Chapter 35 Kit #2
Sound hit first—a piercing alarm drilling into my skull. Frequencies that made my teeth ache. Temperature plummeting. Air turning arctic. Then lights. Strobing. Rapid. Nauseating flashes through my closed eyelids.
Felix’s grip tightened. Something else flooding the air—CO?, thick, choking. My lungs seized. Panic clawing at my chest. Body screaming for oxygen. Every instinct demanded I shift. Run. Fight. Flee. Do anything except stand here suffocating in this sensory hell.
But Felix’s weight against my chest. My anchor. His heartbeat—rapid but steady—drumming against my ribcage. Vanilla beneath the chaos. Real. Mine. Safe.
My wolf paced. Snarled. But I held it back through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.
The cacophony stopped. The lights ceased their flashing.
It might have been hours, or minutes. I couldn’t say.
I opened my eyes cautiously. Felix pulled his hands away from mine, blinking up at me with worried brown eyes.
“Did it work?” Isla asked. “Felix?”
Felix dropped to the floor to retrieve his tablet, his fingers trembled as he swiped at the screen. “I… I’m checking the feeds now…”
Then we heard it.
Dozens of sounds—paws scrabbling against concrete, confused yelps, deep growls echoing through the corridors. The controlled, coordinated footsteps had been replaced by something altogether more primal.
“Great,” Rory said flatly, lowering his hands from his ears. “Now we have a hundred angry wolves with sharp teeth trying to eat us. Not sure how this is better.”
The sounds grew closer. Much closer.
“Get behind me!”
The command left my throat before I’d consciously made the decision. Authority I’d forgotten I possessed flooded my voice, cutting through the chaos of approaching sounds.
Felix, Rory, and Isla moved instantly, pressing themselves against the corridor wall behind my shoulders. No hesitation. No questions. Just immediate compliance that sent satisfaction coursing through a part of me long forgotten.
Louder and louder. Claws skittering across concrete. Barks mixing with frustrated snarls. The controlled soldiers had become something else entirely—confused, disoriented wolves following only instinct.
I stepped forward instead of back.
The first wolf appeared at the corridor’s far end. Massive grey form, hackles raised, yellow eyes wild with confusion and rage. Then another emerged from a side passage. Another. Within seconds, dozens of wolves filled the intersecting corridors, all focused on our location.
Behind me, Felix’s breathing quickened. “Kit—”
“Trust me.”
More wolves materialised. Some of them moved wrong—jerky, unnatural. We might have forced their transformations, but the technology was still trying to exert control over minds that no longer operated on human logic.
A massive black wolf at the front of the pack lowered its head, lips peeling back to expose gleaming fangs. The others took their cue, dozens of muzzles drawing back in coordinated threat displays.
My own wolf surged, demanding I shift to meet the challenge. Instead, I reached deeper, accessing something older. Primal authority that had little to do with claws or teeth.
Power flooded my voice as I projected every ounce of dominance I possessed.
“STOP.”
The sound echoed off the concrete walls, resonating with frequencies that spoke directly to their wolf-brains. Several of the smaller ones immediately dropped to their bellies, whimpering. The larger wolves hesitated, confusion flickering across their features.
I stepped closer to the pack, resisting Felix’s hand reaching for my arm.
“We’re going to get you out of here. You were taken. Taken away from your families. But we’re here to help.”
The black wolf’s ears swivelled forward. Behind him, others began to settle, their aggressive postures melting into something more submissive. Recognition sparked in yellow eyes—not of me, but of what I represented. Alpha. Leader. Safety.
“Fucking hell,” Rory breathed behind me. “He’s alphaing.”
The wolves closest to me began to whine softly, a sound caught between relief and desperation. They understood. I was here. I would lead them out of this place.
I raised my voice again, addressing the growing pack. “Form up behind me. Stay close. Stay quiet. Follow my—”
Pain exploded through my skull.
White-hot agony stabbed directly into my brain, sharp enough to drive me to my knees. My vision fractured into jagged fragments, the corridor spinning violently around me.
The wolves sensed my distress immediately. Yelps erupted from the pack as my influence flickered. Several began pacing anxiously. Others started growling again, the fragile control I’d established crumbling.
“Kit!” Felix dropped beside me, hands reaching for my face. “What’s wrong?”
The pain intensified. My wolf thrashed, but each movement sent fresh waves of agony through my spine. The pack’s agitation grew. Without an alpha’s stabilising presence, they were reverting to their previous state—confused, angry, dangerous.
“Kit, talk to me!” Rory’s voice sounded distorted, like he was speaking underwater.
The black wolf took a step forward, hackles rising again. Others followed suit. Within seconds, they’d be attacking everything in sight.
The pain reached a crescendo. My vision went completely white.
Everything went silent.