Chapter 195 What All Did He Do
"Get them children out of there!" Veda exclaimed, her voice cracking like a whip. She brought her heavy hawthorn cane down hard against the stone floor for emphasis, the sharp thwack echoing loudly over the frantic hum of Miller's monitors. "We don't want to cook that young couple and the Alpha’s children while we are cooking the Winter’s Breath out of the women. We have to do this just right, Beta, or the cure will be just as deadly as the poison. It could permanently damage the Luna and the others."
She turned her sharp, clouded gaze toward the heavy steel vault door, her expression hardening into a mask of pure, ancestral grit. Without waiting for a response, Veda began to roll up the sleeves of her knitted cardigan, revealing thin, corded arms that looked fragile but held a century of strength.
"Especially with the Luna and your wife, Jax," Veda continued, her tone dropping into a deadly serious register. "Since they are both with child, the margin for error is razor-thin. I need to scan them both while they are being warmed through. I need to keep a watch on them two, right there at their sides."
Jax’s eyes widened, his protective, predatory instincts clashing violently with the old woman’s demand. He knew exactly what she was asking to do. She wasn't just talking about stepping into a warm room; she was talking about sealing herself inside a pressurized kiln to starve out a mystical, heat-eating parasite.
"Veda, is that smart?" Jax asked, his voice tight with disbelief and a deep, genuine fear for the Elder. "We’re talking about jacking the heat up to the surface of the sun in there. It’s going to be a literal furnace. Can your heart even take that kind of strain?"
The old woman slowly straightened her back, a spark of ancient, defiant fire lighting up her eyes. "Beta, I’ve looked down the throat of the devil more than once in my lifetime. I’ll be fine."
A dry, unexpected, and mischievous smile pulled at her deeply wrinkled cheeks. She reached out with a trembling hand and firmly patted his tense, muscular arm. "Besides," she added with a raspy chuckle, "didn't you know old people are always cold? Now get me in there so I can check on your mate."
Jax didn't argue further. When Veda used that tone—the tone of a woman who had seen generations of Alphas rise and fall—even a feral wolf would sit and listen. He spun around, his jaw locked in determination, and hit the heavy intercom button on the wall.
"Toby! Sarah! Move!" Jax commanded, his Alpha-command tone bleeding through. "Take Caspian and Briar to the secondary airlock immediately. Get them upstairs to the nursery. We're about to turn the main vault into an oven."
Inside the safe room, Toby and Sarah moved with synchronized, desperate speed. Toby scooped up a whimpering Caspian, holding the boy’s head against his shoulder, while Sarah grabbed Briar tightly to her chest. The heavy, pressurized interior door hissed shut, locking them into the cool, safe zone just as Jax punched his clearance code into the keypad to cycle the main vault door open.
Toby and Sarah emerged from the decontamination airlock, stepping out into the hallway. Toby had Caspian wrapped tightly in his arms, and Sarah was holding Briar, pressing the little girl's face into her shoulder. They had been insulated from the worst of the heat, but the sheer stress of the night was written all over their pale faces.
They stopped dead in their tracks the moment they saw Fennigan.
The Alpha had regained a sliver of consciousness, but he was still sitting on the floor, his long legs splayed out in front of him. His head rested against the cool stone, his eyes glassy and unfocused, staring at a spot on the opposite wall. He didn't look like their fierce, unbreakable leader. He looked hollowed out. He looked like a man whose soul had been fractured by something unspeakable.
Sarah clutched Briar tighter, exchanging a terrified, wide-eyed look with Toby. They didn't know what had happened at the bunker, but looking at the Alpha's snow-white face, they all knew something was profoundly, terrifyingly wrong with Fenn.
"Keep moving," Jax ordered softly, his voice raspy as he held his screaming, wet son securely over the basin. "Get them upstairs to the nursery. Keep them away from the Great Room."
Toby gave a jerky nod, and he and Sarah hurried past the fallen Alpha, giving him a wide berth as they rushed for the stairs.
Down the hall, the packhouse was already shifting into triage and recovery mode. The heavy, carved double doors of the Great Room had been thrown wide open, and the towering glass windows were unlatched, letting the crisp, biting mountain wind sweep through the house. They were desperately trying to air out the lingering, cloying scent of Magda’s magic and the ozone tang of the fight. A pair of sentries were dragging the scorched, ruined remains of the massive area rug through the foyer and out onto the front lawn, the heavy, burnt fabric thudding heavily against the porch steps.
But Fennigan didn't seem to register the cold wind, or the frantic activity.
As Caspian and Briar were carried past him, Fennigan’s vacant eyes slowly tracked their movement. He saw the slope of his son's nose. He saw the delicate curve of his daughter's jaw.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his massive chest heaving as the memory of the fluid-filled beakers—the milky, soulless eyes of the clones trapped in the dark—flashed violently behind his eyelids. His hands, which had torn apart rogues and commanded hundreds, began to shake uncontrollably.
"What all did he do..." Fennigan muttered to the empty air. He slowly shook his head, the horror of his father's legacy finally crushing him. "God... what all did he do?"
"Get the blankets in here! Now!" Jax bellowed to the line of sentries rushing down the hall.
A chaotic blur of men and women sprinted forward, hauling armloads of heavy blankets directly from the industrial dryers. The fabric was practically steaming, smelling of scorched lint and high heat. Others carried thick, electric heating pads dragged up from basement storage.
Jax stepped into the room first, his skin immediately prickling in protest as Miller hit the environmental override from the console outside. The massive industrial heaters hidden in the ceiling of the safe room roared to life with a deafening mechanical groan. The heavy iron grates over the vents glowed a dull, angry cherry-red as they began blasting dangerously hot, dry air directly into the enclosed space.
Veda followed him inside without a single moment of hesitation, her movements steady and completely unbothered by the rising temperature. She immediately approached the cots.
While Jax and the sentries frantically piled the steaming, heavy blankets over Elana, Leela, and Ginny—tucking the edges tightly around their shoulders and legs to trap every single ounce of heat against their dangerously cold skin—the ambient temperature of the room began to skyrocket.
Within minutes, the vault felt like the inside of a volcano. The air itself began to visibly shimmer and distort, the intense, suffocating heat pressing down on Jax's chest like a physical weight.