67

67


Aiden's POV

I scoop Kael into my arms and Haylee collects Lior, both of us operating on sheer panic-driven autopilot, neither knowing nor caring who has who just so long as we have our kids. My son’s body is too light, too fragile, as if he were already halfway to becoming a ghost. The dark veins that are bulging outward just under his skin look like poison working its way through his system, and each ragged breath he draws in appears to be his last.

“The packhouse,” I say, even though the words are like sandpaper on my throat. "Dr. Chen can stabilize them. She has to be able to run something.”

"Can she?" The sound of Haylee’s voice cracks as we sprint through the forest, branches cutting at our faces. “If Xavier can sap their strength from a distance — if he’s got that sort of hold over them —”

"She has to." I settle Kael's slack form against my chest, his faltering heartbeat like a dying bird ' s. "We can't give up. We cannot let that son of a bitch win.

We sprint from the treeline and bolt across the field to the front gates. I connect with Marcus instantly, sending a rush of urgency and desperation through our pack bond so strong I sense him falter as the psychic shockwave hits him.

"Alpha!" There's an urgent edge to Marcus's mental voice as he picks up on my wave of panic. "What's happened? The bond feels like—"

“Emergency evacuation,” I shout as I sprint, boots hammering down into the gravel path. “Move all the packhouse people out now. "In Shadow," she suspects, "I'll have lost both boys who are linked to Xavier in an occult blood magic way, and he can strike at any place or time."

"Jesus Christ. How long do we have?"

I check my watch once we arrive at the steps to the packhouse, the numbers looming sinisterly in the night. "Less than forty-five minutes until his ultimatum is up. You better move quick and get Dr. Chen to the med wing right now. Let her gird herself for the magical poisoning and the slurping of life force."

"On it, Alpha."

We’re not halfway down the hall when Marcus materializes beside me, looking somber as within seconds he appraises the condition of the boys. His Beta alarm bells are ringing, and I can sense his wolf raring to go beneath the surface of his human skin.

"Jesus, Alpha. What did they do to them?"

Soul tether,” I grumble, walking with powerful, ground-eating steps towards the medical wing. Xavier’s transformed them into channels of his power. He can suck the life force out of them from any corner of the world.”

"That's not possible. That kind of magic—"

“Is fucking what we have here,” I interrupted him. "The impossible is now possible, Marcus. We’re fighting the enemy that we don’t hardly know what they can do.”

Dr. Chen is already there when we crash through the medical wing doors, her supplies set out across two gurneys, arranged with military precision. When she spots the children, her face goes ashen, but her hands do not shake as she starts attaching monitors and IV lines with professional efficiency.

“They’re crashing,” she says, her voice clinical as horror seizes her eyes. “Their heart rate is all over the place, blood pressure not looking good, and body temperature just off the chart. Something’s attacking them, and it’s sapping their life force at a much faster pace.”

"Can you slow it down?" Haylee asks, barely standing on two feet as she hovers over Lior’s gurney, a guardian angel made of desperation and fury.

“I can do my best, but I don’t know how to recognize the magic part—” Dr. Chen stops speaking as the monitors start beeping like crazy. “Their brains are … the impossible is possible. “It’s like they are in two places at the same time.”

"Alpha," Marcus interupts, phone to his ear, and the look on his face is growing meaner by the minute. "We've got a problem. I just spoke to Alpha Rodriguez who leads the Northern Territory pack. He was supposed to send backup, but his Beta just told me Rodriguez has been involved with the Shadow Faction for months.”

The news is like a punch in the gut, knocking the breath out of my lungs. "What? That's impossible. Rodriguez has been an ally for years.”

Marcus nods, the expression on his face serious, as he takes his call and presses another number. "It gets worse, Alpha. Much worse. Alpha Thompson of the Eastern Reaches, Alpha Martinez of the Coastal pack, Alpha Williams of the Mountain Territory—all promised to assist us, and all have fallen, so it appears. It’s not just about the boys now.”

The blood drains from my face as the whole extent of Xavier's plot becomes clear and spreads itself out before me like a map of mayhem. "The warehouse complex. It's not just a trap for us."

“It’s a staging ground,” Marcus implies in a seething voice with those never-there rage issues of his. "Allies of mine within the intelligence bureau are also reporting a strange level of Shadow Faction presence all over the place. Jesus, they’re obviously planning something big tonight from that new moon, and the boys are being used to power whatever massive ritual they have in mind.”

Haylee glances up from the place where she’s running her fingernails atop Lior’s head, her eyes smouldering with the type of rage that could ignite entire forests. "Regional control. He doesn’t just want our pack — he wants to rule all of the werewolf territories on the continent of North America.”

“Which means that even if there were a possible way to save the boys, we’d still be dealing with a simultaneous attack from all sides,” I realize, what that means to my wolf spurring a snarl of frustration. “He’s forced us into a position where the only condition of surrender available allows some of us to stay alive in the short term.”

Dr. Chen’s monitors monitor her in her pale-faced hunching suddenly jerking pointing up look and her trembling hand as she flicks the switch. “There’s something else you should know. The magical signature I'm getting off of both children- - it's not just Xavier's power running through them." There’s something more ancient, more primitive. Whatever ritual he performs, it’s tapped into something ancient and powerful.”

“The vision,” Haylee gasps, her voice brimming with horror that slowly comes over her. “He’s not only depleting their power — he’s triggering it before its time and using it for himself.”

I go to the window instead, watching the sky grow darker and the stars start to poke out in tiny sparkles of light -- like pinholes in black velvet. The new moon rose, a mere shadow against the stars. There's something in the vision that stirs a memory for me, something I overheard Elder Patricia say.

" Marcus, how much till midnight?"

"Three hours, seventeen minutes, Alpha."

My spine chills as I recall something Elder Patricia said to me in our research. "The new moon. Something about magic bonds being weakest during the new moon, she mentioned. Something about some old cycle.”

"Alpha, what is going through your mind?"

Before I can respond, Elder Patricia herself is standing in the doorway, the oldness of her face set with knowledge and fear. She has an armload of dusty tomes that appear older than the packhouse itself, and she moves astonishingly quickly towards the boys’ gurneys. Normally calm she leaks the urgency.

Accomplishment I have been studying soul tethers since you left, she says without preamble, She spreads the books on a nearby table. There are ancient symbols and diagrams all over the yellowing pages, written in languages that exist before modern civilization. “There’s something very important I figured out about the timing of what happened tonight.

"Tell me," I command, hope and desperation fighting in my chest like two wrestling wolves.

"New moon, at 12 a.m., soul tethers experience what the old books refer to as 'the weakening hour. It's a small opportunity, only about a half hour at most, when the enchantments are weakest."

Haylee jerks her head up from Lior’s bedside, eyes shining with desperate hope. "We can break them? Actually cut the connection?"

The look on Elder Patricia’s face darkens further, and I can see the weight of horrific knowledge behind her ancient eyes. "Theoretically, yes. But the ritual that’s needed is … well, as complicated and dangerous as can be. It requires both parents to actively bequeath their own life force to break them. The magic must be balanced—life for life, blood for blood.”

“What are the odds we all make it?” I ask softly, even though I know the answer.

Elder Patricia stutters, her cracked hands shaking and the worn pages turning, one by one. "Honestly? Very slim. This is supposed to be a final gambit, usually made by parents who know they’re going to die anyway. How much of a life force does it take to snap chains this heavy? …” She leaves that last sentence undone, but her meaning is clear as a bell.

“We do,” Haylee responds immediately, with absolute certainty in her voice. “If it’s the only way to save them — if it’s the only chance they have — ”

“Alpha, movement on all sides,” responds the terse report, degraded but urgent with static and fear. Shadow Faction getting in position around the building. A minimum forty or more, each one carrying what appear to be enchanted weapons. They’ve completely surrounded us.”

The intercom system sputters to life with a blast of static, and Xavier’s velvety voice echos through every room within the packhouse, as if it flows through the very walls.

"Good evening, everyone. I trust I'm not disturbing anything".

I snarl deep in my throat, my wolf howling that it wants blood and mayhem and to rip Xavier’s throat out with its own teeth. The noise echoes through the medical wing, causing the machines to clatter.

"I'm sure you've figured out by now there's no escaping," Xavier adds in a confident predator-like tone. "I have spies surrounding your precious packhouse, evenly sided friends among your so-called buddies, and prophecy magic running through my veins. But I'm not heartless even—I'm willing to make this simple on you all.”

The lights flicker ominously, and I realize with increasing horror he’s managed to directly interface with our electrical systems. There should be no such thing as safe now.

"I'm going to give you one last opportunity to make this easy on yourselves. Aiden, Haylee – come out with your hands up and nobody else in your pack dies by our paws tonight. If you force me to waste time going in there to get you, I will paint these walls with the blood of anyone you ever loved.

Chen’s monitors go haywire as both boys jerk and convulse at the same time, their tiny forms lifting off of the gurneys as Xavier shows how he can manipulate their life energies. Especially my children, in pain and my all-too-feeble ability to do something, makes something savage and primal awaken and howl in my chest.

“Your choice in five minutes,” Xavier’s voice is frosty and heavy with death. “After that, I am not so nice, and we let’s do this the hard way.

The intercom abruptly goes dead, and we’re left in the flashing red silence of the emergency lights. The window is lined with silhouettes flitting form the shadows among the trees, edging closer like wolves shadowing an injured animal. They’re all cat-burglars in the throne room, more or less, and they move with an uncanny suppleness and synchrony, and I can smell the them not-being-right from here.

Marcus is suddenly beside me, his expression grim and determined like my own. "Orders, Alpha?"

“Move the rest of the people to safe rooms,” I murmur into the phone, speaking with the toll of a funeral bell in my voice. “Lock the doors and wait for my signal.”

“And what if the signal never arrives?”

I look him in the eye, allowing him to see the closure in my smile, the knowledge of what’s surely to come. "Then you make sure they know we are not just Xavier's victims. Let them know we did not die for nothing; we died for something, and it was meaningful.”