.

And I had just drawn blood.