Mag-log inThe 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."
Archer studied Ilyra's medical scans and went pale. "There's genetic material here that doesn't belong to her. It's grafted. Someone spliced her DNA with something else."Elara's private study was cluttered with old books and new equipment, a blend of ancient healing knowledge and modern medical tools. Ilyra sat on a cot near the window, her thin frame wrapped in blankets, her overgrown claws resting in her lap. She had been fed and bathed and given clean clothes, but her gold eyes were still hollow. Thirty years of isolation didn't heal in a few days.I leaned over Archer's shoulder and stared at the scan. The Moon-Wolf markers were there, bright and unmistakable, the same genetic signature that ran through my blood and my children's blood and every white wolf in the territories. But woven through those markers were other sequences. Dark threads in the golden pattern. Sequences that didn't match anything in Archer's medical database."Foreign DNA," Archer said, and his voice was tigh
"His name was Aldric," Ilyra said. "Aldric Voss. He funded Corvus's research for decades."The medic tent went silent. Archer's hands stilled on the bandage he was wrapping around Ilyra's thin arm. Elara, standing nearby with a tray of medicines, went pale. Through the bond web, I felt Bastian's fury spike and Kellan's cold dread settle like ice in his veins."Voss," I said, and the name tasted like ash. "The elder who tried to burn me. The one who released the virus. You're saying he funded Thornhaven?"Ilyra nodded, her matted white hair falling across her gaunt face. "He came once a year. He and Corvus would talk for hours in the vault. Voss provided money, resources, political cover. In exchange, Corvus gave him soldiers. Nullifying wolves. Genetic material." Her gold eyes met mine. "Voss was obsessed with the Moon-Wolf bloodline. He said it was a corruption that needed to be purified. But he didn't want to just kill us. He wanted to understand us. Dissect us. Use us."Kellan was
Her legs folded the moment she tried to stand. Thirty years in a twelve-foot cell had atrophied her muscles, and her bones were brittle, and her claws scraped against the stone as she tried to catch herself. Bastian caught her before she hit the ground."Easy," he said, and his voice was gentler than anyone in the team had ever heard it. "We've got you. You're safe now."Ilyra stared at him. Her burning gold eyes were ancient and confused, and her matted white hair fell across her face in tangled ropes. She weighed almost nothing. Bastian lifted her like she was made of dried leaves and wrapped his cloak around her thin shoulders."Safe," Ilyra repeated, and the word seemed foreign to her. "I don't understand. Where is Corvus? Where are the guards?""Corvus is dead," Orin said, and his voice cracked. "He died three years ago. The Frostborn is dead too. The purges are over. There's an Accord now, thirty-two packs, all protecting Moon-Wolves."Ilyra blinked. Her lips moved, but no sound
The vault door was covered in claw marks. Fresh ones. Something inside had been trying to get out.Bastian stood in the cold corridor of Thornhaven's lowest level, and his wolf snarled a warning. The marks were deep, gouged into the silver-reinforced steel with a strength that spoke of desperation. Whatever had made them had been at it for a long time."Those are fresh," Orin said, his voice low. "Days, maybe hours.""They're also Moon-Wolf claws." Wren knelt beside the door and traced one of the gouges with her finger. "I've seen marks like this before. In the breeding cells. When an omega was left too long without contact, they'd claw at the walls until their nails broke." Her gold-flickering eyes were grim. "This one's been trying to get out for a very long time."Rook was already working on the blast door. His lockpicks were useless against the silver-reinforced steel, but he had brought charges, small ones designed to break seals without collapsing tunnels. "Give me ten minutes.
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
“I’ve been alone for ten years,” Bastian said, his back still turned. “I should have killed you the moment I caught your scent. I tried. My wolf wouldn’t let me.”I lay on the cold stone, shivering and burning, my cheek pressed to the rough floor. The fire Bastian had built spat and crackled betwee
I felt him before I saw him—a pressure in the air, a weight in the dark that made my wolf curl up and go silent.The heat had been eating me alive for hours. Every step through the snow sent a fresh wave of fire through my belly, and my legs were slick with something I didn’t want to name. The pine
Two medics held me down before I could ask what was happening. The needle went in, and fire spread through my veins. I bucked on the table hard enough that the leather restraints creaked, and a strangled sound tore out of my throat that wasn't a word. One medic, a beta woman with flat grey eyes an







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