Chapter 4
Nyx
Two Years Later
It’s like our alpha has gone mad—not that any of us can blame him. If I’d found out the humans had taken my mate, I would rip them apart, too. Not that I’ve sparked with my soulmate yet, but it’s still horrific to think about.
None of the high-ranking wolves in the Blackwood pack have ever seen our alpha rage the way he did when we first entered the industrial compound.
Our alpha is the type to work with his hands for the good of the pack.
Before Roman took over, it was unthinkable that such a powerful alpha would stoop to building cabinets and installing toilets for the rest of his pack.
He is a good leader, who works hard. I am proud to fight for his cause. And now… he is out for blood.
He ordered us to kill every last human we find.
My claws are stained red from slaughtering these pathetic humans who tried to scurry away from us in their lab coats, drenched in the scent of tranquilizers and misery.
Now, the only thing left of them are their helpless pleas still ringing out in our ears.
It doesn’t give me any pleasure to cut their brief lives short. This was nothing close to a fair fight… it was an extermination. It had to be once we saw what they have been up to. There isn’t anywhere they can hide where I won’t chase them down.
A howl rings out, signaling that the humans who ran this facility have all been mauled to pieces. Our focus now is to rescue as many of the shifters as we can… if we can.
Our alpha works with ruthless efficiency, breaking apart the silver manacles of every one of our kind that we find here.
But this rescue mission has somehow become even more grim. Some of the shifters we attempt to rescue are in bad shape. The damage done to their bodies… It’s like these scientists were trying to cause them permanent damage, not just study them.
We are breaking into isolated rooms, snapping the shackles off the imprisoned shifters one by one.
I’ll be surprised if some of them even make it.
These conditions are barbaric—they are all chained up either to beds or metal gurneys, and have been constantly poisoned by the silver in the cuffs for who knows how long…
I find a shifter who’s clearly had his leg amputated. The humans must have infused silver into his stitches, preventing him from being able to heal. The injury looks so old, but it still seems to be seeping. I don’t know if it will ever be possible for him to reverse the damage.
The entire reason we have extended lifespans—the reason our bodies are able to heal so quickly—is because our wolves are written straight into our blood.
Whenever we transform from man to beast, it forces our bodies to regenerate to a physically pristine condition.
Injuries melt away, leaving us whole again.
What were these scientists trying to accomplish here? They are intentionally disfiguring us, as if they are testing shifter limitations, seeing how hard they can push before their bodies give out completely.
More than anything though, this feels like blatant human greed and jealousy. In pure human fashion, they see something that we have and want to take it for themselves—in the cruelest way possible.
As fast as we can, we continue breaking into room after room. Ignoring the searing burns on my palms, I rip off chains and break them apart. Some shifters transform into wolves as soon as they are removed from the taint of silver; restoring themselves instantly.
But other shifters just lay there… still breathing, but looking more dead than alive. They look like they have been here a long time. Even after being freed from the silver around their wrists, they don’t move. They don’t wake up.
Is it already too late for them?
Most of the shifters trapped here are adult males. Where were all of them coming from? Their scents are all mixed up with sedatives, and the acid stench of cortisol makes it hard to sort out their pack scent.
Thankfully, none of them are Blackwood shifters, but I scent some Stonevalley and Edgeriver wolves in here. Neither of those packs would stand for humans stealing their packmates—they must have thought that their missing males were killed during the wars.
A few of them are Evenfall Ridge wolves, and somehow that makes sense to me. I’d heard that there was a sickness brewing amongst the alphas of the Evenfall pack; that something in their social dynamics was downright toxic.
It still seems impossible to think that they would allow this to happen to their wolves. That they wouldn’t notice their declining numbers and protect their own, shredding any human who threatened their pack. So then how did so many shifters from the Evenfall Ridge pack end up here?
Five of the shifters we release are males from Evenfall Ridge, and if I am not mistaken, the small female in the cell our alpha just broke into is too.
She looks like a doll, so delicate and fair with porcelain skin.
If I couldn’t smell the wild tang of wolf on her, I’d have trouble believing that she was a shifter.
Her features are dainty, and she has a little button nose in the middle of her heart-shaped face.
Whatever the humans have been doing to her must have blanched her fine hair—all of it is turning white, and only the tips remain a light brunette.
Whoever she is, she doesn’t belong here. She should never have had to deal with any of this.
I grab the metal at her wrists, ignoring the burn of silver, and wrench hard—but before the metal snaps beneath my hands, I feel it…
light flares across my skin as my fingers brush her wrist. Her touch awakens something within me…
recognition echoes through my bones, as something deep within my spirit reaches out to her.
Somewhere in my chest, deeper than blood and tissue and bone, a bond snaps into place.
Spreading from my fingertips across my hand, the light etches marks in my skin—constellations and moon phases—in a pattern that I’ve waited for my entire life.
Identical markings bloom across the wrists of the sleeping girl before me—an exact match.
Within me, my wolf howls so loud that he drowns out all thoughts but one.
Mate.
Whoever this girl is, she is mine.