LOGINCassidy's radio sits on the dashboard, crackling occasionally with compound traffic, and I drive south with both hands on the wheel and the city going past the windows and nobody says anything for the first four blocks.
Then Cassidy says, from the back seat, "You need to turn around."
I keep driving.
"Dante." Her voice is the voice she uses in briefings, flat and carrying. "You have stripped yourself of your position, removed your pack historian from the com
Sage POVThe flatline sound did not stop. It was a long, endless shriek that filled the small medical room and scraped against my raw nerves.My hands dropped from Kira’s chest. I stepped back from the steel table, my vision blurring completely as hot, heavy tears finally spilled over my eyelashes. I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve, but the tears just kept coming, staining my shirt with wet patches. "We lost her," I choked out, my voice cracking under the weight of the silence that followed. "She's gone. The feedback... it was just too much."Juniper moved instantly. She did not say a word, but her own face was tight, her lips pressed into a thin line to keep from shaking. She reached out and pulled me tightly into her arms, burying my face against her shoulder to shield me from the sight of the flat monitor. "I’ve got you, Sage," Juniper whispered, her hand gripping my back firmly. "Let it out. Just let
Sage POV"Get the medics!" I screamed, breaking away from Dominic’s side and running out into the rain toward them. "Juniper, get the medical bay prepped right now!"Dante kept walking, his heavy boots splashing through the puddles as he carried her through the iron gates. He didn't stop until he was standing directly in front of his father. His chest was heaving, his muscles trembling under the weight, but his grip on her never loosened by a single inch.Dominic looked down at the unconscious girl, then looked into his son’s eyes. "Is it over?""Elias Blackwell is dead," Dante said, his voice rough and completely broken, cracking under the strain of the words. He looked down at Kira’s pale face, his jaw trembling. "But she won't wake up, Dad. I tried to stop her... I tried to pull her back, but she wouldn't let go of the connection until everyone hear
Sage POVThe screens in the war room didn't just flicker; they died. One after another, the high-definition feeds from the northern border, the mid-district plazas, and the western ridge snapped to static, leaving only the dull, frantic blinking of the system error lights.But it was what happened right before the blackout that made my breath catch in my throat."No way," I whispered, my fingers freezing over the terminal.On the final surviving monitor, an Ironclaw shock trooper had been about to drive a steel pipe through a Silvercrest guard's chest. He had stopped. His arms had gone completely limp, the pipe clattering against the concrete. He had dropped to his knees, his face twisted in a silent, agonizing scream, gripping his head as if his skull were about to split wide open. The wolves weren't just stopping; they were retreating. They were dropping their weapons in unison, turning away from the fight like sleepwalker
Dominic POVThe heavy steel structure of the compound walls groaned under the continuous, vibrating pressure of the outside world. From the security windows, the city looked like an open furnace. The night was gone, but the sky was a dirty, unnatural orange, filled with the thick black smoke of our burning assets down in the commercial districts.I paced the length of the command balcony, my hands clenched into heavy fists behind my back. My chest burned with a deep, territorial heat that was clawing to get out."Sage!" I barked, my voice echoing off the reinforced concrete rafters of the war room. "What is the status of the northern border? Has the vanguard reported back?"Sage did not look up from her console. Her fingers were flying across the keyboard, her face pale under the blinking red error lights of our failing security network. "The trunk lines are still dark, Alpha. I’m getting massive signal degradation across all
Dante POV"Kira, stop!" I lunged forward, my boots skidding across the spilled tea and blood on the floor, but an invisible wall of pure, kinetic force slammed into my chest. It threw me backward five feet, my spine crashing hard against a metal server rack.She didn't look at me. She couldn't.Kira stood in the center of the room, her feet lifted two inches off the concrete floor. The dark violet hue of the Blood Heir essence wasn't just under her skin anymore; it was leaking out of her eyes, her fingertips, and her hair, turning into a blinding, white-hot aura. She began glowing with a light so fierce it completely drowned out the blue glow of the computer monitors."Kira! Cut the connection!" I screamed, pulling myself up by the edge of a server cabinet. My skin felt tight, the static electricity in the air thick enough to taste like copper. "You can’t enter the mind of every wolf in this city! You can't sustain thi
Kira POVDante’s finger tightened on the trigger. The metallic click of the safety coming off sounded like a bomb going off in the small room. His shoulders were locked, his golden eyes completely dark as he stared down at the man who had torn our lives apart."Dante, wait!" I cried out, lunging forward and grabbing his forearm. My fingers dug into his jacket, pulling against his weight. "Don't do it. Drop the gun."Elias didn't even move away from the barrel. He just looked at me, a cold, knowing smile spreading across his face. "Listen to her, young Silvercrest. She knows exactly what you are. If you pull that trigger, you prove everything I have said about your kind true.""Dante, look at me," I pleaded, stepping directly into his line of sight, forcing him to look down at me. "If you kill him like this, execution-style, there will be no difference between you and Elias. You will be doing exactly what he wa
I flipped the business card between my fingers for the hundredth time, watching lamplight catch the embossed lettering. Elias Blackwell. Community Advocate. The Cleansing.Three days since that night outside the diner. Three days since I'd watched my sister get dragged away b
Pain woke me first, a dull, throbbing ache in my left shoulder that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Then came awareness: sterile smell of antiseptic, soft beeping of monitors, the scratch of starched sheets against my skin.Hospital. No, infirmary. The pack infirmary.
I stood outside the infirmary door for longer than I should have, hand still resting on the cool metal handle. My heart hammered against my ribs in a rhythm that felt foreign, too fast, too erratic, nothing like the controlled calm I'd spent eighteen years perfecting.The mat
I couldn’t sit still.The suite felt too small, the walls pressing in like they were trying to squeeze the air out of my lungs. I paced from the window to the couch, back again, boots scuffing the same strip of carpet until the fibers started to look worn. Sage’s







