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CHAPTER 15

Author: Gun ink
last update publish date: 2026-03-08 02:31:42

"Is it the fever, Richard? God, it burns. It’s like my blood is turning to lead."

Bianca Moore lay draped across the silk chaise longue in the master suite, her skin glistening with a suspicious, oily sheen. She tossed her head back, her throat arching as she let out a low, practiced moan. A red flush crept up her neck, staining her collarbones. Richard stood at the edge of the rug, his heavy boots biting into the expensive wool. He didn't move toward her. His jaw stayed locked, his nostrils fl
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  • The Alpha’s Second Life   75

    The mercury had fully hardened, encasing him in a shell of solid metal. He’d taken the full force of the kinetic slug to keep me from being vaporized."Richard, please." I clawed at the metal.My fingers slipped.I looked at my hand.It was covered in violet blood.I looked down at my stomach. The light was gone. It was dark."No," I whispered. "No, no, no."I felt for a heartbeat. Nothing.I was alone in a crater of dust, shielded by a dead king.Then, the phone in the mud buzzed.I picked it up with shaking hands.Private Number: The baby isn't dead, Joshua. He’s just shifted. Look under the ribs.I looked.A small, rhythmic pulse was beating in my side. Not in my womb. Higher up.The child hadn't just survived.He’d migrated.I looked at the chrome wall of Richard’s body.A single, violet crack appeared in the metal."Richard?"The crack widened.A hand pushed through the metal.Not a man’s hand.A child’s hand."Father," a voice whispered.It wasn't a baby’s voice. It was the voic

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   74

    "Don't breathe, Richard. Just don't."I gripped his forearm. His skin was blistering. The silver mist outside the cave mouth wasn't just gray anymore; it was a hungry, vibrating static that turned the sunlight into a dull lead weight. Richard’s chest heaved. He didn't listen. He sucked in a ragged breath and his eyes didn't just turn gold. They bled."I have to get them out." Richard’s voice sounded like it was coming through a throat full of glass. "The scouts... they're still at the tree line. They're twitching, Joshua.""You step out there and you're a statue." I pulled his arm closer. I looked at the veins.Under the translucent surface of his skin, something was moving. It wasn't blood. It was a thick, silver sludge—the liquid-mercury we’d used to stabilize his shift back in the University labs. It was reacting to the vapor outside. Instead of poisoning him, the mercury was rushing toward the surface. It met the silver particles at the pores."What are you doing?" Richard tried t

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   73

    "Get your hands off me, Richard! The door is going to blow!"Richard’s fist slammed into the granite slab blocking the tunnel. His knuckles split. Red blood sprayed against the gray stone, but the silver dust coating the rocks sizzled as it touched his skin. He let out a choked sound, pulling back. His palms were already blistering, the flesh bubbling where the toxic residue ate through his Alpha-thick skin."We can't sit here like rats, Joshua! If I don't break this, the heat will liquefy us before the feds even step inside!""You're just feeding the silver!" I grabbed his shoulder, yanking him back. "Look at your hands. You hit it again and you won't have fingers to shift with."The air in the cave mouth was shimmering. Not with light, but with the beginning of the thermal breach. The feds had planted the charges on the exterior of the seal. I could smell the ozone. The temperature jumped ten degrees in thirty seconds. Sweat broke out across my forehead, stinging my eyes. Behind us,

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   72

    "Cover your mouths! Get back into the tunnels!"Richard’s voice cracked like a whip over the panic. Above us, the gray sky didn't drop water. It dropped dust. A fine, metallic mist that caught the morning light, turning the air into a haze of pulverized silver. My lungs burned at the first whiff. It wasn't just poison; it was a cage."Richard, wait—" I grabbed his arm. My fingers slipped against the sweat and grit on his bicep. "Don't shift! If you shift now, the intake will kill you in seconds!"He turned, his eyes already bleeding into that frantic Alpha gold. "My scouts are out there, Joshua! They’re hitting the dirt and they aren't getting back up!"Across the clearing, three of the Ridge guards had fallen. They weren't dead yet. They were worse. They were shifting involuntarily, their bodies caught in a spasming mid-point between human and wolf. The silver rain hit their open pores, sizzling. They clawed at their throats, coughing up thick, black bile that smoked when it hit the

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   71

    "Don't move, Bianca."The words didn't come from my throat. They came from the room itself. The floorboards vibrated. Dust shook from the ceiling. Bianca’s body slammed into the stone floor as if an invisible hand had just crushed her spine. She let out a choked, wet sound—half-sob, half-grunt."Joshua, stop!" Richard’s voice was a ragged scrape. He was on one knee, his claws digging into the dirt, fighting the pressure. "You’re... you’re suffocating the whole pack."I didn't look at him. I couldn't. My vision was a jagged smear of violet and white light. The silver heat in my stomach was moving upward, a rising tide of liquid metal that made my skin feel like it was cracking. I looked down at Bianca. She was clawing at the floor, her fingernails ripping against the wood."You came here to bleed me." I stepped toward her. Each footfall sounded like a drum in a cathedral. "You wanted to sell the miracle.""Please" Bianca’s face was pressed into the dirt. Snot ran down her lip, mixing w

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   70

    "Don't even try to stand up."Bianca hit the floor. Hard. The silver dagger she’d been holding skittered across the stone, its metal screaming against the granite. She tried to push herself up, her muscles bunching, her eyes bleeding into that predatory gold. She was halfway through the shift, fur sprouting along her jaw, teeth lengthening into yellowed points.Then she stopped.The air in the cabin didn't just get heavy; it turned to lead. My voice hadn't been loud, but the vibration of it sent a shockwave through the room that shattered the glass in the window frames. Bianca’s jaw snapped shut. Her wolf—the thing she’d spent thirty years sharpening into a weapon—whimpered. It didn't just retreat; it curled up and died inside her."What... what did you..." Bianca choked. Her face was pressed into the dirt. She was clawing at the floorboards, trying to find enough leverage to breathe. "Joshua... stop...""I didn't tell you to speak."I stayed in the bed. I didn't need to move. I could

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   CHAPTER 26

    "Don't you dare close your eyes, Richard. If you slip into a coma now, I’m leaving you for the crows."Joshua’s voice hit like a splash of ice water. He didn't look back. He kept his head down, his boots digging into the greasy grey mud of the ravine floor. Behind him, Richard let out a sound that

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   CHAPTER 25

    "Don't move. You're leaking all over the mud and I'm not wasting a suture because you can't sit still."Joshua didn't look up. He didn't offer a hand as Richard slumped against the jagged root of a dead oak. The Berserker’s blood was still cooling on Joshua’s face, a dark, tacky spray that he ignor

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   CHAPTER 24

    "Drop him, you piece of sh*t. Now."Joshua’s voice didn't shake. It was a flat, metallic rasp that cut through the wet sounds of the swamp. He stood ten feet away from the massive, grey-furred Berserker. The rogue was a nightmare of matted fur and scars, his claws buried deep in the meat of Richard

  • The Alpha’s Second Life   CHAPTER 22

    "Get the hell away from the woodpile, Richard. You're shaking so hard you'll drop the flint in the mud."Joshua didn't look up. He stayed on his knees, his fingers digging into the damp earth to clear a fire pit. The air in the Neutral Zone had turned into a wheezing lung of ice, the temperature dr

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