The two guards at Dain’s gate froze, their hands hovering over their weapons, caught between protocol and sheer, stunned disbelief. A lone girl, walking right up to their fortress, her hands crackling with energy that smelled like a thunderstorm and felt like a threat.“I said, halt!” the larger one finally roared, raising his rifle.I didn’t halt.I kept walking, each step measured, the power inside me a rising tide. I focused on it, on the storm I’d stolen from Zero. I didn’t try to shape it. I just let it be. Let it leak out.The golden light around my hands flared brighter, licking up my arms. The air around me hummed, and the pavement beneath my feet cracked, a spiderweb of fractures spreading with each step. The guards’ eyes widened.“What the hell is that?” the smaller one whispered, his bravado cracking.“Open the gate,” I said, my voice still layered with that eerie, echoing force. It wasn’t a request.The larger guard fumbled for the comm unit on his shoulder. “Command! We h
The heavy door clicked shut, sealing us in with the consequences of my defiance. The only sounds were Kael’s ragged, pained breathing and the frantic hammering of my own heart.Lyra was at Kael’s side in an instant, her hands gentle as she examined the brutal break. “It’s clean, but it’s bad,” she muttered, her voice tight with a fury she didn’t dare voice aloud.Zero didn’t move. He stood perfectly still, his back to me, his shoulders tense. The blazing energy that had surrounded him since his resurrection had banked, replaced by a silent, stormy intensity. I could feel it through the bond—a roiling tempest of pride, fury, and cold, calculating strategy.“Why?” The word wasn’t an accusation. It was a demand for Intel. A tactical debrief.I hugged my arms around myself, the adrenaline fading to leave me cold and shaking. “Because if I used it for him, on his command, it stops being mine.” I looked at Kael’s pale, sweating face, guilt twisting in my gut. “I’m sorry, Kael. I’m so sorry.
The Alpha’s voice was deceptively soft, a thin layer of ice over a bottomless, frozen lake. The air in the training pit, still crackling with the remnants of my stolen power, went dead and still.Zero didn’t flinch. He shifted his weight, ever so slightly, placing himself more squarely between me and the Alpha. The gesture was protective, but also possessive. A claim.“Just testing the limits of our new asset, Alpha,”Zero said, his dual-toned voice smooth, devoid of any hint of the insurrection we’d been planning seconds before. “The results are… promising.”The Alpha’s icy gaze slid from Zero to me. It felt like being dissected by a scalpel made of frost. He could smell the lie. He could feel the tension, the unspent energy of a plan aborted.“I see that,” the Alpha said, his words measured. He took a single step into the pit, his guards fanning out behind him, blocking the exit. “The entire stronghold felt the… disturbance. It seems your mate’s abilities are more volatile than we an
The air in the training pit was still charged, humming with the aftermath of stolen power. I stood there, a live wire of crackling energy, Zero’s strength a roaring tide in my veins. The pack members in the doorway didn’t move. They just stared, their terror a palpable scent in the air.Then, a low groan from the far wall.Zero pushed himself up, shaking his head like a dog clearing water from its ears. Sand cascaded from his shoulders. He got to his feet, and a slow, wide, utterly unhinged grin spread across his face. There was no anger, no humiliation. Only pure, unadulterated delight.“Now,” he said, his dual-toned voice full of dark wonder, “that’s what I’m talking about.”He took a step toward me, and the pack in the doorway flinched back as one. He ignored them, his glowing eyes fixed on me.“You feel it, don’t you?” he purred, stalking closer. “The raw potential. You’re not just a conduit. You’re a reservoir. You can hold my power. Wield it.”I could feel it. It was intoxicatin
The silence in the medical room was absolute, broken only by the steady, powerful beat of Zero’s heart on the monitor. He stood over me, a god resurrected, his touch on my chin branding me. The air crackled with the remnants of whatever power had just passed between us.Then, a whisper from the doorway. “By the Goddess…”It was one of the medics, her hand clasped over her mouth, her eyes wide with a fervent, terrifying awe. She wasn’t looking at Zero. She was looking at me.The spell broke. The room erupted into a chaos of sound.“Did you see that?”“She brought him back!”“The light… it was like moonlight made solid!”“She has no wolf! How is that possible?”Kael was the first to find his voice, though it was rough with shock. “Zero? Brother? Are you… are you whole?”Zero’s dual-toned voice rumbled, his gaze still locked on me, a possessive, blazing heat in his eyes. “I am more than whole.” He finally released my chin, straightening up to his full height. The room seemed to shrink ar
The Alpha left me alone in the cold, silent war room. The schematic of the city stared back at me, a map of territories and power plays that meant nothing. All I could see was the grainy video feed. The monster. The thing that might be my father.It operates on instinct and rage. It has no humanity left.You remember the man it was.The Alpha’s words were a cold seed of hope planted in frozen, barren ground. How could memories be a weapon against that? How could the smell of burnt pancakes and the sound of a familiar laugh stop a beast designed to tear me limb from limb?I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t just wait for dawn and my own execution. I had to see him. I had to see Zero.The hallway outside was clear, the pack members having scattered under the Alpha’s wrath. I moved through the stronghold like a ghost, the whispers starting up again the moment I passed, then quickly dying. They were afraid of me now, but not for the right reasons. They were afraid of the Alpha’s displeasure.