Chapter 47 The First Attack
POV: Mina (Age 18 - Eight Days Into the Moonpath)
The assassins I sensed were just the advance team.
The realization hits when I hear the whistle. A signal. Calling in the rest of the death squad.
More shadows emerge from the forest. Not three assassins. Not five.
Twenty.
Twenty professional killers with silver weapons and training specifically designed to eliminate Oracles. Moving with coordinated precision, cutting off escape routes, surrounding us in a formation that's clearly been practiced.
This isn't a random encounter. This is an execution squad. And we're the target.
Through the bond I feel the Trio's immediate assessment. Feel them calculating odds and coming up empty on good options. Feel their wolves surging forward anyway because mate is in danger and odds don't matter.
The assassins attack.
Not all at once. That would be sloppy. They come in waves, coordinated strikes from multiple angles, designed to overwhelm defenses and create openings for the silver weapons that can actually kill us.
The Trio's wolves go feral.
Not aggressive. Not violent. Something beyond that. Something primal and absolute that the mate bond and their guilt and their desperate need to atone all combine to create.
Through the connection I feel them stop being three separate wolves and become something else. One unit with three bodies. One mind with three perspectives. One purpose: protect mate.
Logan's black wolf meets the first wave head-on, his massive form absorbing attacks that would kill most wolves, his jaws closing around threats and eliminating them with brutal efficiency. Through the bond I feel his rage, his guilt, his determination that no one gets past him to reach me.
Asher's silver-grey wolf moves like liquid death, flowing between attackers, finding weak points with precision that his calculating mind translates perfectly into wolf combat. Through the bond I feel his focus, his desperate need to prove he can protect instead of harm, channeled into every strike.
Jax's golden wolf is the largest, positioned as the final barrier between me and the assassins, his tactical mind directing the other two through the bond without words. Through the connection I feel his control returning, not in emotional detachment but in strategic coordination. Protecting through planning instead of just violence.
They fight as one organism. Each anticipating the others' moves through the bond. Each covering weaknesses. Each creating openings the others exploit instantly.
It's beautiful in a terrible way. The mate bond making them more effective than any training could. Making them deadly in ways that individual skill can't match.
But twenty assassins is too many. Silver weapons find targets despite perfect coordination. I feel it through the bond when blades cut into flesh. Feel their pain. Feel them fighting through it anyway because stopping means mate dies.
An assassin breaks through their defense. Gets past Logan's rage and Asher's precision and Jax's tactics. Comes at me with a silver blade aimed for my throat.
My power awakens.
Not consciously. Not planned. Just pure instinct responding to immediate threat.
I speak.
"Stop."
The word comes out layered with power I've never used at this magnitude before. Silver Voice amplified by Oracle magic amplified by pure desperate need to survive. The command doesn't just hit the assassin coming for me.
It hits all of them.
Twenty professional killers freeze mid-strike. Their bodies locking up, muscles seizing, every voluntary system overridden by the command that reality itself is obeying.
Through the bond I feel the Trio's shock. Feel them recognizing power they knew I had but hadn't fully witnessed in combat. Feel their wolves responding with something that's almost worship.
But I'm not done. Can't be done. Freezing them isn't enough.
"Kneel."
The assassins drop. All twenty of them. Hitting the ground with the same violent simultaneity that every wolf at the Academy ceremony experienced. Their professional training useless against power that commands reality itself.
I feel the Oracle magic pouring through me. Feel it demanding more. Feel the runes on my arms blazing with heat as my mother's encoded training activates in response to combat.
I speak again. Not words this time. Just sound. Pure resonance that carries intention without language.
Break.
The silver weapons shatter. All of them. Simultaneously. Metal that was forged specifically to kill Oracles fracturing under commanded force, becoming useless fragments scattered across the ground.
The assassins' bones follow. Not all of them. Not fatally. But enough to ensure they can't fight. Arms breaking with audible cracks. Legs fracturing. Ribs giving way under pressure that's being applied from the inside out.
Through the bond I feel the Trio's complicated reactions. Horror at the violence mixed with savage satisfaction that threats to mate are being eliminated. Their wolves approving even as their human minds process the magnitude of what I'm doing.
The combination of their protection and my power is devastating. They keep threats away from me long enough for Oracle magic to work. My power eliminates threats fast enough that they're not overwhelmed.
Together we're more dangerous than we would be separately. The prophecy's symmetry in action.
But I'm untrained. The power is wild. Responding to instinct and desperation rather than conscious control. And it's exhausting in ways I didn't anticipate.
I feel it draining me. Feel the Oracle magic pulling from reserves I didn't know I had. Feel myself getting weaker with each commanded reality.
The last assassin falls.
The clearing goes silent except for our breathing and the sounds of injured killers who are no longer threats.
I try to stay standing. Try to maintain the cold composure I've been wearing like armor for eight days.
My legs give out.
I'm falling and there's nothing I can do to stop it. No energy left to even catch myself. Just gravity winning because I've burned through everything trying to survive.
Then I'm not falling anymore.
Jax catches me. His golden wolf shifting back to human in the space it takes to cross the clearing, his arms closing around me before I hit the ground, his body taking my full weight without apparent effort.
Through the bond I feel his wolf's satisfaction at providing. Feel his human mind's careful control fracturing around his desperate need to ensure mate is safe. Feel him holding me like I'm something precious instead of something he spent months trying to destroy.
I try to push away. Try to maintain distance. Try to stay cold.
But I don't have the energy. Don't have anything left except the connection that's flooding with things I don't want to feel from any of them.
Concern. Worry. Desperate need to help. Guilt magnified by seeing me vulnerable. Their wolves certain that mate needs them. Their human minds trying to process that the icy Oracle who's been making them suffer is actually just barely holding together.
I feel the mask slipping. Feel the cold composure cracking. Feel everything I've been keeping locked away threatening to surface because I'm too exhausted to maintain the walls.
Through the bond, without meaning to, without being able to stop it, I let them feel what's underneath the ice.
Terror. Not of the assassins. Of everything. Of failing Rafe's mission. Of the Council catching us. Of the bond that's trapped us together. Of being needed by people who broke me. Of losing myself to rage or revenge or forced connection. Of all of it.
Grief. Permanent and structural and enormous. Rafe's absence like a hole in the center of me that nothing fills. Four months of drowning in it while pretending to be functional. Eight days of traveling with his death as the only thing driving me forward.
Exhaustion. Physical and emotional and magical. Months of survival on rage and stubbornness. Days of forcing myself forward when there's nothing left inside except refusal to stop. The weight of carrying three wolves' guilt on top of my own trauma.
The bond shows them all of it. Shows them that the Oracle they've been afraid of is eighteen years old and terrified and barely holding together. Shows them that the cold mask is just that—a mask covering someone who's been destroyed and is only still moving because stopping means failing.
I feel their reactions through the connection.
Logan's wolf whimpering at mate's pain. His human voice coming through rough with recognition.
"She's just a kid. She's our age and she's been through hell."
"Because of us," Asher adds. His voice carrying weight that's heavier than before. Not just understanding what they did. Understanding what they did to someone who was already dying inside. To someone who had nothing left except mission and rage.
The guilt through the bond is suffocating. Theirs and mine mixing together. Recognition that we're all broken. All barely surviving. All trapped together whether we want to be or not.
I try to close the connection. Try to pull the walls back up. Try to maintain the cold distance that's kept me functional.
I'm too tired. Too empty. Too done.
The bond stays open. Keeps showing them everything. Keeps flooding them with vulnerability I never wanted them to see.
Jax adjusts his hold, his arms careful in ways that suggest he knows exactly how fragile I am right now. Through the connection I feel his guilt mixing with something else. Something protective that goes beyond the mate bond forcing him. Something almost gentle.
"We need to move," he says quietly. "More Council forces might be coming. We can't stay here."
Through the bond I feel him waiting for acknowledgment. Waiting for me to tell him what to do. Waiting for the Oracle to give orders.
I can't. Don't have the energy. Don't have anything left.
I just let the darkness take me. Let unconsciousness win because being awake means feeling everything and I can't carry it anymore.
The last thing I feel through the bond is their alarm. Their wolves' desperate need to protect mate who's vulnerable. Their human minds trying to figure out how to help someone they've only ever known how to hurt.
Their recognition that keeping me alive means keeping me together. And they have no idea how to do that.
Then darkness. Silence. Nothing.
The bond's mercy finally giving me escape.