Chapter 9
ROWAN
The moment we step around the collapsed wall, my lungs forget how to work. The faint heartbeat I heard before grows louder as I take each tentative step forward.
Cade is right beside me, and the others behind, or so I assume. It’s hard to focus on anything else. Especially when The Keep hums louder than usual. I feel its presence thrumming like a pulse. The longer it lasts, the more pressure I feel and the more I’m pulled forward.
A certainty so sharp it almost knocks the breath from my lungs.
Mom.
She’s so close.
Close enough that my wolf presses closer to the surface, growling softly, every instinct screaming there. The air changes, warmer than the corridors behind us, heavy with old magic and something achingly familiar.
The training room.
The Keep, or maybe even Malrik, must have a sense of humor. A cruel one.
We’ve come in from a side door I never used before, and the space stretches wide and circular.
The high ceiling is lost in shadow, the stone floor scarred with gouges and scorch marks from weeks of punishment disguised as lessons.
Cracked pillars lean at uneven angles now, frozen mid-collapse, and a section of the far wall is caved in, revealing what might be another room.
One where I’m pretty sure the heartbeat is coming from.
Did all of this happen when I escaped?
Gods, I’d hoped to never return to this room. The one where Malrik’s twisted therapy sessions turned pain into progress and fear into fuel. The place where he tried to break me down over and over again until I learned how not to shatter.
Though I still don’t know why.
I take a few slow steps forward, boots echoing too loudly in the open space. The faint pulse beneath my feet is still there, but it’s different now. Less welcoming. Less curious.
More watchful.
“Where the hell are we?” Liz mutters from behind me, blades already in her hands. “This looks like the setting for a horror movie.”
I snort despite myself. “This is where Malrik trained me.”
Cade snarls, likely at the reminder of our time apart, but stays close on my right, his presence a steady anchor at my side.
Archie’s massive form prowls just behind us, fur bristling, every step measured.
My father walks on my left, shoulders tight, eyes fixed straight ahead like if he looks hard enough at the room, it might give him what we came here for.
The others fan out slightly—Elias, Stephanie, Caleb—careful not to drift too far but giving one another space to react. No one speaks. The silence here isn’t empty. It’s expectant.
And underneath it all, faint but unmistakable, I hear it again.
Thump, thump, thump.
Rhythmic, but not loud. Possibly not even close yet, but seemingly very real.
My throat tightens.
“She has to be here,” I whisper, more to myself than anyone else.
Cade’s hand brushes mine, just enough to remind me I’m not alone. “We’ll find her.”
I nod, drawing in a breath that tastes like cold ashes and old memories. I don’t let myself linger. Lingering is dangerous. Lingering is how you let fear get comfortable.
We move deeper into the room together, steps slow and deliberate. The closer we get to the center, the more wrong it feels. Not like the room is hostile, but like it’s…waiting. The magic threaded through the floor shifts under my skin, restless and uneven, and Wolf lifts her head inside me.
This place remembers us.
I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
I’m halfway to the other room when the first tremor hits.
It’s subtle at first—a vibration under my boots, a faint shudder through the walls. I pause, lifting my hand instinctively.
“Did you feel that?” Stephanie asks.
“Yes,” Cade and I say at the same time.
Then the ceiling cracks.
Stone groans overhead, a deep, grinding sound that makes my stomach drop. Dust rains down in a sudden cloud, thick and choking, and before anyone can shout a warning, a chunk of the ceiling gives way.
The collapse is violent.
A massive section caves in with a thunderous roar, stone and debris slamming into the floor between us and the others. The impact knocks me off balance, Cade’s arm snapping around my waist as he hauls me back just in time to avoid a shower of falling rock.
Archie roars, the sound echoing through the chamber as my dad shouts for me.
“Rowan!”
“I’m here!” I cough, waving my hand through the dust.
When it clears, my heart sinks.
The room is split.
A jagged wall of rubble now divides the space, piled high enough that climbing it might be precarious at best. I can still see them—Archie, Marius, Elias, Stephanie, Caleb—through gaps in the broken stone, close enough to hear but suddenly unreachable.
Then, the heartbeat I’ve been following stutters, pulls away.
“No,” I breathe, stepping toward the collapse yet looking at the room further back.
I can’t lose my mom. Not when we’re this close. But I can’t leave the others behind. We need to stick together.
Cade’s voice cuts sharply through the haze. “Rowan, wait.”
I freeze with one foot on the fallen ceiling, turning to him.
His expression is tight but controlled, eyes already scanning the damage, calculating. “What are you thinking? What’s the plan here?”
I’m almost certain we don’t have time to pause, but he’s right. I’ve led them to this hell, and I can’t keep them blind.
They’re our pack, Wolf says firmly. We have to trust and protect them.
Pack. Family. Same thing. More so, I already know it.
“We get everyone back with us so we can stay together,” I tell Cade, then nod at the opening on the other side. “Then we get my mom. If she’s really here, then I think she’s back there.”
He grips the back of my neck and pulls me closer. “Together.”
Except before we can figure out how to traverse the rubble without breaking bones, a sharp hiss slithers down from the shadows above.
“More vampires!” Liz yells, emerging on our side from behind some of the larger rubble, with only a small scratch on her arm.
And then everything erupts into chaos.
What the hell is Malrik doing with so many of these leeches?
You fought them at NightShade, too, Wolf reminds me. He probably convinced the clan leaders that if you live, you’ll wipe them out or something equally dramatic and stupid.
I hate how right she is.
The first vampire drops like a spider with a vendetta.
One second, the ceiling is shadow and dust, the next it’s pale limbs and red eyes—too fast and too silent—landing on the wreckage like it’s been waiting for the exact moment we stopped moving and started planning.
Because Malrik loves timing.
“Down!” Cade barks, and the command doesn’t just hit my ears—it hits my bones, the alpha edge of it cutting through panic like a blade.
I react on instinct, crouching as something whistles over my head.
Claws.
The vampire’s hand rakes through the air where my throat just was.
Liz is already moving, blades flashing, a sharp smile on her mouth like she’s been bored for too long and someone finally brought snacks.
She sighs as she slashes and blood soaks her hands. “Great. Now, I’m sticky.” Her arm shakes out. “Worth it.”
“Focus,” Cade snaps, but it’s the kind of snap that says he’s grateful for her quick movements.
Behind the rubble, I hear Archie roar—deep and furious—followed by Marius’s growl that vibrates through the entire room like a warning bell.
We can’t see them clearly through the dust and broken stone, but I feel them. I feel the shift in the air as more bodies land, more weight hits the floor, more hunger crawls into the space.
And the worst part?
The heartbeat pulls again—faint but persistent—like it’s reminding me that the thing I want most is still right there.
Cade’s hand closes around mine, and for half a second, I forget where we are and what’s at stake. The bond tugs at my center, strengthening me until there’s no more fear hammering inside.
“Don’t make me regret this.” Then he brands his lips against mine for the briefest of seconds before shoving me toward the back of the room. “Go.”
I blink. “What?”
“Go,” he repeats, voice hard and calm at the same time, like he’s forcing the words through something that wants to drag him after me. “I can handle the vampires and keep our pack safe. You go get your mom. Then we get the hell out of here. Together”
I look at the hole in the wall again. Then back at him.
And I hesitate—just a breath. Just long enough to taste guilt and the sick, selfish relief of I’m going to get my mom even if they need me to fight these assholes.
My wolf shoves at me. Move.
Cade’s jaw flexes, but his eyes soften. “I’ve got them, but we’re running out of time.”
My throat tightens. Still, I obey.
Because leading doesn’t mean refusing help. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean pretending I can do this alone.
“Liz—” I start.
She’s already at my side. “I’m with you.”
I move toward the opening, stepping onto broken stone and cracked pillar fragments like The Keep itself is trying to trip me out of spite. Dust swirls in the air, thick enough to make everything look like a half-remembered nightmare.
Behind me, Cade roars, and the sound hits my spine with a crack.
I don’t look back.
Not because I don’t want to.
But because if I do I might not keep moving forward, and then this was all for nothing.
Liz follows close, daggers low, eyes sharp. We slip through the caved-in section of the wall and into the next chamber.
My entire body goes cold.
The room is smaller than the training hall, shaped like a ritual space that’s been repurposed into something between a lab and a shrine. Iron tables line the walls. Chains hang unused. Unlit candles sit in shallow bowls like they’re waiting for an audience.
And in the center…
A stone slab.
A ring of runes carved into the floor around it.
A web of magic suspended above like an invisible wire.
And my mother between them.
Jocelyn Prescott lies on the slab, her body lifted just an inch off the stone as if gravity has forgotten her. Her skin is too pale. Her auburn hair is matted to one side. She looks…wrong. Too still. Too quiet.
Too close to death.
My feet stop moving even though my mind keeps screaming.