Roland’s POV~I dropped down low into the snow, my breath puffing white in the cold. I fixed my gray eyes on the steel gates of the Silver Veil lab. Jasmine’s voice still ringing in my ears through the stolen radio, her tone laced with fear: “They took Elara, Roland. Tyler’s trap. The Alpha’s hurting her!”My claws itched. I had rallied the Bloodhound pack. My son Julian was safe now and healing back at the safe house. His love for Elara made me think back to my love for the mate I’d lost.I had followed the scent of Silver Veil beneath the pines. It led me here,—to this fortress located in the mountains. No one could easily miss the Alpha’s howls bouncing off the cliffs.The safe house we had abandoned was trashed. Blood stained the snow. I looked at Winifred. “We bust into the lab,” I snarled. “Now. We take her back.”Her nod was sharp. “Bloodhound’s ready. We gut them tonight.”We shifted. My black fur bristled. Muscles stretched. I lunged forward. Claws slashed. Teeth bared. The
Lyra’s POV~“Is... is help coming?” Jasmine’s pained gasp drifted in the frozen air. Her wrists were bleeding where the steel chains of Silver Veil cut into her flesh. Her blood fell upon the rune, and the Alpha’s red burning eyes shone out of the clearing at her.I pushed away from the cot, pain blazing through the wound in my chest. The bandages tightened on me. The Alpha’s howl shook the pines, silver fur shining. But it was Jasmine’s bravery — her blood as the bait for the trap — that kept me there.Caspian leaped forward as his knife cut through the chains, releasing her. He was covered in blood as he screamed, “Jasmine, hold on!”As the silver nets held the Alpha in check. The monster lashed and roared and failed.I fell on all fours next to Jasmine, panting, my body feeble. The poison of the ritual's shard still burnt in my veins.Elara was holding hands with Damien. Their bond was my hope. My reason to fight. The cabin walls shuddered under the weight of the snow. The stink of
Jasmine’s POV~I knelt beside Caspian. His shoulder was covered with bandages, blood from the sniper's bullet staining the bandage. Even though I’d been careful, he still bled. His hair was covered with sweat and snow. His brown eyes flashed with pain. I could feel his breath warm beneath my shaking hand.On the other end of the room, lit by lanterns alone, sat Elara with Damien. Their fingers were interlocked with one another. Lyra was unconscious on the other end. Her chest wound had been bandaged tightly, and she looked swept by the Alpha’s savage attack. Her blood had poisoned the ritual shard, the lingering shadow that had nearly killed her.It was becoming more and more scary outside, the Alpha’s presence. Its cries reverberated through the air. The smell of it floated in through all the cracks in the walls — wild, and by no means human. It was hunting us.Sabrina’s blood still stained the snow by the door. The ritual key, now covered with her sacrifice, rested in Elara’s palms.
Roland's POV~My arms rested on a jagged splintered post, my body shaking with exhaustion, silver poison from the Alpha’s claw burning through me, eating away at my strength, my gray wolf sluggish and stirring within me, growling its resolve to fight. Julian was there, sprawled on a cot beside me, his chest rising, fragile breaths, the healer saving his life after his heart had stopped, gray eyes half open, clouded with agony and guilt, somehow still alive, a miracle I held onto like a lifeline in a storm. The Alpha’s path was savage and one now of instinct, leading away from the camp, its feral scent of blood reaching a Silver Veil lab buried deep in the frost-crusted Vellex woods, a fortress of secrets that fed the monster who had been born of Elara and Lyra’s twin blood, the nightmare we’d all brought into this world. Elara and Damien’s connection, their silent faith that I’d seen practiced in the safehouse, their joined hands, was a lighthouse in my thoughts, a picture of love th
Damien’s POV~The Vellex safehouse stood like a ruined lighthouse in the frozen depths of the woods, rotting wooden walls eyeing under a cruel noonday frost, the air itself tasting thickly of pine and the bitter, coin-like tang of Lyra’s blood that stained my hands, a grim reminder of the Alpha’s savagery. Her soft frame was in my arms as I carried her through the door- her chest nearly ripped open from the werewolf’s claws, breaths shallow, uneven, her hazel eyes sliding shut, barely holding on, my heart strumming a wild, primal terror with every fragile heartbeat of hers. Elara held my arm, her touch warm, steady—not love, but connection, a lifeline for the storm, her hazel eyes meeting mine, thrusting me deeper into the mate bond, a small but fierce fire against the endless night. The Alpha’s scent — wild, mindless, a monstrous thing of Elara and Lyra’s twin blood — drew near, the howls of it shaking the frost-cloaked pines, a remorseless hunter let loose upon us from Vellex’s fore
Lyra’s POV~I stood in the dim lantern-lit room with my shoulder burning under its bandages, the days-old blade from the Bloodhound scout’s grip a dull, constant throb, my hazel eyes flashing like the fierce, restless throb of my awakened wolf, its power echoing Elara’s, my twin, the mirror of my soul, the sister I had only recently found and would do anything to keep. Traversing the threadbare wooden floor in little more than a playful parry, swinging lightly with a training blade, her auburn hair dancing in the shimmer of the lantern’s golden light, her hazel eyes alight with a resolve that flickered against her weariness, her laughter a rare and transient sound that would warm my heart like nothing else could muster. Damien was pacing along the wall beside me, his dark eyes growing soft as he looked at her; his love—gentle, devoted, strong—was a thread of light through the darkness; our mate bonds a constant flame through the turmoil; it gave me courage; an ideal of love I’d destro