The underground

KAIA VELEN POV

The Blackmoon compound was exactly as I remembered it.

That was the worst part. Everything was the same—the stone walls, the training grounds, the mess hall where I'd eaten for six years thinking I belonged here. But it was all different now because I could see what was underneath. I could see the rot.

They'd given us quarters in the warrior's wing—a concession to Damien's status, I think. Or maybe it was strategic on Rafe's part. Keep us close. Keep us visible. Let everyone see that the exiled Alpha and his cursed mate had come crawling back.

The compound was on high alert. Warriors everywhere. Guards at every entrance. Rafe was taking no chances.

Damien had gone to meet with the loyal elders, leaving me in the quarters with instructions to rest. To prepare. To be ready for the full moon.

I lasted exactly four hours before I couldn't stand it anymore.

The visions the Moon Goddess had shown me wouldn't leave my head. The facility. The females. The dark energy draining from their bodies. I needed to see it. Needed to confirm it was real and not just nightmare fuel designed to break me.

So I left.

The compound at midnight was different than it was during the day. Quieter. Less patrolled. The guards were rotated to the perimeter, watching for threats from outside instead of threats from within. It took me twenty minutes to navigate to the Alpha's quarters, and another fifteen to find the entrance to the basement.

It was in the wine cellar. Hidden behind a false wall that required Moonfire to open. When I touched it with silver flame, it slid aside.

The stairs descended into darkness.

I didn't bother with a torch. My Moonfire lit the way, casting silver shadows on stone walls. The air got colder the deeper I went. Damper. Wrong.

By the time I reached the bottom, I could smell it.

Blood and unwashed bodies and desperation and something else. Something like burnt herbs and dark magic mixed together.

The facility was enormous.

I stepped into a chamber that had to be thirty feet across, and there were cages. Six of them. Large enough for a human to curl up in, but not much more. And in those cages were females.

Moonfire females.

Their silver eyes opened when my light hit them, and I saw hope flare across their faces before they realized I wasn't here to free them. I was just another person who'd come to look at their misery.

"Please," one of them whispered. She was young—couldn't have been more than twenty. Her dark hair was matted with blood. "Please help us."

I moved toward her cage, and that's when I saw the ritual circle. The altar made of bone and silver just like the Moon Goddess had shown me. And the threads. I could see them now—thin lines of dark energy running from each female's body into a crystal suspended above the altar. The crystal was glowing faintly, and I could feel the power inside it. Not light. Stolen light. Consumed light.

"How long have you been here?" I asked the girl.

"I don't know. Weeks? Months?" She pressed her face against the cage bars. "He comes every night. He does something that makes the light leave our bodies. Makes us weaker and weaker. And he just... smiles."

I felt the Moonfire rise in my chest, and I clamped down on it. Forced it to stay contained even though it wanted to burn the entire facility to ash.

"I'm going to get you out," I said. "All of you. Just—"

"You shouldn't be here."

I spun around, and Damien was standing at the bottom of the stairs. His expression was unreadable, but his hands were clenched into fists.

"I needed to see," I said.

"I know." He moved closer, and I realized he wasn't angry. He was heartbroken. "I came down here an hour ago to confirm what Garrett told us about. I needed to know if my best friend had actually become this."

"Damien—"

"There are seventeen females, Kaia. Seventeen. All with Moonfire. All imprisoned. And he's been draining them for *months*."

He looked at the crystal above the altar, and I watched something shift in his expression. Something that looked like finality.

"He's going to be more powerful than any Alpha in history," he said quietly. "The ritual will complete at the full moon, and when it does, he'll have absorbed enough power to dominate every pack in the region. Possibly more."

"Then we stop him before the full moon," one of the females said from her cage. She was older—maybe thirty—with silver scars running down her arms. "You're the true Alpha, aren't you? The one who came back?"

Damien looked at her. "Yes."

"Then challenge him now," she said. "Don't wait. He's arrogant. He thinks you can't win. Challenge him tonight, and you might catch him when he's not at full power."

"If I challenge him tonight, I forfeit the right to the Alpha title," Damien said. "The law requires the challenger to give notice. To allow the Alpha time to prepare. Otherwise, it's mutiny, not combat."

"So let it be mutiny," the female said fiercely. "Better a mutiny than slavery."

I looked at Damien, and I saw the calculation happening behind his eyes. The Alpha heir weighing duty and law against the suffering in front of us.

"If I do this," he said slowly, "the pack will turn against me. The council will declare me a traitor. Even if I win, I'll have gained nothing because the only way to rule is by the consent of the pack."

"Then you change what the pack consents to," I said.

He looked at me.

"You show them this," I continued, gesturing at the facility. "You show them what Rafe has done. You make them understand that the law he's hiding behind is corrupt. And you give them a choice: loyalty to a monster or loyalty to someone who actually protects them."

"That's risky," Damien said.

"Everything about this is risky," I replied. "But at least this way, we're fighting for something other than just our own survival."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned to the females in the cages.

"I'm going to get you out," he said. "All of you. And I'm going to make sure the man who did this pays for it. But I need you to be ready. When I break those cages open, there will be chaos. There will be violence. And you need to run. Can you do that?"

"Yes," the older female said without hesitation.

Damien looked at me. "Are you ready for this?"

"No," I said. "But I'm doing it anyway."

He pulled me close, and his forehead touched mine. "If this goes wrong—"

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you," I said. "So we stop talking about failure and we just do this."

He kissed me. Not gently. Not like we had time. Just urgent and deep and full of the knowledge that we were about to burn everything down and walk into the fire.

When he pulled back, his eyes were completely gold.

"We challenge him at dawn," he said. "Before the pack is fully awake. Before he can rally his followers. Before he can prepare."

"What about the council?" I asked.

"The council is compromised. Half of them are paid by Rafe. The other half are too afraid to stand against him." Damien's voice was ice. "We're not challenging for their blessing. We're challenging for the right to save our people."

He turned to the females. "I'm freeing you now. Go to the surface. Find the warrior's wing. Ask for anyone who follows Damien Blackwood. They'll hide you until the challenge is over."

"What if Rafe finds us?" the young girl asked.

"Then you run," I said. "You run to the forest. You run north. You find Sera's settlement in the rogue territories. You tell her Damien sent you. She'll take you in."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" the older female asked.

"You don't," Damien said. "But you also don't have anything to lose by trusting us. Staying here guarantees you'll be drained until you die. Taking the chance that we're lying at least gives you a possibility of freedom."

The older female nodded slowly. "We'll follow you."

Damien raised his hand, and his Alpha power flared. The cages exploded open like they were made of paper.

The females stumbled out, disoriented and weak from months of captivity. I helped the young girl to her feet, and she clung to me like I might disappear.

"It's going to be okay," I whispered, even though I had no idea if that was true.

"Is it?" she asked.

I looked at Damien, at the burning determination in his eyes, and I realized what he was about to do. He was about to challenge for the Alpha title without the consent of the council. Without the blessing of tradition. He was about to go to war with his own pack.

"Yes," I said. "It's going to be okay. Because we're not letting him win."

---

We got the females to safety just as the sun was starting to rise.

The loyal warriors that Garrett had told us about turned out to be exactly where he said they'd be—waiting in the training grounds for Damien to give them orders. When they saw the imprisoned females, I watched rage cross their faces. Watched them understand what their Alpha had been doing in the dark.

"Spread the word," Damien said. "Tell every warrior who follows me to gather in the courtyard at first light. Tell them we're going to war."

The warrior who'd led us nodded and disappeared to carry out his orders.

Damien looked at me, and his expression was calm in a way that terrified me.

"After this, everything changes," he said.

"I know."

"The pack will be divided. There will be violence. People will die."

"I know," I said again.

"And you're still willing to do this?"

I thought about the females in the cages. About Lyra hanging from a tree. About my father poisoned slowly in his bed by his best friend. About every person Rafe had hurt in his climb to power.

"Yes," I said. "I'm still willing."

Damien pulled me close one more time, and when he spoke, his voice was the voice of an Alpha.

"Then let's take back what's ours."