Chapter 72 What the Teeth Were Made For
ZARA’S POV
The room Dr. Voss led us into did not feel like a room.
It felt like a throat kind of.
The doors sealed behind us with a sound too soft to be mechanical, too final to be magic. Light bled from the walls in slow, pulsing bands, ivory threaded with gold. The air tasted metallic, sharp at the back of my tongue, like a storm holding its breath.
Mira stood to my left, hands clenched at her sides. She was pale but steady, jaw locked with the kind of resolve that came from knowing there was no way out and choosing not to panic anyway.
Kai stood to my right.
I felt him before I saw him, his presence a constant pressure through the bond, protective and controlled, like a blade kept sheathed only by willpower. His face was calm. Too calm. The General Alpha mask was firmly in place.
Dr. Voss moved ahead of us, heels clicking softly against the glossy floor. The sound echoed longer than it should have.
“Welcome,” she said pleasantly, as if we were guests instead of sacrifices.
“This is one of our oldest chambers. Pre-dates the academy. Pre-dates most of you.”
She turned, smiling at me.
“Especially you, Zara.”
My Devourer stirred.
Not hunger. Recognition.
The walls shifted as we walked deeper, their surface rippling faintly, like skin reacting to touch. Symbols emerged and sank again, lunar glyphs, runes I didn’t know but somehow understood. They whispered to something ancient inside me, something that had been waiting far longer than I had been alive.
I hated that part of myself for listening.
“This demonstration,” Kai said evenly.
“Could’ve been explained without theatrics.”
Voss laughed lightly.
“Where would be the fun in that?”
She stopped at the centre of the chamber. The floor beneath our feet rearranged itself, segments sliding apart to reveal a circular platform of black stone veined with silver. It reminded me of an altar.
Or a scale.
“Stand here,” Voss said, gesturing to the centre.
Mira hesitated only a second before stepping forward. Kai didn’t move.
Neither did I. Voss arched a brow.
“You were promised answers, Zara. This is where they live.”
Kai’s hand brushed mine barely there, but deliberate. A reminder. A tether.
Trust me, the bond whispered, echoing his earlier warning. I stepped onto the platform.
The moment my boots touched the stone, the room reacted.
Light flared. The glyphs on the walls burned brighter, rearranging themselves into new patterns. The air thickened, pressing against my lungs. My heart began to pound but not with fear but with something dangerously close to anticipation.
The Devourer lifted its head.
“Oh,” Voss murmured, eyes shining.
“There you are.” I clenched my fists.
“What is this place?”
“A mirror,” she replied.
“A test. A memory.”
The platform hummed beneath my feet. Silver lines spread outward from where I stood, crawling across the floor like living veins. One by one, they connected to three raised pylons around the chamber.
The first lit up.
A projection bloomed into the air wolves. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Different eras, different forms. Some wore armour. Some wore nothing but scars. They fought. They hunted. They died.
Their deaths hit me like punches to the chest.
I gasped, staggering.
Kai moved instantly, stepping closer, his hand firm on my back.
“Zara.”
“I feel them,” I whispered, horrified.
“All of them.”
“That’s the point,” Voss said calmly.
“You always could.”
The second pylon ignited.The image shifted. I saw a younger academy. Cleaner. Quieter. Wolves lined up in rows, eyes dulled, movements synchronized. Restraints both magical and technological were fastened to their bodies. Energy was siphoned from them, drawn into towering structures that loomed above the compound like silent gods.
Harvesters. My stomach twisted.
“You did this,” I said, my voice shaking.
“You’ve been feeding something.”
Voss inclined her head. “Yes.”
The third pylon flared to life.This time, the image was different. It showed the future.
The academy is in ruins. The sky split open by something massive and metallic, its shape barely comprehensible. Wolves being pulled upward in beams of light, their howls echoing in silent space. A shadow passed over the world, blotting out the sun.
My knees buckled. Kai caught me before I fell, his arms solid around me. The bond flared with panic, rage, and determination, crashing into me all at once.
“You see now,” Voss said softly.
“Why control was necessary. Why you were necessary.”
I looked up at her, fury burning through the fear. “Necessary for what?”
“To decide,” she said simply.
The platform responded to her words.
The silver lines surged upward, wrapping around my legs, my waist, and my arms. Not restraints. Conduits. Power flooded into me.
I cried out as the Devourer surged forward, no longer content to watch. Life brushed against my senses, Kai, Mira, Voss, the distant wolves above us in the academy, their heartbeats flickering like stars.
Too many. Too loud.
“Zara!” Kai shouted, his voice cutting through the roar.
He grabbed my shoulders, grounding me.
“Look at me. Stay with me.”
I focused on him. On the familiar storm-gray of his eyes. On the bond that tied us together, fierce and unbreakable.
“I can stop it,” I gasped.
“I can take it all. The fear. The hunger. I can end this.”
“That’s what scares them,” Kai said urgently.
“That’s why they built this place.”
Voss stepped closer, unafraid. “Because you are not a weapon, Zara. You are a choice.”
She gestured toward the swirling images around us.
“You can consume what is broken and end the cycle violently,” she said. “Or you can learn restraint and allow evolution to continue naturally, even if it costs lives.”
My teeth clenched.
“There it is,” she added, almost reverently.
“The teeth beneath the smile. The truth of what you are.”
The Devourer howled. Not in rage. In grief.
I saw it then. It was as if every path was branching out before me. Worlds where I gave in. Worlds where I held back. Futures soaked in blood or drowned in silence.
And somewhere among them…
Kai, standing alone. I screamed.
The power surged violently, the chamber shaking as cracks spiderwebbed through the walls. Alarms wailed somewhere deep within the academy. The glyphs burned too bright, some shattering entirely.
Mira cried out as one of the pylons exploded, sending her flying backwards. Kai roared, shifting partially as he shielded her with his body.
Voss staggered but did not fall.
Instead, she laughed.
“Yes,” she breathed. “That’s it. That’s what they were made for.”
I felt something snap. Not break. Awaken.
The Devourer did not take control.
I did.
The silver conduits disintegrated under my will, power folding inward instead of spilling out. The images vanished, the chamber plunging into dim, trembling light.
I stood shaking, breath ragged, heart hammering.
Kai stared at me, awe and fear tangled in his expression.
“What did you do?” he asked quietly.
I met his gaze, the bond humming with a new, terrifying clarity.
“I chose,” I said.
Above us, the academy shuddered.
And far beyond the sky, something ancient and immense turned its attention fully toward Earth.
I felt its hunger. And it felt mine.