Chapter 13 The Power that was Taken
“It’s already within you, and it’s destroying you.” My father's words stuck in my thoughts in the midst of the silence.
Everyone remained motionless.
My hands trembled. Although the sigils on my skin had ceased glowing, the warmth beneath persisted, steady and profound, akin to a heartbeat within my bones.
“What do you mean it's destroying me?” I asked.
“Free me. Please,” he pleaded, tugging at his restraints.
“Answer her first,” Vince interjected, his tone flat and devoid of emotion.
My father’s gaze was fixed on me, completely ignoring Vince, as if he was inconsequential.
“The second system was never meant to activate by itself,” he clarified. “It requires a conscious trigger. You were intended to initiate it, Isabella. You needed to comprehend what it was before it commenced.”
“But it activated anyway,” Rafael interrupted from the corner of the room.
“Because someone forced it,” my father retorted sharply, his jaw tightening. “Someone injected your blood into the first compact without your consent. Your body reacted to it as an attack, prompting the second system to activate.”
I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the warmth pulse once more.
“Who did this?” I demanded.
An tensed silence enveloped us.
“Who injected my blood into the compact?” I raised my voice, my frustration boiling over.
My father glanced toward Rafael.
Rafael stared down at the ground.
The atmosphere changed.
“Rafael.” My voice trembled.
He lifted his gaze slowly, his expression now stripped of pretense, revealing a man facing the consequences of his decisions.
“At the compound,” he confessed quietly. “When you were unconscious after the initial breach. I took a sample.”
Everything within me froze.
“You took my blood,” I reiterated.
“Yes.”
“While I was unconscious.”
“Yes.”
I felt Vince move beside me, but I raised my hand to halt him; I needed to confront this alone.
“You exploited me,” I challenged him.
“I used your blood,” Rafael admitted. “I believed that if I carefully introduced it into the first system, I could map the second system, grasp its structure, and learn about it before anyone else.”
“And instead, you activated it.”
He sighed. “Yes.”
My father exhaled and looked down to the floor. His shoulder dropped and it looked like he was fighting his thoughts.
“I cautioned you in the documents,” he said to Rafael. “I made it clear. The second system is not a machine. It is linked to her nervous system, her heartbeat, her fear response. You didn’t map it; you informed it that she was in danger.”
Rafael placed his hands on the stone table. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask,” my father countered.
The room was engulfed in a heavy silence that was uncomfortable.
I examined my hands. The sigils were nearly undetectable now, yet they were moving slowly and with intent.
“What happens if it fully activates?” I inquired.
My father paused before answering.
“Papa.”
“If it fully activates,” he said, “every compact on the continent will disintegrate. Every boundary, every Alpha claim, every blood bond will dissolve.” He paused. “And the resulting energy discharge will travel through the nearest blood anchor.”
“Which is me,” I realized.
“Yes.”
“And what happens to me in this process?”
He regarded me thoughtfully for a moment.
“It destroys the bloodline,” he stated. “Completely.”
The weight of his words settled in gently, too gently for their significance.
“So I die,” I concluded.
“Your registrar function dies,” he corrected. “Whether your body survives depends on how advanced the activation is at the moment it discharges.”
I let out a short, broken laugh. “So there’s a chance I die.”
“Isabella…”
“No.” I interrupted. “Don’t say my name like that. Don’t look at me with pity.” I stepped back. “You created this. You placed it inside me without my knowledge, allowing me to live my life completely unaware of what I bore.”
“I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting the system,” I shot back. “And you manipulated me to achieve that.”
His expression faltered, revealing a crack in his usually composed demeanor.
I turned away before it could sway me.
Vince observed me closely.
“How do we stop this?” he asked my father directly.
My father composed himself. “There is a method to halt the activation. We can return the second system to dormancy.”
“How do we do that?” Vince pressed.
“A voluntary anchor,” my father explained. “If Isabella consciously links her blood to a living compact point, the second system will interpret it as a stable environment, ceasing its response.”
“A blood binding,” Vince confirmed.
“Exactly.”
Vince's eyes shifted to mine.
I met his gaze. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t suggested anything yet.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to ask what you wanted,” he replied evenly.
Rafael pushed away from the table. “There’s another option.”
“There isn’t,” my father insisted.
“There is.” Rafael reached for the journal. “If we open the sealed pages now, Isabella might be able to access the complete structure herself and stop the activation from within.”
“That has never been attempted,” my father admonished.
“Neither has watching her burn out,” Rafael shot back.
The ground trembled slightly again. The pack markings on the walls flickered brightly.
I sensed it now, a distinct rhythm beneath my ribs that was different from my heartbeat. Something ancient. Something that had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“How much time do I have?” I asked.
My father opened his mouth to respond.
Then a voice resonated from the tunnel above us.
It was not an explosion.
A voice that sounded ancient that was speaking in a pack tongue so old that I shouldn’t have understood it.
But I did, and it was every word.
“The Blood Key has chosen dissolution. The compacts acknowledge the signal. Surrender your borders or be eradicated along with them.”
Vince tensed.
I turned to my father.
“I didn’t say that,” I whispered. “I didn’t make any choice.”
My father’s face turned pale.
“No,” he said slowly. “But someone spoke through your blood to indicate that you did.”
I snatched the journal from Rafael’s grasp.
“Who else knows about my bloodline signature?” I demanded.
My father glanced toward the tunnel entrance above us.
Then back to me.
“Only one person,” he replied.
“Who?”
His voice fell to a near whisper.
“Your mother.”