LOGIN"Drink it, Rowan! If your heart stops, Julian wins everything!" I screamed over the mechanical whine of the collar. I jammed the jagged green glass against his lips, the glowing liquid mixing with the blood already coating his chin.
Rowan bucked against the bed, his muscles cording with a violent, unnatural strength. "It’s too concentrated," he wheezed, his hazel eyes flickering toward that terrifying grey. "The serum, it’s meant to purge the blue tracer, but it’ll incinerate an Alpha’s nervous system without a buffer."
"I am your buffer!" I snapped.
I didn't wait for him to agree. I pressed my palm against his chest, right over his laboring heart, and bridged the soul-link. If Julian wanted to watch a union, I would give him one that would burn his retinas. I pulled the toxic, synthetic "blu
"Drop the rifle, Vane! If you pull that trigger, you destroy the only viable Silver-strain left in the hemisphere," Julian roared, still forced onto his knees by the weight of my Command. His face was purple, veins bulging in his neck as he fought the invisible shackles of my voice.Commander Vane didn't even blink. The red dot of her laser sight danced across my temple, steady and cold. "The Council doesn't harvest anymore, Cross. We erase. A Sovereign Omega isn't an asset; she’s an extinction-level event for the current Alpha hierarchy. I’m doing you a favor.""I am nobody’s favor," I rasped. My head throbbed, the pressure of holding Julian down feeling like hot lead pouring into my brain.Beside me, Rowan let out a wet, rattling cough. The black veins were climbing higher, mapping a roadmap of death across his jawline. He reached out, his fingers fumbling for my hand. "Lyra the water," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the rush of the river. "The tracer it’s not just a tr
"If you touch me again, I’ll finish what the collar started," I rasped, my throat raw from the night’s transformation. I sat on the edge of the creek, scrubbed raw by the icy mountain water, trying to wash away the scent of Julian’s blue toxin and Rowan’s betrayal.Rowan stood ten feet away, his silhouette broken by the morning mist of the Obsidian Peaks. He looked like a man who had been hollowed out. His shirt was gone, revealing the weeping burn marks where the collar had fused to his skin before the black key shattered it."I don't expect you to forgive the broker," Rowan said, his voice a ghost of the hazel-eyed boy I once knew. "But Julian isn't coming for the baby anymore, Lyra. He’s coming for the photo you found in the journal. He knows you saw his first secret.""The boy," I s
"Drink it, Rowan! If your heart stops, Julian wins everything!" I screamed over the mechanical whine of the collar. I jammed the jagged green glass against his lips, the glowing liquid mixing with the blood already coating his chin.Rowan bucked against the bed, his muscles cording with a violent, unnatural strength. "It’s too concentrated," he wheezed, his hazel eyes flickering toward that terrifying grey. "The serum, it’s meant to purge the blue tracer, but it’ll incinerate an Alpha’s nervous system without a buffer.""I am your buffer!" I snapped.I didn't wait for him to agree. I pressed my palm against his chest, right over his laboring heart, and bridged the soul-link. If Julian wanted to watch a union, I would give him one that would burn his retinas. I pulled the toxic, synthetic "blu
"Don’t you dare touch me with the same hands that built my cage," I hissed, the words catching in my dry throat.Rowan didn't flinch. He leaned over me, his shadow swallowing the small amount of moonlight filtering through the trees. His fingers, calloused and cold, gripped my chin, forcing me to look up into his molten gold eyes."The cage is already open, Lyra," he whispered, his voice a rough vibration that skipped across my skin. "But the wolves outside are hungrier than the ones you left behind. If you want to keep that child, you stop fighting me and start trusting the only man who knows how to hide you.""Trust you?" I let out a jagged laugh, my hand instinctively shielding my stomach. "You were Julian’s eyes for twelve years. You watched me disappear piece by piece. You aren't my savior, Rowan. You’re just the repo man come to collect."His grip tightened, not out of malice, but desperation. Above us, the high-pitched hum of a Council drone sliced through the night air. The re
The Doberman launched itself from the brush, a snarl vibrating through its massive chest. Before the beast could sink its teeth into my shoulder, Rowan’s hand shot out, catching the animal by its thick collar mid-air. With a grunt of effort, he hurled the dog back into the dark undergrowth just as the first tranquilizer dart hissed through the air.Rowan didn't flinch as the dart buried itself in his shoulder. He reached back, snapped the plastic casing, and let the sedative-tipped needle fall into the dirt."Rowan!" I gasped, reaching for him."Stay down," he commanded, his voice tight. He turned toward the man with the rifle, but he didn't draw his weapon. Instead, he bared his teeth, his golden eyes glowing with a ferocity that stopped the guard in his tracks. "Tell Julian Cross that Enforcer 094 has claimed this asset under Council Jurisdiction. If a single one of you steps another foot into the Vale, I will treat it as a declaration of war against the Citadel."The guard hesitate
The woman who emerged from the tree line was a ghost carved from ice. She wore the slate-grey uniform of a Council Commander, her silver hair pulled back so tightly it seemed to stretch the scarred skin around her eyes. Behind her, three more Enforcers fanned out in a tactical semi-circle, their specialized silver-pulsed rifles hummed with a low, bone-deep vibration."Commander Vane," Rowan said. His voice didn't shake, but I felt the sudden, electric tension spike in his muscles where his arm pressed against mine. He didn't step away. If anything, he shifted his weight, shielding the swell of my stomach from their sight."Enforcer Ashcroft," Vane replied, her voice as thin and sharp as a razor blade. She didn't look at him; her eyes were fixed on me with the clinical detachment of a butcher eyeing a carcass. "The silent alarm triggered twenty minutes ago. An unauthorized emergence of Silver-spectrum energy. You were sent here to terminate the anomaly. Why is the target still standing







