Pack Secrets, Bank Lies
Regina Voss
The morning light filtering through the dusty windows of the safehouse isn't warm. It’s gray, sharp, and judgmental, cutting across the room like a cold blade.
I wake up on the floor, curled into a defensive ball on top of a musty rug that smells of neglect, old money, and the lingering scent of vampire—ozone and rain.
My body aches—a deep, marrow-deep soreness that has nothing to do with the tear in my leg and everything to do with the wolf pacing restlessly in my chest.
She is scratching at the back of my ribs, agitated and ashamed.
You lost control, the wolf snarls, her voice a jagged whisper in my mind. You showed him your belly.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the memory of last night. The heat that flooded my veins like liquid fire.
The way I lunged at him, driven by a hunger that eclipsed reason. The way my claws extended, not to fight, but to claim. I almost marked him.
I almost sank my teeth into the neck of a vampire billionaire I barely know, driven by an instinct so primal it terrifies me.
And he rejected it.
He didn't just push me away; he walled himself off. He retreated behind that flawless, aristocratic mask of his, treating me like a volatile asset that needed to be contained.
I can still feel the cold phantom pressure of his hands holding me back, the clinical distance in his eyes.
"You are awake," a voice says from the kitchen area.
I flinch, sitting up too quickly. My leg throbs, a sharp, white-hot pulse of pain, but the bleeding has stopped.
Zephyr cleaned it. He bandaged it with efficient, clinical hands that didn't linger a second longer than necessary.
Zephyr is standing by the counter, holding a mug of something that smells like black coffee and expensive spices—cardamom and star anise.
He is immaculate. His suit—the ruined one—is gone, replaced by a fresh, dark turtleneck and trousers he must have found in a hidden cache.
The fabric looks soft, expensive, swallowing the light. His hair is perfect. His posture is rigid.
He looks like a CEO preparing to fire an underperforming employee.
"Coffee," he says, sliding the mug across the granite island. It stops precisely at the edge, not a drop spilled.
"Drink. We have work to do."
I stand up, wincing as I put weight on my bad leg. The floorboards creak beneath my boots.
I feel exposed in my torn tactical gear, my hair a mess, my skin still humming with the residue of his magic—a static charge that won't dissipate.
"Thanks," I mutter, limping over to take the mug.
The ceramic warms my cold hands. I don't look at him. I can't. If I look at him, I'll see the disgust in his eyes.
"I have secured a secure line," Zephyr says, turning his back to me to tap on a holographic keyboard projected from his wrist-comp.
The blue light casts harsh shadows on his face.
"We need to assess the damage to your reputation. If we are going to survive, we need to know exactly how deep the hole is."
"My reputation?" I let out a bitter laugh that scrapes my throat.
"Zephyr, I’m excommunicated. There is no reputation. There is only a target on my back."
"Reputation is currency," Zephyr corrects, his voice cool and detached.
"Even bad currency can be traded if you understand the exchange rate."
He turns to face me, his gray eyes sweeping over me with zero emotion. He is auditing me. He is checking for structural weaknesses, for cracks in the foundation.
"Last night," he says, and my heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Last night was a biological anomaly. A side effect of the magical overdose. It will not happen again."
He says it like a statement of fact. Like he’s already filed the paperwork to annul the moment. Like he has deleted the data.
"Right," I say, taking a sip of the coffee. It’s bitter, strong enough to strip paint. "Just a glitch in the system."
"Exactly," Zephyr says.
"You were compromised. Your internal regulation failed. I... assisted in the reboot."
Assisted. He makes saving my life sound like tech support.
He gestures to the holoscreen floating above the counter.
"I have breached the Crescent Pack's public server. We need to see what narrative they are spinning."
I step closer, forcing myself to focus on the screen and not the scent of him—ozone, cold rain, and something darker, like ink—that fills the small kitchen. I am the Auditor. I deal in facts. I deal in truth.
But as I look at the news feed scrolling across the blue light, I realize that truth is the first casualty of this war.
WANTED: REGINA VOSS. TRAITOR. THIEF. MURDERER.
My face is plastered on the digital bulletin board of the supernatural underground. And below it, a list of crimes I didn't commit, signed by the one person I thought would never betray me.
"Cassian," I whisper. The name tastes like ash.
"The Alpha," Zephyr confirms.
"He isn't just accusing you of theft, Regina. He’s accusing you of murdering the vault guards. The ones who chased us."
I grip the edge of the granite counter, the cold stone biting into my palms, my knuckles turning white.
"I didn't kill them. The artifact... the pulse... it knocked them back, but they were alive when we fell."
"History is written by the one holding the pen," Zephyr says. "Or in this case, the one holding the security logs."
He swipes his hand, and a new window opens. It’s a video file. Grainy, black-and-white footage from the tunnel junction.
I watch myself—or someone who looks like me—drive a knife into Kael’s chest.
The figure moves with a feral, sloppy violence that isn't mine. The blood spray looks black in the monochrome feed.
"That's a glamour," I say, my voice shaking with rage.
"That isn't me. My stance is wrong. I lead with my left. That... thing... is leading with its right."
"A deep-fake," Zephyr agrees. "Clumsy, but effective enough for a Pack fueled by adrenaline and loyalty. They aren't looking for glitches. They are looking for a scapegoat."
He closes the window with a sharp flick of his wrist.
"You are burnt, Regina. The Crescent Pack will not stop until you are dead. They cannot afford to let you speak."
"So what do we do?" I ask, looking at him. "How do we fight an entire pack?"
"We don't," Zephyr says.
He walks around the counter, stopping a few feet from me. He pulls a small, silver drive from his pocket. It glints in the harsh morning light.
"I have prepared an extraction protocol," he says.
"New identities. A flight out of the city in two hours. A safehouse in Zurich with wards strong enough to block a scrying spell. I can set you up with enough capital to live comfortably for three lifetimes."
I stare at the drive. It’s freedom. It’s safety. It’s the easy way out.
"And you?" I ask.
"I stay," he says simply. "My bank is here. My assets are here. I will deal with Daxios on my own terms."
"You'll die," I say. "Without the connection... without the grounding... Daxios will tear you apart."
"That is a risk I am willing to take to protect my portfolio," he says, his voice devoid of warmth. "Take the deal, Regina. Run."
I look at the drive, then at the screen where my face is branded 'Traitor'.
I think about Zurich. Cold mountains. Hot chocolate. Peace.
Then I think about the look on Cassian’s face in the vision Daxios showed us.
The smug satisfaction of a man who sold his family for power. The smoke rising from Sector 4.
I push Zephyr's hand away.
"No."
Zephyr blinks, a flicker of surprise breaking his composure.
"Regina, be rational. You have zero leverage. You have zero support. Staying is suicide."
"Leaving is admission," I snap. "I am an Auditor, Zephyr. I don't run when the numbers don't add up. I find the error. I fix the ledger."
I reach into my jacket—my torn, bloodstained tactical jacket—and pull out a small, leather-bound book.
It’s damp, smelling of the tunnels and mildew, but the waterproofing held.
"My father's journal," I say, slamming it onto the counter. It lands with a heavy, wet thud. "I stole it from the Archives before I went to the Vaults. If Cassian is rewriting history, maybe the truth is in here."
Zephyr looks at the book. "Paper? How archaic."
"Ink doesn't glitch," I counter.
I open it. The pages are filled with my father's handwriting—spidery, frantic loops of ink that look like they were written in a hurry.
Diagrams of the city layovers. Sketches of artifacts that look disturbingly biological.
And prophecies.
I flip through the pages, my fingers trembling. The paper feels rough under my fingertips.
"Here," I say, pointing to an entry dated three weeks before his death.
The structure of Enoch is failing. The ley lines are drifting. We need the Keystone.
"Keystone," Zephyr reads over my shoulder. His breath ghosts against my neck, sending a shiver down my spine.
"Architectural term. The central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together."
"He wasn't talking about a stone," I say, tapping the next line.
The Heir is the key. Not of pure blood, but of mixed earth. The Bridge between the Shadow and the Wild.
I look up at Zephyr. "Mixed earth. Shadow and Wild. That’s us. Or... that’s me."
"A hybrid," Zephyr muses, his eyes narrowing as the calculation takes over.
"A biological bridge capable of stabilizing the magical frequency of the city. That is why Daxios wants you. You aren't just a battery. You are the structural integrity of the entire realm."
"And Cassian knows it," I realize.
"That's why he wants me dead. If I'm the Keystone... then he's just a brick in the wall. He can't be Alpha if the city itself chooses me."
"We need proof," Zephyr says, his mind shifting gears from 'escape' to 'strategy' instantly.
"Prophecies are poetry. We need hard data to clear your name."
"The footage," I say, pointing at the holoscreen.
"If Cassian faked the murder, there has to be a source file. A raw feed."
"Smart," Zephyr murmurs. A hint of approval warms his tone. "If he edited the feed, the original must exist. And if he was arrogant enough to keep it..."
He turns back to the keyboard. His fingers fly across the light-keys, moving faster than humanly possible.
"I am running a trace on the upload signature. It wasn't uploaded from the Stronghold. The encryption is too sophisticated for wolves."
"Daxios?" I ask.
"No," Zephyr says. "Daxios is a broker. He hires talent. This signature... it belongs to a Slicer I know. A freelancer who operates out of the Blind Spot."
He hits a key. A map of the city pops up. A red dot pulses in the industrial sector like a heartbeat.
"Got him," Zephyr says. "But look where the data packet was routed before it went public."
I lean in. The line on the map doesn't go to the Pack stronghold. It goes to a location in the Bloodriver District.
"The Market of Teeth & Tallow," I whisper. "The butcher shop."
"Specifically," Zephyr says, zooming in, "a stall owned by a goblin fence named Grix. He trades in stolen memories and blackmail material."
"Cassian didn't just fake the video," I say, the realization cold in my gut. "He bought it. He outsourced his betrayal."
Zephyr straightens up, the hologram reflecting in his eyes. "If we can get to Grix, we can get the raw footage. We can prove you were framed."
"And we can find out what else Cassian bought," I add.
I look at Zephyr. The distance between us is still there, the walls he built last night still high, but there is a door open now. A professional courtesy.
"You said you wanted to protect your assets," I say.
"I'm the Keystone, Zephyr. If I fall, the city falls. And if the city falls, your bank goes with it."
Zephyr looks at me. For a second, I see the hunger flare in his eyes again—that dangerous, consuming heat. But he locks it down. He nods, once.
"Agreed," he says. "We secure the Keystone."
He grabs his jacket from the chair.
"Get your gear, Regina," he commands, his voice dropping into that low, authoritative register that makes my wolf shiver.
"We have to go to the butcher shop."