Chapter 25 Needles And Threats
The scream from the north tower still echoed in the stones when the cell door slammed open so hard it bounced off the wall. Mira stood in the doorway, hair wild, apron streaked with Fernando’s blood, eyes blazing like twin torches. Two younger healers flanked her, faces pale but determined.
“Unchain him,” she ordered the guards, voice cutting through the damp air like a scalpel. “Now.”
The guards hesitated, glancing at Samael and Darius. Silver keys hung at their belts, but neither man moved.
Samael stepped forward, planting himself between Mira and Alberto’s limp body. His shadow swallowed the torchlight.
“He is a prisoner,” Samael said, low and dangerous. “Accused of treason, of bringing false hope that has chained our Alpha to death’s door. He stays in iron until he speaks.”
Mira did not slow. She walked straight at him, small and furious, until the front of her bloodied apron brushed his armored chest.
“I know nothing about swords or claws,” she said, voice soft, almost conversational. “But needles? Needles I understand perfectly.”
From her apron pocket she drew a thin silver needle, six inches long, etched with healing runes along its length. She held it between thumb and forefinger, point glinting.
“This one,” she continued, “was forged to pierce the heart of a dying wolf and send him gently to the moon. One twitch of my wrist and it slides between your ribs before you finish your next breath. You will be dead before you hit the ground. Step aside, Gamma, or I will unalive you in front of every wolf here and call it mercy.”
The cell went utterly still.
Samael stared down at her, golden eyes narrowed. The needle did not waver. Mira’s hand was rock-steady, the same hand that had stitched a hundred battle wounds and delivered a hundred pups. She meant every word.
Slowly, deliberately, Samael moved one step to the side.
Mira did not spare him a glance. She turned to Darius, who still knelt in the filth beside Alberto.
“You,” she said, voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more threat than any shout. “You stood by while they starved him. While they beat him. While the bond tore Fernando apart from the inside. If our Alpha dies because of what you allowed in this cell, I swear by every herb I have ever crushed and every life I have ever saved, I will hang your head from the border oak myself. It will be the last thing I do on this earth, but I will do it.”
Darius rose slowly, hands open at his sides. His face was gray, eyes haunted.
“I thought—” he began.
“You thought wrong.” Mira cut him off. “Get out of my way.”
Darius stepped back until his shoulders met the damp wall.
Mira turned to the guards. “Keys. Now.”
The nearest guard fumbled the ring from his belt and handed it over with shaking fingers. Mira took it and moved to Alberto.
He hung like a broken doll, head lolling, blood dripping from his chin in a slow, steady rhythm. His skin was translucent, veins black beneath. The silver cuffs had eaten through flesh to bone; white gleamed wetly where metal met wrist and ankle.
Mira worked fast. One lock, two, three, four. The chains clattered to the stone. Alberto sagged forward. The two healers caught him before he fell, easing him gently to the filthy floor.
Mira knelt, pressing two fingers to his neck. The pulse was there, thready and frantic, but there.
“Bring the stretcher,” she ordered.
One healer produced a folded litter of leather and ash-wood poles. They slid it beneath Alberto and lifted him as carefully as if he were made of glass. His head rolled to the side, exposing the raw burns circling his throat where a silver collar had once rested.
Mira stood, needle still in hand, and swept her gaze across every wolf in the cell.
“From this moment,” she said, “Alberto is under my protection. Any wolf who lays a hand on him answers to me. And I promise you, my hands know how to end a life far more slowly than any blade.”
She turned her back on them all, a small woman in a blood-stained apron daring three of the deadliest wolves in the pack to challenge her.
None did.
Mira walked out first. The healers followed, carrying Alberto between them. Their footsteps echoed up the narrow stair, steady and unhurried.
Behind them, the cell stood empty save for the blood-slick chains swaying gently in the torchlight and three warriors who suddenly looked very small.
Samael stared at the open doorway, jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped.
Darius slid down the wall until he sat in the filth, head in his hands.
And high in the north tower, Fernando’s breathing steadied, just a fraction, as the bond felt its other half carried toward healing instead of death.
Mira did not look back.
She had a patient to save.
Two patients.
And she would move the moon herself before she let either of them slip away.