The Grenade's Light

The world went white.

Not sound. Not heat. Just white, eating everything. The grenade wasn’t frag. It was flash-burn, iron-filament, made for fae. Made for me.

The suppressant Doc gave me screamed in my blood. Iron on iron. My fae side went silent like a candle snuffed out. My wolf went next, whimpering. I hit the dirt human. Weak. Blind.

“WELLIE!”

Bronte’s voice. Real. Raw. Closer.

I crawled. Hands bleeding on stone, eyes streaming. The den was chaos — wolves howling, Hunters shouting orders, the iron stink so thick I could taste it.

“Valeria!” I screamed. Or tried to. My throat was full of ash.

A hand closed around my arm. Not Valeria. Too big. Too cold.

I looked up.

Bronte.

On his knees beside me, chains still on his wrists but broken, dangling. Blood on his face. His face. His face. Not the Skinwalker. Him. Brown eyes, blown wide with terror.

“Baby,” he breathed. “Baby, can you see me?”

I couldn’t speak. I just grabbed his shirt. Cotton. Real. Him. The scar on his eyebrow was there. The one from hiking. The one the Skinwalker had copied but couldn’t get right — too shallow. Too clean.

“Bronte,” I choked out.

His hands were on my face, frantic, checking me. “Where are you hurt? Wellie, talk to me. What did they —” He stopped. His nose flared. He smelled me.

His eyes dropped to my stomach.

“Are you —” His voice broke. “Are you…?”

I nodded. Couldn’t lie. Not to him.

The sound he made wasn’t human. Wasn’t wolf. It was relief and agony and rage all at once. He crushed me to his chest, chains clanking, and I felt his heart hammering. Alive. Alive.

“Three months,” he whispered into my hair. “They had me three months, Wellie. I thought… I thought Rhys killed you too.”

“Rhys is dead,” I said. “I killed him.”

Bronte pulled back, searched my face. Saw the gold still flickering in my eyes. The green at my fingertips, dulled by iron but there. “You woke up.”

“You lied to me.”

“I know.” He didn’t deny it. Didn’t apologize. Just knew. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, love.”

Love. He called me love. Not girl. Not baby. Love.

A bullet hit the dirt six inches from us.

Valeria skidded in front of us, back in human form, bleeding from a gash on her thigh. “Reunion’s over! We gotta move! They’ve got iron rounds and a dampener field — you shift, you die!”

Bronte was already moving. He hauled me up, one arm around my waist, and I realized he was limping. Bad. His left leg was… wrong. Bent where it shouldn’t bend.

“You’re hurt,” I said.

“You’re pregnant,” he shot back. “We can compare scars later.”

He half-carried, half-dragged me toward the tunnels. Blackwood’s escape routes. The ones only Alphas knew. He knew. Because he was Alpha. Had been.

“Marcus!” Bronte barked. “Status!”

Marcus appeared out of the smoke, dragging a Hunter by the neck. He dropped the body when he saw Bronte. Stopped dead. “Alpha?” His voice was a kid’s. Broken. “We thought — the body —”

“Later,” Bronte said. No room for grief. “How many Hunters?”

“Twelve inside. More outside. They hit us at moonset. Had a dampener. Took the den in five minutes.” Marcus looked at me. At my stomach. At Bronte’s arm around me. “Luna… you’re…”

“Move,” Valeria snarled. “Or we all die.”

We ran.

---

The tunnels were dark. Iron-bolted. Old magic carved into the walls — wolves and thorns, intertwined. Fae work. Wild Court work. I felt it even through the suppressant. Like an echo.

Bronte knew the way. Every turn. Every false wall. He didn’t let go of me once.

“How?” I gasped, when we stopped to breathe. We were three levels down, water dripping somewhere, Hunters shouting far above. “Rhys said… I saw you… in the creek…”

“Skinwalker,” Bronte said. His jaw was tight. “They jumped me on patrol. Three months ago. Rhys sold me out. Traded me for the Alpha seat. The thing in the creek was me, Wellie. Or, part of me. They took my blood. My skin. Made a copy to break you. To wake you up angry. Easier to kill a grieving hybrid than a dormant one.”

“So the body I found…”

“Was me. But not all of me.” He touched his chest. “They kept me alive. Wanted to know how I bound you. Wanted the secret. Fae bindings are worth money to the Order.”

Order. Hunters. The group Elias worked for.

“Elias,” I said. “Doc. He’s Court. He helped you bind me.”

Bronte nodded. “He’s good. He got you out?”

“He gave me this.” I pulled the key from under my shirt. The safety deposit box. “Said you left me answers.”

Bronte’s face did something complicated. “Box 217.” He closed his eyes. “Wellie, if I don’t make it —”

“Don’t.” I grabbed his face. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to die again. You just got back.”

His hands covered mine. Bigger. Calloused. Real. “I’m not leaving you. Not again. Not ever.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “But you need to know. That box? It’s not just answers. It’s a weapon. The only thing that can kill the Wild Court King. My father.”

The world tilted.

“Your… what?”

“Rhys and I weren’t full brothers,” Bronte said fast. Low. “Same mother. Different fathers. Mine was… is… the King of the Wild Court. He had an affair with a wolf. Forbidden. I’m a halfling. Like you. But older. Stronger.” He touched my stomach. “Our daughter isn’t just fae-wolf, Wellie. She’s royal. On both sides. Silas isn’t your cousin. He’s your uncle. My half-brother.”

Silas. Who wanted me as his Queen. Who called our daughter “you two.”

“Oh god,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Bronte said. Grim. “That’s why Rhys wanted me dead. That’s why the Hunters kept me alive. That’s why the Courts will burn the world to get you.” He kissed me. Hard. Desperate. Like he was memorizing me. “I bound you to keep you human, love. To keep you out of this. I failed.”

“You saved me,” I said. Fierce. “You gave me twenty-six years without a war. You gave me us.”

Another explosion rocked the tunnel. Dust rained down.

“Time to go,” Valeria said. She’d been silent. Watching. Judging. Now she nodded at Bronte. “Alpha.”

“Not anymore,” Bronte said. He looked at me. “She is.”

Marcus, who’d been guarding the rear, choked. “But pack law —”

“Pack law says the strongest rules,” Bronte said. “She killed Rhys. She held the den. She’s carrying my heir.” He took my hand. Pressed it to his heart. “I’m hers. That makes her Alpha. Or do you want to challenge her?”

Marcus looked at me. Really looked. Gold eyes, green fingertips, iron suppressant making me shake, but still standing. Still here. Still fighting.

He dropped to one knee. “Luna. Alpha. My life is yours.”

One by one, the other wolves who’d made it into the tunnels did the same.

I didn’t feel like an Alpha. I felt like a girl who’d just gotten her husband back only to lose the world.

But I lifted my chin. “Get us to Haven National Bank,” I said. “Then we go to Northfall. Then we end this.”

Bronte’s hand tightened on mine. “Together.”

---

We didn’t make it to the bank.

Silas was waiting at the tunnel exit.

He wasn’t alone. Ten fae behind him, all green-eyed and beautiful and wrong. All armed with thorn blades and iron shackles. And in front of him, on his knees, was Elias.

Doc. Bloody. One eye swollen shut. But alive.

“Hello, nephew,” Silas said to Bronte. He smiled at me. “And hello, Niece-Queen. Did you miss me?”

Bronte moved in front of me. Instant. No thought. Just mine. “Let the human go, Silas. This is between us.”

“Is it?” Silas tilted his head. “You stole from Father. You bred with a human. Then you bred with her.” He gestured to me. “You made a Queen without permission. The Wild Court doesn’t like surprises, Bronte.”

“I don’t serve the Court,” Bronte snarled.

“No,” Silas agreed. “You serve her. How romantic. How stupid.” He snapped his fingers.

The fae behind him leveled thorn bows. At Elias. At Valeria. At me.

“Come home, Wellie,” Silas said. Soft. Coaxing. “Be my Queen. Bear the heir in the Thorn Palace. Or I start killing your pets. Starting with the doctor.”

Elias met my eyes. He mouthed one word.

Run.

Bronte shifted.

No warning. No pain. One second man, next second wolf — huge, black, gold-eyed, bigger than Rhys ever was. Bigger than any wolf I’d seen. Because he wasn’t just wolf. He was Wild Court. He was royal.

He hit the fae line like a bomb.

“GO!” Valeria roared, shifting mid-sentence. She launched herself at Silas.

I grabbed Elias, hauled him up. He weighed nothing.

“Key,” he gasped. “Box… destroy it… can’t let them…”

A thorn arrow took him in the back.

He looked at me, surprised. “Oh,” he said. “That’s… new.”

He died in my arms.

I screamed. The sound wasn’t human. Wasn’t wolf. It was fae. The suppressant in my blood shattered. Green and gold exploded out of me, vines ripping from the concrete, from my skin, from everywhere.

The thorn arrows coming for me turned to flowers mid-air.

Silas stared. “There she is,” he whispered. “There’s my Queen.”

Bronte, wolf-form, was at my side in a second. Blood on his muzzle. Not his. He pressed against me, huge and warm and alive.

I put my hand in his fur. Looked at Silas. At the dead Hunters. At the dead wolves. At Elias. At my daughter, growing inside me, who’d never be safe while Courts and Orders existed.

“Box 217,” I said. My voice was layered again. Mine and something older. “We get the weapon. Then we burn the Thorn Palace to the ground.”

Bronte huffed. It was a laugh. A wolf laugh. That’s my girl, it said.

Silas’s smile finally dropped. “You don’t know what you’re starting, Niece.”

“Good,” I said.

Then the vines took him.