جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

SLOANE The creature is smiling, not because it has won, but because it knows something I don’t. That realization is somehow more frightening than the pain tearing through my chest. My fingers remain twisted in Roan’s shirt as he holds me upright, his body positioned instinctively between mine and the thing standing beyond the broken wards. Around us, the courtyard has dissolved into chaos, with wolves shouting orders, guards dragging the injured away from the eastern entrance, and somewhere behind me, one of the elders demanding that the gates be sealed, as though there is still a gate left to seal. “Get her inside!” Roan snarls. “No.” His head snaps toward Thane. Thane stands several feet away, his attention fixed entirely on the creature. His posture is relaxed in a way that makes no sense considering there is a monster standing inside the compound, but there is nothing relaxed about his eyes. They have gone almost black, his Lycan power pressing against the surf

THANE For several seconds after the creature disappears, nobody moves. The silence that settles over the courtyard is almost unnatural, especially after the violence that came before it. Smoke drifts through the broken eastern wall, carrying the metallic scent of blood and the bitter remains of whatever magic had burned through the wards. Wolves lie scattered across the stone, some unconscious, or dead, some wounded, others staring at Sloane as though they no longer recognize the woman they were speaking to less than an hour ago. I cannot blame them, because I am staring too. Sloane is still on her knees in the center of the courtyard, her hands pressed against the cracked stone, her breathing shallow and uneven. The strange light beneath her skin has faded, but I can still feel the residue of it lingering in the air around her. It is not ordinary wolf power, and it is not even close. My wolf senses the difference immediately, the same way it recognizes the presence of an apex

SLOANE The courtyard does not begin to feel real again until Del arrives. I hear her before I see her, her voice carrying sharply through the corridor as she demands updates from the guards stationed at the inner entrance, and something inside my chest loosens at the sound of it. For the first time since the creature came through the eastern wall, I remember that Ashborn is not simply a collection of frightened wolves waiting for someone to tell them what to do. It is mine. These are my people. And somewhere among them, someone has just helped an ancient enemy find its way directly to me. Del steps into the courtyard with Kieran directly behind her, both of them moving quickly enough that neither bothers acknowledging the elders gathered around the entrance. Del’s clothes are still creased from whatever she was doing when the alarm reached her, and there is a smear of dirt along one side of her cheek, but her eyes are clear and immediately searching. The moment she sees me, she c

ROANThe lights go out, and for one suspended second, nobody moves. The darkness is absolute, swallowing the corridor so completely that I cannot see Sloane standing less than a foot away from me, but I can hear her breathing, quick and controlled, and I can hear Del shifting beside her as she reaches for her weapon. Somewhere farther down the passage, one of the guards mutters a curse before Kieran’s voice cuts through the darkness, low and commanding, ordering everyone to hold their positions.My wolf rises immediately, every instinct sharpening at once, but beneath the sudden surge of adrenaline there is another feeling that refuses to be ignored. The whisper is still inside my head. ‘Last Unbound.’ I do not know whether it came from the darkness, from the creature, or from whatever ancient thing has apparently been waiting for Sloane for longer than any of us can comprehend, but I know one thing with absolute certainty: this is no longer an attack we can dismiss as an isolate

SLOANE Three days have passed since the attack, and we have found nothing. Not the identity of the wolf who sabotaged the eastern wards, not who placed the black crystal inside the anchor, not who summoned the creature, and certainly not why whatever lives beyond that ancient gate has suddenly decided that I am important enough to hunt. The investigation has swallowed Ashborn whole, turning every corridor into a place of suspicion and every familiar face into a question I cannot answer, while the two ward keepers are questioned separately and their movements traced for weeks without producing a single useful lead. Kieran has doubled the patrols, rotated the guards, sealed the eastern section and personally inspected every remaining ward anchor, yet whoever helped the creature enter Ashborn has either disappeared completely or is very good at looking innocent. Del has spent most of those three days buried beneath reports and council records, trying to determine whether the name