Chapter 23
TRISTAN
The reinforced oak front door didn't just splinter. It detonated inward.
The black iron hinges sheared off the stone frame under the weight of a high-yield offensive siege spell. A choking cloud of pulverized stone, dust, and splintered wood exploded into the red-lit entryway.
I didn't blink. I pulled the trigger the fraction of a second the dust cleared enough to reveal a silhouette.
The deafening roar of the twelve-gauge filled the sitting room. The lead combat slugs tore into the armored chest of the first mercenary stepping across our threshold. He went down hard, the kinetic force throwing his bulk backward into the two wolves rushing the narrow stairwell behind him.
"One down," I barked, racking the pump action, ejecting the hot shell casing. "They're wearing tier-three combat suppression tactical gear. Official Northern military surplus — not standard underworld contractors."
"Marcus warned me half an hour ago on the encrypted line," I continued, firing a second round blindly into the smoke choking the front entrance. "The target didn't hire local muscle. He flew a specialized extraction unit from his father's personal council guard."
"An armed council unit operating covertly on neutral academy territory is an act of continental war," Hayes stated, stepping out from the hallway leading to the back bedrooms.
He had holstered his firearm. He was relying on his own physical dominance in close-quarters combat. The feral gold in his eyes burned brighter than I'd ever seen — ready to slaughter every man who came through that door.
"Trent isn't playing by legacy rules anymore," I shouted over the noise, firing a third time as two armored mercenaries slammed bodily into Chris's amber shield.
"He knows what she is. If he gets the Pack-Heart onto a council transport tonight, there's no continental war.
He wins everything. We lose her permanently. "
I dropped the empty shotgun. It clattered against the stone floor.
And I let the electric ozone aura off the leash I kept it on at the academy.
My frat-boy persona was a strategic mask designed to keep the legacy elites constantly underestimating my house.
In reality, I'd been trained by the most ruthless underground pit fighters in the neutral zone before I was twelve years old.
I didn't fight with the formal honor of a Northern Heir.
I fought in the dark to kill what was in front of me.
I vaulted the overturned mahogany table in a single explosive motion.
I hit the first armored mercenary attacking Chris's shield before his tactical brain registered my movement.
My fist connected with the exposed side of his jaw, the raw kinetic energy of my unsuppressed aura channeling into the strike.
Crushing facial bone. The massive mercenary dropped instantly, his expensive suppression tactical gear failing against the output of a territorial legacy alpha defending his designated mate.
"Left flank!" Chris shouted, hands twisting frantically as he tried to expand the amber shield to cover the shattered window shutters.
I spun just in time to see it.
A third mercenary crashed through the ruined iron shutters and hurled a small, faintly glowing metallic sphere into the center of the sitting room.
Not a concussive round. Not a flashbang.
A restricted, illegal magical disruption grenade.
"Get down!" Hayes roared, diving forward, his body shielding the hallway entrance to Wren's bedroom.
I didn't have a fraction of a second to move. The sphere detonated silently the moment it hit the stone floor between us.
No fire. No noise. No heat.
Just a blinding flash of pure white light followed by a massive, concentrated wave of anti-magic energy ripping through the room.
It hit me like a speeding cargo truck.
My body wasn't visibly injured, but the blast severed my connection to my own magical core in an instant. The thick ozone scent vanished. I was cut off from my legacy strength, preternatural speed, and physical durability.
I slammed into the hard stone floor, air driven from my lungs, vision swimming with black spots.
The nullification wave washed across the entire room.
Chris's amber shield sputtered and died instantly, the old-world magic unraveling into nothing. He collapsed against the ruined console, clutching his chest, the violent detachment from his ancient core sending him into physical shock.
Only Hayes remained standing.
His magical connection to his bloodline was too dense to fully sever — the disruption grenade couldn't cut it completely — but it dampened his aura. He stood in front of the dark hallway, a wall of solid flesh and bone, ready to fight an entire armed tactical team with his bare and bloodied hands.
"Move out of the way, Heir Aldridge," a statically modulated voice commanded from the shattered entrance.
Three fresh, armed mercenaries flooded efficiently into the sitting room, stepping over the bodies of the men I'd dropped.
They didn't target Chris struggling on the floor or me.
They knew the nullification blast had temporarily incapacitated us both.
They aimed their suppressed automatic rifles at Hayes's chest.
"Stand down. We aren't contracted to assassinate Southern heirs tonight. We exclusively want the unbonded asset in the back. Step aside."
"If you want the omega in that room," Hayes growled, his voice an impossibly low vibration that defied the magical dampening, "you have to walk over my dead body."
The lead mercenary didn't hesitate. Didn't blink behind his tactical goggles.
He just pulled the trigger.
The suppressed rifle coughed three times in rapid succession. Heavy rubber kinetic slugs — designed to incapacitate a fully shifted raging beta wolf — slammed into Hayes's chest and shoulder.
He didn't go down.
He grunted — a sharp, pained exhalation — his jaw clenching against the trauma hitting his unwarded body. He took one slow, defiant step toward the black barrel of the rifle. The absolute devotion blazing in his golden eyes defied the mathematics of the armed extraction.
Both flanking mercenaries opened fire simultaneously.
Six more heavy slugs slammed into the Heir.
Hayes dropped to one knee, the concentrated fire overwhelming his dampened biological durability. Bright red blood bloomed rapidly across the dark fabric of his dress shirt. But he didn't fall over.
He stayed where he was — positioned between the mercenaries and the dark hallway — bracing himself against the bloody floor with one massive shaking hand, glaring up at the extraction team with unyielding feral rage.
"The Alpha is localized. Bypass him," the lead mercenary instructed calmly, gesturing toward the hallway.
Two armed men stepped fluidly around Hayes's bleeding form, coldly ignoring his desperate, bloodied attempt to grab their tactical ankles, and moved methodically down the corridor toward the closed, locked oak door.
I scrambled across the stone floor, vision blurring, limbs leaden and useless without my magical core supporting them. I couldn't reach them. I couldn't stop them. The nullification field had pinned me perfectly.
"Wren!" I screamed, the horrified sound tearing from my throat. A complete, devastating failure of the physical perimeter I'd sworn on my life to maintain. "Run! Get out of the house!"
But I knew there was nowhere for her to run. The safehouse wards Chris had designed to keep Trent out were now trapping her inside.
The sound of the heavy oak door splintering down the hall echoed through the ruined sitting room.
I had failed her. We had failed the perimeter.
The Pack-Heart was gone.