117

117

KAEL

"Alpha, we have a problem."

"Theon!" Marcus's mind-voice is urgent as I complete the last border patrol reports. What fell to me was the petty squabble I had been assigned, little more than juveniles pushing at rules, and yet a chill grips my heart at the tone my Second uses.

"What kind of problem?" I answer, already in my way to the door.

"Raven's missing. Eira discovered evidence of a struggle in Elder Matthias’s chamber, and the two of them are missing.”

The patrol reports fall to the ground as I start running, my heart pounding against my ribs. I reach out to Raven through our mate bond, but there is nothing, only a curious muted thickness, as though I am trying to hear through plaster walls.
"Where's Eira now?" I shout, racing up the stairs three steps at a time.

"Come to Matthias's quarters and we'll finalize things. Alpha, there's more. Says she heard something about a raid planned on Nyxhowl and she overheard someone talking about attacking.”

When I make it to Matthias's chambers, I find Eira pacing feverishly in front of the door, her red hair sticking out from her head in all directions as if she had a particularly bad fright. When she sees me, it’s like relief fills up her green eyes.

"Kael, thank the goddess. I just wanted to make sure that Raven was okay after the council.“ Raven?“ And then I heard the voices from Matthias's room. When I listened at the door..." She swallows hard. "He was threatening her. Something with liquid silver and an attack that would be called off, if she cooperated.”

"What attack?" ” Marcus inquires, stepping in with a group of guards.

"On Nyxhowl territory. Tomorrow night, on the new moon.” Eira's voice trembles with rage, just barely kept under control. He told her if she didn’t come quietly he would see to it she was made to do so by tonight instead.

I inspect the entrance of Matthias's chambers, damaged lock and all. "Raven was here, but she was not taken by force at first. Look at that — it was formed, not broken. She had used her goddess-blood to enter."

“Then she got something.” Marcus closes and hurriedly searches the room. “Something that held her there long enough for Matthias to confront her.”

The chamber does not give up its secrets easily. Back in a cut fireplace stone, It’s revealed a secret compartment — empty now, but for the smell of old parchment and ink. A half-burnt letter on the desk catches my eye.

“Border crossing cleared for Elder transport, all lanes open,” I muttered insensately as I was reading further. "Signed the night watch commander. This was planned."

“Alpha,” yells one of the guards from the window. “The courtyard bears the tracks of cart tires leading to the eastern gate. A recent draft, maybe a score of minutes old."

I squeeze my eyes shut, attempting again to seek out Raven within our connection. This time I do sense something — a wave of fear and anger tinged with helpless resolve. She’s alive, and she’s battling some sort of power they’re using to inhibit our connection.

“Sir,” Eira says as she bends down and pulls out something from the wastebasket, and I look at it. "You need to see this."

She hands me pieces of a ripped photo. When I put them together, my world is thrown off its axis. It is an image of a young man who has Matthias’s eyes, but the picture is old — at least three months old, judging by the date stamp in the corner.

“His son,” I breathe out with sudden cold clarity. "He said that they had David hostage, that he was the one bargaining for his release."

“Three months ago,” Marcus says grimly, noting the date. “But he’s been weird for much longer than that.”

The pieces are snapping into place in the most nauseatingly clear shape imaginable. Matthias' growing anxiety the more he goes a war council. His insistence on the minutiae of patrol shifts. The manner in which he always appeared to know precisely when and where attack could be expected.

"How long?" My question, barely more than a growl. “How long has he been feeding them news?”

"Long enough to hear about Aeliana poking around security for the pack, too," Eira murmurs. Long enough to figure out when and where she would be vulnerable.”

The suggestion lands like a punch to the face. Matthias didn't just sell us out, back now—he’s the Chi spy we went to see when Aeliana died. The man whom I thought of as a father figure, the adviser who helped me through some of my worst times, has been helping our enemies for years.

"Alpha," Marcus cuts off my spiral of crazy. "The sentinels at the eastern gate saw Matthias departing with Luna Raven about fifteen minutes before. It appeared to be a routine security inspection, they said.”

"Which route?" Already I can feel my wolf's anger mixing with my man-anger as I push to shift.

“The old mining road up to Silver Ridge.”

My blood turns to ice. Silver Ridge: An old mining facility. The air is literally toxic; you are breathing glowing pieces of Silver remains. For the real wolves, it is no more than uncomfortably hot. Feat someone with blood of a goddess, and it could be lethal.

"Round up the strike force," is my command. “Full combat package, silver-resistant if we’ve got it. And someone let Nyxhowl know - if there's a raid planned for tonight, they need to know."

Crowley was already on it, Marcus agrees. “But Alpha, what if this is some kind of trap —”

“Then we spring it on our terms.” I make my way to the armory, my mind full of tactical considerations. "How many wolves can we have in time for the next ten minutes?"

“Twenty-five warriors combat ready, and then support.”

"Do it. And Marcus?" I pause, meeting his eyes. "No prisoners. Anyone that threatens my mate, will die.”

The terrain grows ever more feral as we speed on into the night, headed in the direction of Silver Ridge. Though the abandoned silver mine has been shuttered for decades, the traces of its history still linger in every blade of grass, every tree, every breath of air. My skin is already itching and burning, and I can only wonder what this is doing to Raven.

"Alpha," comes Vance's voice over the radio. "I see movement half a mile out. Multiple heat signatures."

"How many?"
“At least a dozen, circularly around the big mining thing.

I signal for the convoy to "hold," and take a fast look at the tactical picture. They’ve done their ground choosing well—lofty positions, lots of back exits, and an atmosphere that debilitates us, which one would hope doesn’t touch their mages.

“Divide into three groups,” I order. "Marcus, you go from the north. Vance, circle south. I will lead point team down the middle.

Sir," one of the younger warriors stammers nervously. "The silver content in here—if we tarry too long—"

“We don’t stay then,” I interrupt him. “Fast strike, maximum power, get our Luna and go home.

As we make our way through the tangled metal and rusting concrete of the abandoned facility, the smell of old magic gets stronger. Not shadow magic even — something older, more primal. The sort of power that existed before pack structure and civilization.

“Contact,” Marcus says over the radio. "They're not rogues, Alpha. These are disciplined combatants with professional equipment.”

Before I can answer, the night rips wide open in mayhem. Gunshots ring out in several directions, and my team ducks behind corroded mining machinery. These aren’t your typical bullets though – with each one that hits me, a wave of blistering pain sears throughout my body, littered with silver shards inside the ammo, catered to wolves no doubt.

"Suppressing fire!" I yell, firing my own shots back at the shooter. "Let's go motherfuckers, main building up ahead!"

That's when I see her.

Near the entrance of the mine a woman steps out of the shadows with silver hair like liquid mercury in the moon light. She's tall and graceful, and she gives off a powerful vibe that sets off every instinct I have to kill.

“Kael Rathmore,” she shouts, her voice louder than the ruckus. "The Storm's Heir himself. My name is Seraphina Shadowmere, and we have a lot to talk about.

The fighting snaps off like she’s flipped a switch. Both sides put down their weapons, but the tension hangs in the air like blood.

"Where is my mate?" I call, coming out into the open over my team’s protests.

"Safe, for the moment. Her safety depends on if you’ll listen to me.” Seraphina stalks with the grace of a predator, every step carefully chosen to portray both confidence and menace. “You’ve killed my nephew, ruined years of planning. Otherwise, I would have you peeled."

"Try it,” I growl, releasing my hold on the wolf, letting it come a little closer to the surface.

“But these are not normal times.” She nods toward the entrance of the mine, and two forms appear – one a disheveled, broken looking Matthias and the other is Raven, bound with what looks like rope with slivers of silver running through it.

Even from here, I can see the singe marks on her wrists where the silver hits her flesh. My goddess-descended mate, tortured by the very metal meant to keep wolves safe from the sparks of evil.

“What the awakening of the Moon’s Daughter has set in motion is older than pack politics,” Seraphina goes on. "A curse centuries old that has been lying in wait, dormant, until enough divine blood was spilt to awaken it."

"What curse?" Part of me wonders and the other part fears to know.

The Shadowmere line were not always a family of miscreants, Alpha Kael. We were once the conduit between the earthly wolves and the celestial energies that forged our kind. But we were betrayed, forsaken, our birthright pilfered by those who envied our ties to the ancient magic.".

“If goddess-blood is waking in one wolf and shadow-blood in another. The power of your mate has split walls that should never have been breached. Now, the ancient magic wants balance.

“And through you,” I understand, parts shifting into support.

"Through me. In approximately..” She checks an ornate pocket watch. “Forty-three minutes past when the new moon is overhead, a ritual will commence whether we will it or no. I take enough of your mate's goddess-blood into myself to equal everything out, and bring the Shadowmere bloodline where it should be, amongst the gods..."

"Or?" I am wondering though I think I know the answer.

“Or the imbalance rips every werewolf on the continent apart. The old magic is not kind or forgiving, Alpha. It requires balance, and it will get balance one way or another.”

Urgent voices crackle over the radio--reports of identical standoffs happening throughout all of the major territories at once. It's not just me and Raven. It isn’t that we may be able to save and preserve some other species of animal or plant.

“Decide fast,” Seraphina snaps, and her silver hair has begun to shine like something out of this world. Yield your mate to the ritual, and I will see to it that order is restored with as few slain as possible. Decline and feel all you have ever held dear reduced to ash, in the fire of the Gods."

I glance at Raven, who has even her hands tied behind her back and silver burning into her flesh, her chin set in defiance. Through our blocked-bond, somehow stronger now, I hear her message loud and clear:

‘Don't you quit on us.’

“There’s a third choice,” I say, lifting my gun. “You die whatever that ritual is about to commence.”

Seraphina’s laughter is a sound like shattering glass and far-off thunder. "You can try, Storm's Heir. But consider this—I've been training for this day for sixty years. And I am not alone."

“And the real Shadowmere bloodline,” she proclaims. “The ones who never forgot what we were, who have been biding our time until the goddess-blood becomes aware so we could take back what is ours.

My radio crackles with the shrill reports of panic all over the territory. The Obsidian Spire is being assailed! Concurrent attacks on dens of the pack. And in the distance, I see the first twists of a forced aurora, dancing through the sky like the old-old magic waking up.

“alpha kael, 38 minutes,” Seraphina says, she checks her watch again. ”Choose now, or lose all as the scales tip beyond redemption.