Chapter 75 The Transformation (Vivienne POV)
The moment Edmund aborted the final protocol, I felt it through the mate bond.
Like the fact that something was still terribly wrong.
The abort had happened. I'd felt Edmund's choice ripple through whatever supernatural awareness the mate bond provided. But underneath that choice was something else… desperation, failure, a problem that hadn't been solved.
"Vivienne?" Gabriel appeared beside me where I knelt next to Declan's dying body. "You just went completely still. What's happening?"
"Edmund aborted the main protocol but something's wrong. There's still danger. I need to… "
"The facility's collapsed! There's no way back inside! Whatever Edmund did or didn't do, he's dealing with the consequences!"
But the wrongness wouldn't fade. Growing stronger instead, pulling at my awareness like a hook in my chest.
Through the mate bond… through whatever expanded perception it provided… I could sense Edmund in his command center. Could feel his horror as he stared at monitors showing a problem he couldn't fix remotely. Could feel his realization that he'd saved everyone from one death trap only to condemn them to another.
"He destroyed something," I said, the certainty settling in my chest like ice. "The abort code. He used it but then he destroyed it. And now there's a secondary release he can't stop remotely. Someone has to go inside the chamber. Someone has to… "
"Has to what? Commit suicide disabling a system in a room filled with concentrated silver gas?" Gabriel's voice was sharp. "Let him face the consequences of his own trap, Vivienne. He doesn't deserve… "
"It's not about what he deserves!" I stood, already shifting to wolf form. "It's about the fifty people who are still within the deployment radius! It's about not letting anyone else die tonight if I can prevent it!"
I ran before Gabriel could argue further, racing toward the administrative building where Edmund's command center was located. The underground facility had collapsed into a crater, but the administrative building was still partially standing… third floor intact despite the shock waves from the implosion.
Found the entrance. Took the stairs three at a time in wolf form, my injured shoulder screaming protest but functional enough.
Burst through the door to Edmund's command center.
He was at the terminal, typing frantically, his face pale with desperate horror.
"Vivienne." He looked up, his expression transforming from shock to anguish. "What are you doing here? You need to leave. Right now. Get as far from this building as possible."
"What did you do?" I shifted to human form. "What's still wrong?"
"I aborted the main protocol. Stopped the campus-wide deployment." His voice was hollow. "But there's a failsafe in the central control chamber. Local release that continues operating even when the main system is disabled. It's designed to flood this building and the immediate area with concentrated silver gas."
"Then abort it!"
"I can't." His hands were shaking. "I destroyed the remote abort code after I used it on the main system. Made sure nobody could reverse my decision. But I didn't realize the local failsafe operates independently. Someone has to manually disable it from inside the chamber."
"Then we go inside and disable it!"
"The chamber is sealed. Already filling with silver gas concentrated enough to kill a werewolf in thirty seconds. Kill a human in ten." He pulled up a schematic on the screen. "The manual shutoff is at the far end. Twenty meters from the door. Even if you could break through the seal, even if your Silvermane resistance gave you an edge, you'd be dead before you reached the controls."
I looked at the timer on his screen.
FAILSAFE DEPLOYMENT: ACTIVE
TIME TO CRITICAL SATURATION: 04:23
Four minutes and twenty-three seconds until the silver gas reached lethal concentration in the surrounding area. Until everyone still on campus… wounded wolves, exhausted hunters, all the people who'd survived Edmund's trap… died from poisoning they couldn't escape.
"There has to be a way," I said.
"There isn't. I designed this system to be failsafe. Made it impossible to disable except through direct intervention in a chamber that kills anyone who enters." Edmund's voice broke. "I spent eighteen years building traps for werewolves and in the end I built one that kills everyone. Including my own children."
"You're not dying," I said. "And neither is anyone else. Not tonight. Not because of you."
"Vivienne, please. Just evacuate. Get Gabriel and everyone else as far away as possible. At least some of you might survive if you run now."
"No."
I looked at him… my father, the man who'd murdered my mother and tortured me and tried to commit genocide. The man who'd finally made the right choice in aborting the main protocol, only to discover he'd doomed everyone anyway through his own paranoid safeguards.
The man who was about to watch everyone die because he'd been too thorough in designing systems nobody could stop.
An idea formed. Terrible. Possibly catastrophic. Definitely something I'd never tested and might not survive.
But it was the only option that didn't end with mass casualties.
"Dad," I said, using the word deliberately, "I need you to trust me."
"Trust you to do what?"
"To save everyone. Including you." I moved closer to him. "Your Silvermane research. Did it cover genetic transformation capabilities?"
"Some. The bloodline can force shifts on other werewolves, command through ancient authority, access ancestral memories… "
"Can it force transformation on humans?"
Edmund went very still. "Theoretically. There are historical accounts of Silvermanes turning humans into werewolves through direct blood contact or sustained exposure to their power. But it's unpredictable, often fatal, and… " His eyes widened. "No. Absolutely not."
"It's the only way."
"You're not turning me into a werewolf!"
"I'm not," I agreed. "I'm giving you the ability to survive long enough to reach the manual shutoff. Werewolf healing can process silver poisoning that would kill a human instantly. You'd have maybe two minutes in that chamber instead of ten seconds. Long enough to disable the failsafe."
"Vivienne, forced transformation on an unwilling human subject is… the pain alone could kill me before the change completes! And even if it works, even if I survive the transformation, the silver concentration in that chamber is designed to kill werewolves! I'd still die, just slightly slower!"
"Maybe. But maybe you'd survive long enough to save everyone else. That's more than we have now."
Edmund stared at me. "You're asking me to become the thing I've spent eighteen years hunting. The thing I've dedicated my life to eliminating. The thing I've claimed is a threat to humanity."
"I'm asking you to be what Mom was. What Gabriel is. What I am." I held his gaze. "We're not monsters, Dad. We're people. And right now, becoming a werewolf is the only way you can save the people you spent eighteen years trying to protect."
The timer ticked down.
TIME TO CRITICAL SATURATION: 03:47
Edmund looked at the monitors showing wolves and hunters still evacuating, still within the deployment radius, still unaware they had less than four minutes before silver gas killed them all.
Looked at me… his daughter, the Silvermane he'd tried to suppress, who was now offering him the only chance to make his final choice matter.
"Will it hurt?" he asked quietly.
"Yes. More than anything you've ever experienced."
"Will I... will I still be myself afterward? Still human consciousness? Still Edmund Ashford?"
"Gabriel is. I am. Mom was." I paused. "You'll be yourself. Just more than you were before."
Edmund nodded slowly.
I shifted to wolf form, my silver fur gleaming even in the artificial light of the command center. Moved closer to him until we were nearly touching.
I placed my paw on his chest, directly over his heart.
Called on the Silvermane bloodline with every bit of authority I could generate. Called on the genetic memory of ancestors who'd turned humans willingly and unwillingly. Called on power that was older than civilization, older than human language, older than the divisions between species.
"Grathas en'thil mor'asheth!" Transform beyond human limits!
The compulsion slammed into Edmund with force that made him stagger.
For a moment, nothing happened. His body resisting the impossible thing I was commanding it to do. Fighting the genetic rewrite that would transform human into werewolf.
Then the screaming started.
Edmund collapsed, his body convulsing as the transformation forced itself through biological structures that weren't designed to accommodate it. Bones breaking and reforming. Muscles tearing and rebuilding. DNA rewriting itself on cellular level as the Silvermane command overrode everything his human genetics said was possible.
His screams echoed through the command center… raw agony as his body changed against his will, becoming the thing he'd spent eighteen years hunting, the thing he'd feared and hated and tried to eliminate.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, maintaining the compulsion even though every instinct screamed at me to stop, to end his suffering. "I'm so sorry. But this is the only way."
Fur sprouted across his skin… not silver like mine, but gray-brown like standard werewolves. His face elongated into a muzzle. His hands became clawed paws. His entire skeletal structure reshaping itself into something that could run on four legs, something designed for hunting and survival and power.
The transformation took ninety seconds.
When it finished, a gray-brown wolf lay on the floor of the command center, panting with exhaustion and pain, his consciousness barely coherent through the shock of forced change.
Edmund's wolf form was smaller than mine… newly turned werewolves always were… But functional. Strong enough to move. Fast enough to reach the manual shutoff.
If the silver poisoning didn't kill him first.
"Dad." I shifted to human, knelt beside him. "Can you hear me? Can you understand?"
The wolf's eyes… still Edmund's eyes, still conscious, still aware… focused on me.
"You need to go into the chamber. Need to reach the manual shutoff at the far end. Twenty meters through concentrated silver gas that will poison you with every breath. Can you do that?"
He tried to shift to human form, the instinct to speak overriding everything else. The transformation was clumsy, incomplete… he managed partial shift that let him talk but left him covered in fur, his face still partially lupine.
"I can feel it," he gasped. "The wolf. Inside my mind. Part of me now. Is this what your mother felt? What you feel?"
"Yes."
"It's not... it's not what I expected. Not a monster. Just... more. Everything amplified. Everything clearer." He looked at his clawed hands. "I've been hunting this my entire life and I never understood what it actually was."
"Understanding can come later. Right now, I need you to save everyone." I helped him stand, his balance uncertain in the unfamiliar body. "Can you make it to the chamber?"
Edmund looked at the monitors. At the timer ticking down.
TIME TO CRITICAL SATURATION: 02:14
"I can make it," he said. "Werewolf healing should let me survive long enough. Question is whether I can work the manual controls with these hands."
He shifted fully to wolf form… smoother this time, instinct beginning to guide the transformation… then back to human. Practicing the change he'd need to make to operate mechanical systems designed for human hands.
"Good enough," he decided. "Where's the chamber?"
"Sublevel one. Through that door." I pointed. "The entrance will be sealed. You'll need to break through."
"I'm a werewolf now. Breaking through sealed doors is apparently what we do." He managed a weak smile. "Thank you, Vivienne. For giving me the chance to make this right. For being better than I was."
"Don't thank me until you survive." I shifted to wolf form. "I'm going with you."
"No. Your Silvermane resistance is better than mine but even you can't survive prolonged exposure to that concentration. I go alone."
"Dad… "
"That's not a request. That's a father making sure his daughter lives even if he doesn't." Edmund shifted to wolf form, his gray-brown fur looking dull next to my silver. "Get everyone clear of the building. Make sure Gabriel knows I made a different choice at the end. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry I couldn't be better sooner."
He ran before I could argue, charging through the door toward sublevel one with speed that came naturally to his new form.
I followed anyway. Not into the chamber… he was right that even I couldn't survive prolonged exposure… but close enough to help if he needed it.
Reached sublevel one just as Edmund hit the sealed chamber door at full speed. The reinforced steel buckled but didn't break. He backed up, charged again. This time the door tore free from its frame, crashing inward.
Silver gas billowed out… thick white smoke that immediately made Edmund's wolf form stagger as poisoning hit his system.
But he didn't stop. Shifted to human mid-run because human hands could operate the controls. Sprinted into the chamber through gas so concentrated I could see it burning his exposed skin even from the doorway.
Twenty meters.
He made it ten before his legs gave out. Collapsed, his newly-turned body unable to process silver as efficiently as someone who'd been werewolf for years.
Crawled forward. Five more meters. Then three. Then two.
Reached the manual shutoff controls… a series of valves and levers designed to be operated in sequence.
Turned the first valve with hands that were blistering from silver contact. Pulled the second lever. Turned the third valve.
The hissing sound of gas deployment cut off.
The failsafe was disabled.
Edmund collapsed beside the controls, his body shutting down as silver poisoning overwhelmed his system faster than werewolf healing could counter.
I shifted to human form, pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth… inadequate protection but enough for a few seconds… and ran into the chamber.
The gas burned everywhere it touched. My lungs seized. My enhanced Silvermane resistance bought me maybe thirty seconds before the poisoning would become fatal.
Grabbed Edmund's arms, started dragging him toward the exit.
His eyes opened. "Vivienne... run..."
"Shut up. I'm not leaving you."
"The gas... you'll die..."