Chapter 27
Sera
The journey to the Isle of Man took all night. Three, maybe four hours of black water and an even darker sky, of the bow climbing and dropping constantly. When the island finally lifted out of the mist like a dark shadow in the early morning light, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I’d made it.
I rounded the island and Douglas Head greeted me with its old lighthouse and black rocks. I kept outside the breakwater and let the coast run past my port side until I reached the dark mouth of an old service tunnel half-hidden in the folds of the cliff that I knew led to the Watch base.
I nosed the bow toward the opening and let the swell do the work, sliding me toward the narrow bite of the entrance. A slab of rusted steel sat three feet behind the waterline, barnacles crusting its lower lip, and a square, dark speaker was bolted to it.
I cut the engine as water slapped at the hull of the boat.
“Identify yourself,” the speaker rasped.
My throat felt dry. I leaned close and had to practically shout over the sound of the wind.
“Captain Sera Moore,” I said. “No light but our own.”
There was a brief moment of static and then the speaker answered, softer. “No fear but the necessary.”
A bolt thunked from somewhere inside the cliff and the sea gate lifted upward with a groan. Red work lights came alive from within, painting the wet tunnel scarlet.
I eased the engine to a murmur and slid through.
The tunnel opened into a flooded cavern. Hands waved me onward where two figures in oilskins and wool caps waited for me. One was hardly older than eighteen by the looks of it.
I made the last tie-off and climbed up into air that smelled like kettles and gun oil. The older one—a compact woman with a buzzed haircut and a scar that took a bite out of her eyebrow—clocked me fast, eyes flicking over me for a brief second before she lifted her chin.
“Name?” she asked, though she already knew it.
“Captain Sera Moore,” I said.
“You came alone,” the younger one ventured.
“Had to,” I said. “I need your commander. Now.”
The older one’s mouth twitched with approval and warning at once. “You always arrive by the back door?”
“When I have to,” I replied, not giving her any more details.
“Nessa, with me. Bring her.”
They moved quickly, putting me between them.
We passed through a second door that sealed behind us with a quiet sigh and climbed a tight staircase carved into the rock, boots ringing on metal treads.
We strode past a mess hall cut into the cliff with half a dozen recruits in knit caps inhaling porridge and pretending not to stare.
The next door took a palm and a code and a look from the guard that assessed me like I was nothing more than the usual cargo. Inside, the corridor opened into a room that had tables crowded with radios and battered laptops.
At the far end of the war room, a man stood over a long wooden table littered with maps and marked-up field reports.
His posture was all squared shoulders and brutal control, his hair clipped close to the scalp, eyes cold and hard to read.
He wore a patched field jacket with a single strip of white tape on the shoulder, no rank insignia.
The name in block letters across his chest read: DANE.
“Commander,” my escort said. “Captain Sera Moore.”
Dane’s gaze flicked to me in an instant. “Captain,” he said, his voice even and unhurried. “You’ve crossed a dangerous stretch of water to get here. I trust you didn’t do it for the view.”
Before I could answer, someone else stepped out from behind a radio console. He was taller than I remembered, but the same quick, calculating eyes that had been by my side through much of my youth. “Sera!”
I blinked. “Elias?”
Elias Kade. Fifteen years older than me, the man who’d trained me through my teenage years, who’d taught me everything there was to know about survival. His entire family had been torn apart by wolf shifters outside Liverpool when he was twenty.
“You look like hell,” Elias said, stepping close enough that I caught the faint smell of gun oil. “Where have you been?”
“Out there,” I gestured with my chin. “Ireland. Seeing things you won’t believe.”
Dane’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile that never made it to his eyes. “Then let’s hear it. Both of you. My office.”
He led us through a narrow passage carved into the rock. We ended up in a smaller room with four chairs, a battered desk, and a kettle on a hot plate. Dane closed the door, took his seat behind the desk, and gestured to me.
“Talk,” he ordered.
I told them all about Dublin, everything I knew about the Elder Lycan, the tunnels, traps, and bombs, the herding tactics, and the personality of the monster. I shared what I’d learned from his video diary entries. I told him everything except that I was mated to a pack of five wolf shifters.
“He’s building an army, even if it’s short-lived. Enough to destabilize what’s left of us. If we don’t move now, we’ll be overrun and killed,” I said.
Elias listened in silence, arms crossed, eyes flicking between me and Dane. Dane didn’t interrupt me, but his gaze never left my face.
When I finished, Elias spoke first. “You left something out.”
My pulse kicked. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been gone long enough for the rumors to reach here,” he said evenly. “Our scouts saw you in the company of wolves.”
My mouth went dry. “I’ve had contact with them. I needed to get through their territory.”
Dane leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “Contact. Just contact? That’s not what I hear.”
Elias’s voice stayed calm, but there was a stern, cold edge under it. “You’re mated, Sera.”
I didn’t move. “That’s not relevant to this—”
“It’s relevant to everything,” Dane cut in, his tone sharp enough to draw blood. “You know what they are. What they do. Wolves can wear a human face. They can talk, laugh, touch, but underneath it’s all the same rot.”
“They’re not—” I stopped myself. The truth wouldn’t help here. Not with men who saw wolves the way soldiers in old war films saw the enemy: irreversibly, irredeemably, and irrevocably dangerous.
Elias’s eyes stayed on me, searching my face. “Tell me the rest of it, Sera. Every detail. If you want me to trust you in the field, I need to know you’re still one of us.”
I didn’t tell them. Not about the bond. Not about the way the pack had started to feel like they had each stolen a piece of my heart. I gave them the sanitized version: cooperation, nothing deeper.
When I finished, Dane drummed his fingers once against the desk. “We’ll act on your intel. The Elder Lycan is a priority target. But you…” His gaze hardened. “You’ve already chosen a different side. You just haven’t admitted it to us yet.”
Elias’s voice was quieter, but it hit harder, nonetheless. “If you lied about being mated, I can’t trust you to have our backs when the wolves come. And they will come, Sera. I’d bet my life they’re already on their way here for you.”
“That’s not true,” I said, leaning forward. “You think I’d risk my life crossing the Irish Sea to bring you this if I wasn’t still one of you? The Watch has been my whole life since I came of age. I came here to warn the Watch, to help stop Reilly before he—”
Dane lifted a hand, palm outward, as if brushing my words aside. “You came here because you had nowhere else to go.”
“That’s not—”
He pressed a button on the panel embedded in his desk. The click of it echoed far too loudly in the small room. A moment later, a tinny voice came through an overhead speaker: “Yes, Commander?”
“Bring a security team to my office,” Dane said into the intercom. “Now.”
My stomach went cold. “What are you doing?”
Elias’s jaw was tight, but he didn’t move to stop the commander. “Sera—”
“No,” I said, standing so fast the chair scraped across the floor. “You don’t get to lock me up because you don’t like the truth. You need me. You need—”
The door burst open and four-armed Watch soldiers barged in, rifles at the ready, faces expressionless under their helmets.
“Captain Moore,” Dane said, his voice carrying the kind of smooth authority that left no room for argument. “You’re being taken into protective custody.”
I laughed. “Protective custody? You mean containment.”
“Call it whatever you like,” Dane said. “You’re compromised. Until we can confirm where your loyalties lie, you’re a liability.”
Two of the guards moved in. I twisted, caught one by the wrist, and shoved him back into the wall, but the second rammed the butt of his rifle into my side, knocking the air out of me. Hands grabbed my arms, wrenching them behind my back, cold steel biting at my wrists as the restraints locked.
“Elias!” I snapped, searching his face for some sign he’d stop this.
He hesitated, just long enough for me to see the conflict there, before looking away.
Dane’s voice was calm, almost bored, as he waved the guards toward the door. “Take her to Holding Three.”
We were halfway out the door when he added, almost as an afterthought, “And initiate Protocol W.”
The guards stiffened, their grips tightening on my arms. No one looked at me.
I didn’t know what Protocol W was. But the way the room seemed to hold its breath told me I wasn’t going to like finding out.