The Canyon Ambush

The cold synthetic voice echoed off the sheer granite walls, swallowed almost instantly by the whistle of the freezing mountain wind.

"We only came for the monster beside you."

Beside me, Gideon let out a low, terrifying growl, a sound so dark and primal it rattled against my breastbone. He didn't answer with words. He pushed me behind his broad frame, leveling his heavy sidearm at the cliff edge and firing two precise shots into the blinding mist above. A choked scream followed, and a white armored body tumbled two hundred feet down the jagged rock face, crashing heavily onto the icy tarmac below.

"Lyra, cover the western ridge." Gideon barked, his voice dropping into that absolute Alpha register that commanded instant obedience.

"I'm not hiding behind you, Sterling." I yelled back over the deafening crackle of incoming fire.

My blood burned like liquid lightning. I didn't waste time suppressing my inner beast with silver root. I invited her in. My bone structure shifted with a violent, speed muscles tearing and reforming beneath dark tactical leather. My vision flipped instantly into hyper detailed infrared, rendering the fog covered cliffs in brilliant shades of orange, yellow, and deep crimson.

I didn't fully shift into my giant white wolf form there wasn't enough cover in the open canyon. Instead, I yielded to the partial shift: my canine teeth lengthened into razor-sharp fangs, my fingernails hardened into deadly obsidian claws, and my golden eyes ignited with an ancient, blinding royal light.

"Ironclaw squad, form a defensive V formation around the secondary transport." Gideon roared to our four surviving guards. "Return fire"

A wave of white armored Capital Executioners descended the cliff faces on heavy tactical rappelling lines, swinging through the mist like spiders. They carried high-frequency shock batons and silver-tipped submachine guns designed specifically to tear through shifter hides.

I sprang off the hood of our ruined transport, using the metal frame as a launchpad.

I hit the first descending Executioner mid air. My obsidian claws sliced through his neck armor like parchment, severing his harness ropes before we even hit the snow. We crashed onto the gravel bank together, but I was already rolling back onto my feet, my twin silver daggers drawn and gleaming in the dim twilight.

Two more Executioners lunged from the fog, their shock batons humming with blue, lethal current.

I ducked beneath the first swing, the ozone heat singeing the ends of my braided hair. I drove my left dagger straight up into his sternum, feeling the blade bite through kevlar and bone. Without pausing, I spun on my heel, using his dying weight as a shield against a volley of suppressed gunfire from the second soldier. I kicked the corpse forward, closed the two-

 Foot gap, and swept my right blade across the attacker's exposed throat.

Hot crimson blood sprayed across the snow-covered gravel.

Ten feet away, Gideon was a terrifying whirlwind of pure, merciless destruction.

He had discarded his sidearm after the

magazine ran empty, fighting with his bare hands and dark tactical knife. He caught an Executioner by the wrist, snapping the man's arm backward with a sickening crack before driving his elbow squarely into the soldier's helmet visor, shattering the reinforced glass into powder. Another Executioner attempted to flank him from behind, but Gideon’s silver grey wolf magic flared violently around his shoulders like a phantom cloak. He turned, grabbed the attacker by the throat, and slammed him into the canyon wall with enough force to split the granite.

"They're drawing us out." I shouted, dropping to one knee as a sniper round kicked up a cloud of frozen dirt inches from my boot. "They aren't trying to breach our line they're pinning us in the canyon."

Gideon snapped the neck of the guard in his grip and tossed the body aside, his amber eyes glowing bright through the heavy fog. He looked around the narrow gorge, taking in the strategic positioning of the Capital forces.

"They used the EMP to freeze our comms," Gideon gritted out, stepping up to my side, his chest heaving as his dark trench coat dripped with enemy blood. "They knew we'd head for the Northern Sun Sanctuary the moment we unlocked Marcus's drive."

"It was a setup from the start," I realized, my stomach dropping. "Marcus didn't just leave a message for you. He left a tracking ping for the High Council."

Before Gideon could respond, a strange, metallic pop echoed from the high ridge above.

A dozen heavy canisters arced gracefully through the sky, landing in a wide perimeter around our small group. Instead of exploding into fragmentation shrapnel, they hissed loudly, spewing dense, thick clouds of opaque, chemical smoke that smelled sharply of sulfur, copper, and dead earth.

My infrared vision flickered and died, swallowed completely by the dense, milky haze.

"Lyra" Gideon’s hand shot out through the smoke, his long fingers locking tightly around my wrist, dragging me flush against his side. His pulse was hammering violently against mine through the mate bond.

"I can't see them." I rasped, my lungs burning as the foul chemical smoke tried to choke out my wolf magic.

Around us, the sound of heavy boots hitting the gravel stopped completely. The gunfire vanished. The high-pitched whine of the EMP died down.

A cold, mechanical laughter echoed through the sulfurous air, sounding as if it were coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Impressive work, Commander Sterling," the synthetic voice boomed from a directional speaker somewhere in the fog.

"You fight with the strength of three Alphas. And your little royal pet moves like a phantom."

Gideon raised his tactical knife, shielding my body with his broad frame as he turned slowly in a circle, searching the shifting white fog for a target. "Step into the light and say that, coward."

"Oh, we aren't here to die in a ditch with you today, Alpha," the voice sneered smoothly.

A heavy tactical helicopter rotor began to

thrum above the canyon walls, generating a downwash of wind that slowly blew the sulfur smoke into swirling vortexes.

"The High Council doesn't want you dead in this canyon, Gideon," the voice whispered, dropping into a chillingly intimate tone. "We just needed you away from the Citadel for two hours."

My blood went completely ice-cold. I looked up at Gideon, his amber eyes blown wide with horror as the realization hit us both at the exact same moment.

"The Citadel," I breathed.

"Enjoy the walk back," the voice mocked as the helicopter engines roared, fading rapidly into the grey sky toward the south. " Chancellor Vance sends his regards.”