Chapter 72 The Weakened Pack
The silver gas didn’t just smell like sweet rot; it tasted like the end of the world. It hung in the air, a thick, shimmering curtain that stripped the Alpha out of the room. I watched, paralyzed, as Rune—the mountain of a man who could snap a tree trunk with his bare hands—buckled to his knees. The golden glow of his eyes flickered and died, leaving behind the flat, vulnerable brown of a human.
"Rune!" I lunged for him, but a wave of nausea rolled over me.
"Don't... touch the mist, Lyra," Rune wheezed, his voice stripped of its primal bass. He clutched his chest, his fingers digging into the scars on his ribs. "My wolf... it’s like he’s being buried alive under a mountain of ice."
Across the hall, Kael was clawing at his throat, his charcoal-grey tunic soaked in sweat. "It’s a Null-Atmosphere. Vane... that bastard... he used a Moon-Shatter to sever the Primal Link. We’re just men now, Lyra. Just flesh and bone."
"Caspian!" I turned toward my husband.
Caspian was standing, but barely. He was leaning against a shattered pillar, his knuckles rapping rhythmically against his skull. The electric blue of his eyes had faded to a stormy, dull navy.
"Kael, shut up!" Caspian roared, though Kael hadn't spoken a word. "Stop thinking about the formation! Stop thinking about the fallback points! Your thoughts are hitting me like lead weights!"
"I'm trying to coordinate a defense, you idiot!" Kael shouted back, his voice cracking with human strain. "If I don't calculate the Nullifier’s entry speed, we’re dead in thirty seconds!"
"Your calculations feel like needles in my eyes!" Caspian snarled, lunging toward Kael. "All I can feel is my rage at Vane, and your logic is polluting it with math!"
"Stop it!" I stood between them, my hands outstretched. "The gas... it isn't affecting me."
The three of them froze, their gazes snapping to me. I felt the weight of their combined stares, but for the first time in an hour, there was no psychic feedback. The gas had severed their connection to their wolves, but it had also turned their shared mind into a scrambled mess of static. They were still linked, but the "wiring" was short-circuiting.
"You're the Luna," Kael whispered, his eyes wide. "The Silver Moon resonance. The gas is designed to kill the beast, but you... you are the moon. It can't dampen what’s inherent."
"Then I'm the only one who can fight," I said, drawing the silver dagger from my belt. The weight of it felt right. "Kael, give me the strategy. Now. No math, just directions."
"Lyra, no," Caspian gasped, trying to reach for me. His hand was shaking. "You can't go out there. The Nullifiers... they’ll tear you apart. I can't let you—"
"You can't do anything, Caspian!" I snapped, the sound echoing like a whip-crack in the hollow hall. "Look at you. You can't even stand without that pillar. I am the General now. Kael, talk!"
Kael took a jagged breath, his face pale. "Six Nullifiers at the west breach. Four coming through the rafters. They use silver-tipped pikes. If they touch you, the dampening will hit you through the skin."
"Rune, can you move?" I asked.
The giant pushed himself up, his muscles trembling. "I can't shift, but I still have my reach. I'll be your shield, Lyra. Even if I'm just meat."
"Good. Caspian, stay in the center. If Kael starts to lose the map, you keep him focused. Use that overprotective rage for something useful."
"You're bossing me around?" Caspian asked, a flicker of his old, arrogant smirk returning despite the pain.
"I'm saving your life. Shut up and watch the east flank."
The West doors groaned and then shattered. Four men in heavy, silver-lined plate armor stepped through the mist. They moved with the surgical precision of the North, their pikes leveled at my chest.
"The girl," the lead Nullifier commanded, his voice muffled by his visor. "The Alphas are neutralized. Take her."
"Over my dead body," Rune growled, stepping in front of me.
He swung a broken piece of the marble altar like a club. It was a human move—clumsy and slow compared to a wolf’s strike—but Rune’s human strength was still legendary. The marble smashed into the lead Nullifier’s helmet, sending the man sprawling.
"Now, Lyra!" Kael shouted. "Slide left! The second one is overextended!"
I didn't think. I moved. I slid under the thrust of a silver pike, the air whistling inches above my head. I drove my dagger into the gap of the guard’s armor at the knee. He went down with a muffled shriek.
"Three more coming from the rafters!" Kael’s voice echoed in my head, sharp and clear for a split second. "Twelve o'clock, Lyra! Drop and roll!"
I hit the floor as a heavy pike slammed into the stone where I’d been standing. I felt the static from the brothers flare—Caspian’s terror for me was a cold spike in my gut, distracting Kael’s tactical feed.
"Caspian, stay out of his head!" I yelled, kicking a guard's shin and driving my elbow into his visor. "Kael, give me the rafters!"
"I'm trying!" Kael screamed, clutching his head. "Caspian, stop seeing her blood! She isn't bleeding yet! Your imagination is clogging the link!"
"I can't help it!" Caspian wailed, his voice raw. "Every time a blade gets near her, I feel it in my own throat!"
It was chaos. I was the only one moving at full speed, but I was being guided by a strategist who was being mentally assaulted by a jealous, terrified soulmate. Rune was a wall of muscle, taking hits that would have killed a lesser man, his body a bruised and bloody mess as he swatted guards away from me.
"Face-slapping time," I muttered, spinning around and delivering a backhand to a guard who had managed to get behind Rune. The silver in my rings—resonant with my Luna-blood—shattered his visor. "Is that all the North has? Men in tin cans?"
"Don't provoke them, Lyra!" Kael warned. "There’s a second wave in the courtyard!"
"Then we hold the hall!" I shouted. "Rune, to the door! Caspian, get off the floor and grab a sword! You don't need a wolf to swing steel!"
Caspian looked at me, the navy in his eyes sparking with a sudden, fierce pride. He reached down and snatched a fallen guard’s blade. He stood tall, his human frame still regal, still terrifying.
"You heard the General," Caspian hissed, looking at the next line of guards. "Come and get her."
For a few glorious minutes, we held them. A human King, a human Enforcer, and a Silver Luna. We were a mess of crossed thoughts and physical agony, but we were a wall. Every time a guard got close, I was there with the dagger; every time they tried to swarm me, Rune’s massive fists or Caspian’s precise blade sent them back.
But the gas was getting thicker. The sweet scent was starting to make my own head swim.
"Kael?" I called out, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
"The... the wards are gone, Lyra," Kael whispered, his voice fading. "I can't see the courtyard anymore. The static... it’s taking over."
Suddenly, the fighting stopped. The Nullifiers didn't retreat; they simply stood still, their pikes held at the ready. The mist in the room began to swirl, drawn toward the ventilation grates in the ceiling.
A heavy, amplified voice began to echo through the vents, bouncing off the stones. It was Vane.
"Impressive," Vane’s voice rumbled, dripping with a sickening, condescending respect. "The Silver Luna leading a pack of human cripples. You fight well for a girl with no brothers to hide behind."
"Come in and say that to my face, Vane!" I yelled, wiping blood from my forehead.
"Why would I soil my boots?" Vane laughed. The sound was a dry rattle. "I don't want your manor, Lyra. I don't want the Thorne lands. I want the girl who can bridge the Void. I want the key to the North’s future."
I looked at Caspian. He was shaking, his sword dipping toward the floor. Rune was leaning heavily against the doorframe, his chest heaving. Kael was slumped on the floor, unconscious or close to it.
"The gas will continue to pump until your lungs fail," Vane’s voice continued, cold and calculated. "But I’m a man of tradition. I’ll offer you a trade."
The brothers looked at me, their eyes full of a sudden, sharp dread. Even through the static, I felt the "No" echoing from all three of them.
"Hand over the Silver Luna," Vane’s voice boomed, final and absolute. "Walk out of the gates, Lyra, and give yourself to the North. Do this, and the gas stops. Do this, and the Thorne brothers live to see another sunrise—as humans, but alive."
I looked at the silver dagger in my hand.
"And if I don't?" I asked.
"Then I’ll burn the manor with them inside," Vane replied. "And I'll pick your corpse out of the ash. One way or another, Lyra, you’re coming with me."
Caspian tried to speak, but he only managed a dry, hacking cough. He reached for my hand, his blue eyes begging me to stay.
"Don't..." he wheezed.
I looked at the doors, then back at my three broken husbands. I knew what I had to do.
"Kael, can you hear me?" I whispered.
A faint, flickering thought brushed mine. Don't do it, Lyra. It's a trap.
"It's the only way you survive," I said.
I stepped toward the doors, my boots clicking on the marble.
"I’m coming out, Vane!" I shouted.
"Lyra, no!" Rune roared, trying to lung for me, but his legs gave out.
I reached the threshold of the Great Hall. The mist was thinner here, and I could see the red moon hanging like a drop of blood in the sky.
"The trade is made!" Vane’s voice echoed one last time. "Guards, escort the Ward of the North."
As the Nullifiers closed in on me, I felt a sudden, violent shift in the link. It wasn't static anymore. It was a single, unified scream of three souls being torn apart.
And then, a new voice entered the link—a voice that didn't belong to the brothers.
"He lied, Lyra," the voice whispered. "He's not going to let them live."
I froze.