Chapter 134 A Moment of Connection
Jolie POV
I wake to voices in the main room. For a moment, I'm disoriented—the cabin is dark, Ryder's arm heavy across my waist, my phone showing 2:47 AM. Then memory crashes back. The escape, Celeste's video, the threat of breeding programs and torture weapons.
I slip out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake Ryder. He needs rest too, even if his alpha instincts want him awake and planning.
The main room is bright with laptop screens and tactical maps. Luna, Phoenix, Gio, and Doc huddle around the table, speaking in low urgent voices.
"Jolie." Doc looks up when I enter. "You should be sleeping."
"Couldn't." I move closer, studying the documents spread across the table. "What did you find?"
"Nothing good." Phoenix pulls up files on his laptop. "The Northern Academy is real. Located in Alaska, officially listed as a private boarding school for troubled wolves. It has been operating for thirty years."
"Thirty years?" My stomach drops. "How many wolves do they have"
"At least two hundred that we can confirm." Luna's voice is grim. "Probably more. They take wolves between twelve and sixteen, keep them for four to six years, then place them in strategic positions throughout wolf society."
"Places like Nightshade Pack." Gio stares at a photo of the Academy—pristine buildings surrounded by mountains. "Father didn't just meet Celeste randomly, she was assigned to him."
"Gets worse." Doc pulls up medical files. "The conditioning process involves systematic trauma, isolation, repeated emotional deprivation, and something they call 'empathy extraction.' Basically torture designed to destroy a wolf's capacity for feeling."
"But Celeste felt the connection I showed her." I sink into a chair. "I know she did. I felt her feeling it through my empathy."
"Because the conditioning isn't perfect." Phoenix highlights sections of a document. "According to these internal reports, about fifteen percent of subjects retain some emotional capacity. They just learn to hide it, suppress it, perform emotionlessness so well that even they start to believe it."
"So she might actually be suffering." The realization hits hard. "Might feel trapped inside her own conditioning, unable to access emotions even when she wants to."
"Or she might be exactly what she appears—a successful conditioning outcome who can perceive emotions without being affected by them." Luna counters. "We can't know for sure."
"Did you find anything about Council facilities?" I ask. "Where they're operating from now that the main fortress is destroyed?"
"Three confirmed locations." Gio points to marked positions on a map. "One in Montana, one in Nevada, one in northern California. Each one capable of holding twenty to thirty operatives plus research equipment."
"Research equipment." I say. "Or you mean breeding facilities."
"Among other things." Doc's expression is painful. "They've been studying divine wolves for decades. Trying to understand what triggers empathic abilities, whether they can be replicated or suppressed, how to breed them in controlled conditions."
"Have they succeeded?" My voice is small. "Bred divine wolves?"
"No." He shakes his head. "Divine abilities seem to manifest randomly, and can't be forced through genetics alone. But that hasn't stopped them from trying. Multiple breeding programs, forced matings, offspring studied from birth."
"Where are those wolves now?" I ask. "The ones they bred and studied?"
Silence falls over the table.
"We don't know." Luna finally says. "Files indicate most didn't survive to adulthood. The ones who did were either conditioned like Celeste or kept in permanent captivity for ongoing study."
"We have to find them." I stand abruptly. "If there are divine wolves being held captive, being studied and tortured, we have to get them out."
"That's a rescue mission on top of stopping a breeding program and eliminating Council remnants." Phoenix looks overwhelmed. "We're seven wolves plus Gio, how do we do all of that?"
"We don't do it alone." I moved to the comm system. "We reach out to every pack that suffered under Council rule. Every wolf who loses someone to their experiments then we build an army."
"That takes time." Gio warns. "And expose our plans. The moment we start contacting other packs, Council informants will hear about it."
"Then we move fast." I'm already thinking tactically. "Luna, I need a list of packs who have reasons to hate the Council. Wolves who lost family to their programs, alphas who were displaced by their politics."
"On it." She starts typing.
"Phoenix, keep digging into the Academy." I pace, energy flooding through me. "I want to know everything—how many staff, security systems, whether there are current students we need to extract."
"Already compiling." His fingers fly across the keyboard.
"Doc, I need you to reach out to your network." I look at him. "Other healers, wolves with medical knowledge. If we're rescuing captives, we'll need people who can treat long-term trauma and conditioning damage."
"I know several." He makes notes. "Though convincing them to join a war against Council remnants won't be easy."
"Tell them the truth." I lean on the table. "That the Council has been breeding divine wolves like livestock, conditioning children into weapons, torturing anyone who manifests unusual abilities. If that doesn't motivate them, nothing will."
"What about the immediate threat?" Gio pulls up Celeste's video again. "She said they're coming for you, they have your blood, your power signature. What's stopping them from attacking this compound right now?"
"Distance and preparation." Ryder's voice comes from the bedroom doorway. He's dressed, armed, clearly been awake for a while. "They need time to modify the blessed silver, gather enough operatives to plan an assault. We've got maybe seventy-two hours before they're ready to move."
"Then we use those seventy-two hours." I meet his eyes. "We build our army, plan our strikes, and hit all three facilities simultaneously. Let's end this in one coordinated attack."
"That's ambitious." Luna looks up from her laptop. "We'd need at least sixty wolves for that kind of operation. Twenty per facility minimum to overwhelm security and extract captives."
"So we find sixty wolves." I say it with more confidence than I feel. "We have three days, that's enough time."
"Is it?" Cass appears in the doorway behind Ryder. "Enough time to recruit, train, coordinate, and execute three simultaneous raids? Without Council remnants discovering our plans and moving captives or reinforcing security?"
"It has to be." I straighten my shoulders. "Because the alternative is waiting for them to come for me, letting them implement their breeding program, leaving divine wolves trapped in their facilities. I won't do that."
"Then we better get started." Knox emerges from the armory, weapons already strapped to his frame. "Doc, send me that list of packs. I'll start making calls."
"I'll handle the tactical planning." Luna closes her laptop. "If we're hitting three facilities at once, we need precise coordination. Timing, communication protocols, extraction routes."