Chapter 95 He Wouldn't Let Her Go
Elder Thorpe swirled the amber liquid in his glass, the movement hypnotic and slow, his eyes unfocused as he looked back through the dark, winding corridors of time. The firelight caught the ridges of his face, deepening the lines of regret etched there.
"You have to understand," Thorpe said, his voice soft and trembling with a nostalgia that bordered on grief. "At one point in time... long before the corruption took root... the Elementals were not myths to be whispered about in fear. We were part of the everyday fabric of life. We weren't hidden. We weren't hunted. We were celebrated."
He looked up at Fennigan, a sad, ghost of a smile touching his lips.
"It was a golden age, Fennigan. The packs were happy, truly happy. The earth yielded crops without fail because we asked it to. The rains came on schedule because we guided the clouds. The winters were mild because we tempered the frost. We were the bridge between the wolf and the world—the keepers of the balance."
Elder Horne let out a ragged sigh from his chair, shifting his weight as if the memory was a physical burden. "But then... we fell. We let the power bleed into pride."
"When the Moon Goddess stripped us of our elements," Thorpe continued, his voice hardening, "the light went out. The line wasn't allowed to shine anymore. Not because the magic was gone from the bloodlines entirely—it still popped up here and there, like a stubborn weed through concrete—but because we had to hide it."
Damon leaned forward, his elbows resting heavily on his knees, his brow furrowed. "Hide it from whom? The humans? The rogue packs?"
"No," Thorpe said, staring at the heavy oak door as if expects the enemy to burst through it. "From the High Council. From the very institution we helped build. Because once we lost our power, Vane—and men like him—saw a vacancy. They saw a power vacuum. And where the Goddess had taken back her gift, they saw an opportunity to steal it."
Thorpe took a steadying breath, the horror of the memory making him look frail, his hand shaking around the glass.
"If the High Council discovered a dormant Elemental line... if they found even a spark... they descended like vultures. But they didn't treat them all the same. Efficiency, you see. That is Vane’s god."
He held up one finger, the joint gnarled and stiff.
"If the Elemental was male," Thorpe whispered, the words tasting like ash, "he was taken. He was 'studied.' They would drag him to the sterile labs beneath the High Tower and cut him open while he was still breathing. They wanted to see how the magic worked, to see if they could extract it, bottle it, weaponize it. They died on tables, screaming for mercy that never came."
Jax flinched, the glass in his hand cracking audibly as his knuckles turned white. The sound was sharp in the quiet room.
"But if it was a female..." Thorpe’s voice cracked. He couldn't even look at Fennigan; the shame was too great. "For the females, the fate was worse than death."
"They weren't dissected," Elder Horne rumbled, his voice filled with a profound, vibrating disgust. "They were kept."
"They were taken and bred," Thorpe finished, the words hanging in the air like toxic smoke. "In a sadistic plot for Vane’s secret race. He realized he couldn't synthesize the magic—it was too volatile—so he tried to grow it. He used female Elementals as broodmares, forcing them to carry litter after litter, year after year."
Thorpe looked up, his eyes wet. "He is trying to breed a superior soldier, Fennigan. A wolf that obeys his commands like a machine but wields the Goddess's fire like a weapon."
Fennigan felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him cold. The image of Leela—his fierce, brilliant Leela—trapped in a cage, reduced to nothing but biology, being used to birth monsters for a madman... it made his vision blur with red rage. His wolf roared in his head, a sound of pure, protective violence.
"That's why he wants the twins," Fennigan realized, his voice a low, vibrating growl that shook the desk he was leaning against. "He doesn't just want to study Caspian. He wants to use Briar."
"And Leela," Thorpe confirmed gravely. "She is the ultimate prize. She isn't just a spark, Fennigan. She holds the Elemental Stone. She holds all four elements fused within her very marrow. In Vane’s mind, she is the Eve of his new world order. She is the key to a kingdom he has been trying to build for decades. And if he gets his hands on her... he will never let her go. He will drain her of every child she can give him until there is nothing left but a husk."