68

68
Haylee's POV

I bend over Lior’s milky white face, his breathing so shallow that I need to put my ear to his chest in order to hear his heart beating. The monitors blare and screech around us, a chorus of disaster that sets my wolf to pacing just beneath my skin. His black hair is matted to his head with sweat, and the bulging dark veins peeking out from beneath his translucent skin make it seem that some sort of poison is coursing through his tiny body.

"Mommy?" Kael is lying on the other gurney as well, speaking in little more than a squeak. He blinks his eyes open, unfocused and glassy, the amber of them that I so love now dim with discomfort. "It hurts."

My heart breaks into a million shards. I lean across the gulf of space between the gurneys, my trembling hands stroking back the hair from his fevered face. "I know, baby. Mommy's here. I'm going to fix this."

"Can you really?" His little hand fumbles around mine and I grip it lightly, noticing again how cold his digits are in stark contrast to the fever that’s raging inside of him. The bad man... he’s in here with me. He says he’ll take us away.”

So much protective fury surges through me that I can feel it turn red around the edges of my vision. My wolf snarls† and strains against my humanness, calling for blood, vowing vengeance. But I manage to put on a brave, calming face for my son.

"Nobody’s taking you anywhere, baby. Mommy and Daddy will never let that happen.”

Aiden hovers closer over Kael's gurney, his imposing figure looming over our son. His jaw is locked so tight it makes the muscle tick, and his amber eyes flare with the same fierce protectiveness that I can feel coiling just beneath my skin. "That's right, son. And your mother and I won’t allow it. Never."

Elder Patricia glances up from her ancient texts, a look of concern crossing her weathered face, which is lined with distress. The aged yellowing pages have been laying out on the table next to it and are full of odd symbols and diagrams that appear to be squirming in the flickering of the emergency light. "The window to perform the rite of passage is getting smaller. I think that if we’re going to try to do this, we need to start getting ready now.”

Dr. Chen looks up from where she’s fiddling with Lior’s IV, her usually steady hands trembling a bit. Their vitals are being lost. Heart rates were erratic, blood pressure was dropping, and their temperatures...” She shakes her head ruefully. “Whatever is happening to them, it’s speeding up.”

"How, exactly, is this ritual performed?” I ask Elder Patricia, but a part of me already knows I won’t like the answer. The face of the old woman tells me what I need to know about the cost we're going to have to pay.

"Blood magic," she spits the words out, her voice wrenched by the weight of horrific understanding. 'Both parents must exchange their life force at the exact same moment when the children are at their weakest. Instead of just the kids, the tether will attempt to snatch power from the parents, but the shock of the flip....” She trails off, but it’s clear as day.

The silence is deafening only broken by the sounds of the beeping monitors and the noises of the shifters moving around outside the packhouse. Marcus’s voice crackles over the radio as he manages the evacuation, and my sensitive ears can hear pack members making their way through the halls with pressed, muffled footsteps.

“Their vitals are falling faster,” Dr. Chen says, her clinical mask dropping, revealing her raw fear. "Whatever Xavier is doing to them remotely, it's hastening them. They have like twenty minutes at this pace before..."

I think she’s about to cry, so I’m quiet and just wait and see if she can gain energy before we’re together again. She doesn’t complete the sentence. She doesn't need to.

I glance over at Aiden over the top of our sons as I struggle with him to keep my hold on my own amusement, seeing my own defiance reflecting in his amber-lit eyes. The burning love that sent me to leave everything for him behind me is now between us, as we fight together to save our children.  "We do it."

"Haylee—"

“No.” I shake my head hard, my voice bearing the authority I have spent the past years learning how to wield as Luna. "We do it. I won't let him win. I’m not going to allow him to take our boys.”

Marcus enters, his face ruddy with urgency, with barely kindled panic. My Beta nature is screaming danger, and I can smell the acrid stink of his fear-sweat. "We've got movement on the north sidetheAD! They are no longer just around us — they’re about to come breaking in. Full tactical formation."
"How long?" Aiden questions, his tone deadly calm despite the look of a storm I see brewing in his eyes.

"Ten minutes, maybe less. They have this equipment I've never seen before—some sort of magic enhancement that's ripping through our defenses as if they were made of paper.”
Elder Patricia rises suddenly, her aged bones moaning in protest. "Then we start now. The ritual can not be disrupted once started, and they break if interrupted during the ritual...” She shakes her head grimly.

She starts pulling stuff out of a leather satchel I haven’t seen until now–black candles that look like they absorb light more than cast it, dry herbs that fill the air with a harsh medicinal scent, a ceremonial dagger that shines with an unearthly light. The blade almost seems to throb with its own inner flame, and even my wolf grumbles nervously at the sight.

“I want the two of you to understand something,” 
Elder Patricia says, lining up the corners of items practicedly. “This is not just about breaking the tether. Xavier's been sucking their power for something else much greater. The moment we cut the connection, all of that stolen energy will come snapping back.”

"What does that mean?" I inquire, already knowing her response judging by the stern look on her face.

"It means Xavier is about to take in the impact of all the power he has been stealing -- six years of accrued power hitting him at once. “But then those same boys are going to have the experience of having their power suddenly put back on them in a huge rush.

Aiden’s eyes slitting  dangerously. “Their bodies may not tolerate this.”

“No,” agrees Elder Patricia dourly. "They might not. The risk of saving them from Xavier may very well kill them as surely as allowing him to finish his ritual."

The lights flicker once more, and Xavier’s voice taints out through the intercom, becoming vehemently smug. The audio is crystal clear, as though he's standing next to us, and I now understand with mounting unease that he's somehow hard-jacked into our systems.

"Time's ticking away, my sweet little Haylee. I can feel their power diminishing with each breath they draw. It won’t be long before they become so weak they can’t live without the intermediary that I provide.” Ironic, isn't it? The thing that is killing them is the thing keeping them alive.”

I bend over and kiss Lior’s forehead, which tastes salty and overheated. Then I repeat the process with Kael, saying words of love and protection that I hope they can hear. “We’ll save both of you. I swear to god on my life, we’re going to save you.”

Elder Patricia has set the black candles in a circle around the gurneys, two for each, and their flames flicker, even though there is no draft in the room. The leaves scattered with the two are sending smoke through the air that pulls the shadows deeper and more alive. “Have everyone join hands over the children,” she instructs. “The moment I start saying the attunement, you’ll both be forced to respond. Don’t resist — let it take what it wants, even if it feels like it wants everything.”

Aiden leans over the gap between the gurneys and places his large warm and calloused hand on top of mine. A spark of electricity trails up my arm from the touch, and the mate bond between us flares to life like never before in the years since he sealed it. “Regardless of what happens, I want you to know —”

“Save it,” I cut in, but my voice is soft. My voice chokes with emotion but I force myself not to look away from his face. “Tell me after we have saved our sons.”

Elder Patricia starts to sing in a tongue even older than forgotten, her voice reverberating in a way that feels both celestial and hellish all at once. The black candles flare and dim, sputtering at the base, their shadows dancing on the walls, separate from the flicker of their flames. I feel the tug immediately — as if something is attempting to yank my soul out through my ribs, I’m being pulled deep into my chest.

The boys’ monitors light up, alarms blaring as one of the boy’s vitals shoot up and crash with no pattern. Dr. Chen crosses back and forth between them like a madwoman, fiddling with IV drips and checking oxygen levels, but I can see the fear and the confusion in her eyes as she tries to make sense of numbers that ought to be impossible.

“It’s going,” she gasps, her voice strained and sweat collecting on the aged brow of the ancient crone. "I feel the tethers are getting weaker. The connection is resisting, though..." Her eyes widen suddenly. "No. Something's wrong. He’s actively resisting the ritual.”

Then the door to the medical wing caves inward, as wood and metal shoot outward in an explosion of splinters and shards. Xavier enters the room through the smoky rubble, but something is different. His eyes are shining with a silvery light that shouldn’t be able to burn so bright in such black darkness, he’s looking out from behind his features out of something else – something old, something fierce, something merciless.

“And you thought it would be that easy?” he inquires, his voice resonating with harmonics that make my bones ache and my wolf cower. “Did you think I wouldn’t feel you trying to take from me what I’ve worked so hard to build?”