MasukBastian opened his eyes at dawn. The first thing he said was, "Did we get the kids?"I had been sitting at his bedside for two days. I hadn't slept. I hadn't eaten. I had barely moved except to hold his hand and press my fingers to his wrist every few minutes to feel his pulse. Through the first bond, his wolf was a faint flicker, curled up and healing, and every time it dimmed my heart stopped.Then his gold eyes opened, and his voice was a rasp, and he asked about the children."Yes," I said, and my voice broke. "We got them. All of them. They're safe.""Good." Bastian closed his eyes again, and his hand tightened on mine. "Good."I pressed my forehead to his scarred knuckles and cried. I didn't try to hide it. I cried for the two days of terror, for the moment through the bond when I felt him fall, for the children in the Delta and the attack on Silver Hollow and the mother who had thrown herself in front of the twins. I cried because he was alive, and I had almost lost him, and I
Bastian was still breathing. Barely. Archer's hands were covered in his blood, and his voice, when he spoke, was the calm of a healer who was terrified and refusing to show it.The medic tent was chaos. Rows of cots held wounded enforcers and rescued Delta children, their gold-flickering eyes dazed with drugs and terror. Elara moved among them with her knotted hands steady despite her age. Wren was organizing the evacuation of the less critical patients to make room for the worst cases.But the surgery room was silent. The door was closed, and through the third bond, I felt Archer's concentration like a blade. Sharp. Precise. Desperate.I sat on a bench outside the surgery with my arms around the twins. Mirren was curled against my left side, her silver-blond hair tangled and her face pressed into my shoulder. Sable was on my right, her amber-gold eyes fixed on the closed door. Neither of them had spoken since the attack."Papa Bastian is going to be okay," I said, and my voice was st
Kellan ran faster than he'd ever run in his life. The bond was a thread of pain pulling him forward, and if it snapped, he knew he'd feel Caelum die.The swamp blurred past him. Trees and water and mud, his silver wolf's paws barely touching the ground. Through the second bond, he felt everything. Caelum's exhaustion, a deep ache that was turning sharp. Bastian's wound, a hot spike of agony. Orin's blood loss, a slow creeping cold. The children's fear, tiny flickers of terror in the dark.He had left Silver Hollow in Sera's hands. He had left Archer with the twins and his wounded mother and a pack still reeling from attack. Every rational part of him screamed that he should turn back. But the bond was screaming louder, and Kellan had spent his whole life being rational. Not today.The facility loomed ahead, a dark shape against the grey sky. The outer wall was reinforced steel, but Kellan didn't slow down. He hit it at full speed, his silver wolf's shoulder driving through metal and c
Archer had one arm around the twins and the other hand pressing a wound on Sable's chest. "Kellan, I need you to hold the west gate. Now."The attack had come from nowhere. One moment the nursery was quiet, the children napping in the afternoon light. The next moment the windows shattered, and soldiers with empty eyes poured through the breach. Not Frostmarch wolves. Not anything Archer had ever seen. They moved like puppets, and they didn't stop when his claws struck them.Sable had thrown herself in front of the twins before Archer could reach them. The blade meant for Mirren had caught her across the chest, and she crumpled with a gasp. Archer caught her with one arm and shoved the twins behind him with the other. "Stay behind me. Don't move. Don't shift."Mirren was frozen, her silver-blond hair dusted with glass. Sable, her twin, had already half-shifted, her amber-gold eyes blazing. "Grandma Sable is bleeding. We have to help her.""You help her by staying alive. I need both of
The trail led to an old stone building half-sunk in the mud, and every instinct Caelum had screamed trap.The structure was ancient, older than the packs, older than the wars. Pre-war concrete and rusted steel, swallowed by the swamp and dug out again. Voss had converted it into a mobile laboratory. Lights flickered in the grimy windows, and the air hummed with the sound of generators.I crouched in the reeds with Bastian on one side and Orin on the other. Rook had scouted ahead and returned with grim news. "Six guards outside. Rotating patrols. The children are in the main room, near the back. I counted at least a dozen, all drugged but alive.""Voss?" Bastian asked."Inside. I didn't see him, but I felt him. The air in there is wrong. It smells like a hospital and a grave at the same time."I stared at the building. The children were visible through the grimy windows, small figures huddled on cots, their gold-flickering eyes dazed and unfocused. Some of them were barely more than to
Tide, the elder omega who'd given Caelum her silver collar, stood in the ashes of her home. "He took them. The children. Every Moon-Wolf pup in the Delta."The Saltmarsh settlement was a ruin. Cabins that had stood on stilts over the black water were burned to the waterline. The communal hall where Tide had taught young Moon-Wolves to control their shifts was a shell of charred wood. Bodies lay in the mud, wolves who had fought and lost.We had come as fast as we could. It wasn't fast enough.Tide's white-streaked hair was singed, and her amber-gold eyes were red from smoke and grief. She clutched a burnt blanket in her scarred hands. "They came at night. Silent. Fast. Our sentries didn't even have time to howl." Her voice cracked. "The soldiers, they weren't normal wolves. Their eyes were empty. Like puppets. And they moved like nothing I've ever seen.""Nullifying wolves," Bastian said, and his voice was a growl. "Like the Frostmarch bred. But different.""Faster. More coordinated."
Silas’s boot drove into my stomach, and I folded around the pain without a sound. Ten years in this pack had taught me one thing: noise makes it worse.I hit the training yard dirt on my side, and a puff of dust coated my tongue. Silas stood over me with his sandy hair cropped close to his skull, h
They shoved Bastian into the pit before I could even stand. The crowd roared. And I felt the first blow land in my own ribs. An enforcer with a scar splitting his chin dragged me up a set of stone steps to a wooden ledge that overlooked the fighting pit. The chamber was underground, carved into th
Bastian's hands were still raised when the first arrow punched into his shoulder. He didn't flinch. He just looked at me—claimed, bleeding, mine—and said, "Keep your head down. No matter what." The enforcers swarmed the clearing before I could answer. Maren Holt barked orders, and her wolves fanne
I couldn't fight. I couldn't shift. But when the first rogue lunged through the cave mouth, my body moved before my mind could stop it.The attack came fast. Three wolves burst through the entrance with snapping jaws and matted fur, their ribs showing through patchy coats. They smelled like rot and







