Chapter 7

Smoke burned the back of my throat before I even opened my eyes. The world was shaking — a chorus of gunfire, metal screaming, and the guttural howls of wolves echoing through the ruins. I rolled onto my side, lungs dragging in air that tasted like ash. Auren’s hand caught my arm just before a line of bullets ripped through the concrete where my head had been a second ago.

“Move!” he barked, his voice raw with urgency.

We ran — or tried to. The world was collapsing around us. Flames licked at the twisted edges of what had once been a parking garage, now half-sunken into the earth. Soldiers in black armor poured through the smoke, their rifles fitted with glowing tips — tech that didn’t belong in human hands. My heart slammed against my ribs as we dove behind an overturned truck.

I could feel them — the humans — their fear buried beneath discipline. They weren’t here by accident. They knew what they were hunting.

“They’re not wolves,” I whispered, the words trembling out of me. “They know.”

Auren’s jaw tightened. His eyes reflected the flicker of distant fires. “Then they’ve made their choice.”

He was already loading another magazine when I felt it — that pulse. Deep in my chest, beneath my ribs, something ancient stirred. My power. It was louder now, impossible to ignore. It wanted out.

The air shimmered with heat as another explosion ripped through the lot, sending glass and debris into the air. I screamed — not from pain, but from the force building in me. Auren caught me before I hit the ground, his arms solid around me, his voice a low growl against my ear. “Don’t lose it, Aria. Not here.”

But it was too late. The ground fractured beneath us. Light tore through the smoke — raw, blinding, alive. When the world stopped shaking, silence fell heavy. The soldiers were gone. Only scorched shadows remained where they had stood.

Auren stared at me, his chest rising and falling hard. “You did that,” he said quietly.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My body trembled, the air still charged with something electric and wild. It was the same feeling as before — when the pack turned on me, when my blood had screamed its truth to the sky. But this was different. Stronger. More controlled. Almost like it was… recognizing me.

We moved through the ruins, silent except for the hum of distant machines. Auren led the way, his movements calculated, protective. My power still whispered under my skin — a reminder that something inside me was shifting.

“They’ll come again,” he said. “Humans. Wolves. Both. They won’t stop until they have you.”

“Then we keep moving,” I said, even though every muscle in my body ached. “We find out why.”

Hours passed. The city had become a graveyard of steel and smoke. Auren guided us to the edge of the old district, where shattered glass crunched beneath our boots. I could feel eyes on us — not human this time. Something else. Something older.

We found shelter beneath the ruins of an overpass. The flicker of firelight painted shadows across Auren’s face. For a moment, I saw something in his eyes that wasn’t war — it was guilt. Deep and quiet.

“You knew this would happen,” I said softly. “Didn’t you?”

He didn’t look away. “I hoped it wouldn’t. But yes.”

The truth landed like another blow. “You knew humans were part of it?”

He hesitated — just long enough to tell me everything. “They’ve been hunting us longer than you think. They call it containment. I call it extermination.”

Something cold settled in my chest. “Then why protect me?”

He finally looked at me, eyes burning gold in the firelight. “Because you’re not just one of us, Aria. You’re what they built all this to destroy.”

Before I could speak, the air shifted — a sound like thunder rolled through the dark. A drone of engines, heavy and metallic, closing in fast. I looked up and saw lights cutting through the clouds — not searchlights, not helicopters. Something bigger. A shadow that swallowed the sky.

“Run,” Auren said, already pulling me to my feet.

But my legs wouldn’t move. The power inside me was screaming — not in pain this time, but in warning. I turned just as the light hit us. A wave of energy burst from the hovering machine, slamming into the ground. The air went white, and I felt my body lift, every nerve alight with fire.

Through the blinding storm, I heard Auren shout my name. Then — silence.

When I opened my eyes again, the sky was gone. I was inside a cell made of glass, my reflection flickering in the dim light. Symbols lined the walls — old, powerful, familiar. My heart froze.

They weren’t human symbols.

And in the reflection behind me — standing outside the glass — was a man I thought had died the night my pack burned.

Kael.