Chapter 8
Three years ago…
London
Bishop Hale
I learned how to mask my thoughts with a smile at a young age.
The son of a Minister of Parliament doesn’t get the luxury of honesty, not in public anyway.
I learned the shape of approval early: how wide the smile should be, how long eye contact should be to be polite but not challenging, how to nod like I agree even when I didn’t understand the question.
I learned how to hold a glass I didn’t intend to drink from and how to laugh at jokes that weren’t funny because the wrong reaction could cost a man his career.
Or his life.
The gala was being held in what used to be the Royal Conservatory, its glass dome still intact, reinforced with steel ribs that gleamed under the lights like a cage dressed up as a crown. White banners hung from the balcony rails, emblazoned with London’s city crest on the ends.
Music drifted through the air, a string quartet playing something old and soothing, the kind of piece chosen specifically to make people believe that civilization was not only alive but thriving.
The scent of polished wood, expensive cologne, and rationed wine blended together, making my head spin just a little.
I stood at my father’s side, immaculate in a tailored suit that cost more than most families earned in a year, my posture perfect, my expression composed. I nodded when he spoke. I shook hands when he gestured. I said yes, Minister and of course and it’s an honor, the words chalk dust in my mouth.
“You’re quiet tonight,” my father murmured without turning his head.
“I’m just listening,” I replied.
That earned me a faint smile. It always made me feel good to earn his approval.
Across the room, the men and women who shaped London’s policies clustered in small groups, their conversations carried in low, confident tones.
These were the architects of the city as it was now.
They spoke of trade routes and containment zones, of population stability and resource management.
And of wolves in the same way one might speak of a disease.
I had heard it all before.
Then the room shifted. It was subtle—just a ripple, really—but it was obvious to someone like me. Conversations paused. Spines straightened. A few heads turned toward the entrance.
Lord Marcus Ashcroft had arrived.
He didn’t need to announce himself. He never did.
Ashcroft moved through the room like he had his own sense of gravity. He was tall and silver-haired, his presence bending attention toward him without effort. He wore no uniform, no insignia beyond a simple pin on his lapel of London’s crest, understated and unmistakable.
My father leaned slightly toward me. “Watch him,” he said quietly. “That is what real power looks like.”
I did. I always did.
Ashcroft spoke to a woman near the entrance first, Lady Renshaw, head of internal security, then moved on, collecting nods and murmured greetings like trophies. He didn’t linger. He didn’t waste time.
He passed close enough that I caught his voice as he spoke to my father.
“Minister Hale,” Ashcroft said smoothly. “A pleasure, as always.”
“The honor is ours, Lord Ashcroft,” my father replied, inclining his head just enough to acknowledge rank without appearing deferential. “You’ve already met my son, Bishop.”
Ashcroft turned his gaze on me.
I felt pinned in place.
“Ah,” he said, eyes flicking over me in a quick assessment. “Yes. The Hale heir.”
“I prefer ‘student,’” I replied automatically, the line well-rehearsed.
Ashcroft’s smile widened just a fraction. “Modest. That will serve you well.”
Or not at all, I thought.
He moved on before my father could respond, already engaged by another cluster of officials. The space he left behind felt colder somehow, like the air had been pulled out of the space along with him.
“I need a moment,” I told my father quietly.
He nodded, distracted now, already deep in conversation with someone else.
I slipped away toward the edge of the room, grateful for the chance to breathe without being watched quite so closely. I took a glass of water from a passing tray and sipped at it, letting the cool clarity ground me as I quietly listened to the conversations around me.
“…It’s more effective than the injectable,” a woman’s voice was saying. “Delivery is cleaner. Faster onset. Harder to trace.”
I turned slightly, angling my body so I appeared to be admiring a sculpture while my attention locked onto the conversation happening behind me.
Ashcroft stood near a side alcove with a small group: Lady Renshaw, a man I recognized as Director Collins from the Health Ministry, and a woman in a white coat named Dr. Helena Voss.
I’d read her papers. So had my father.
“An inhalant?” Ashcroft asked mildly.
Voss nodded. “An aerosolized compound. The stimulant binds to the same receptors but bypasses the bloodstream initially. Behavioral effects manifest within minutes.”
“And the results?” Ashcroft prompted.
“Consistent,” she replied. “Aggression spikes sharply. Cognitive function deteriorates rapidly. Subjects appear feral to observers within a very short window.”
My stomach tightened.
Lady Renshaw frowned. “Side effects?”
Voss shrugged, clinical. “Long-term viability is not a concern.”
Ashcroft hummed thoughtfully. “Public perception?”
“Indistinguishable from the injectable,” Collins said. “If anything, it reinforces existing data.”
Ashcroft’s smile returned, slow and satisfied. “Excellent.”
I felt suddenly acutely cold.
“You’re certain this won’t affect humans?” Lady Renshaw asked.
Voss hesitated just long enough for me to notice. “In high concentrations, there may be… some agitation.”
Ashcroft waved a hand dismissively. “That’s an acceptable risk.”
They shared a quiet laugh.
I took another sip of water to hide the tightening of my jaw.
“So, we proceed?” Collins asked.
“Yes,” Ashcroft said. “Carefully. Quietly.”
“Of course,” Renshaw agreed. “The narrative is already in place. Wolves go feral. They always have.”
“And always will,” Ashcroft replied smoothly.
The conversation shifted then, drifting toward logistics and timelines, and I stepped away before I could be noticed. My heart was beating too fast, my thoughts racing in a way that made it hard to maintain the mask I’d worn my entire life.
They were drugging wolves.
They were inducing the feral behavior.
I had known, abstractly, that London manipulated information. That policies were shaped as much by fear as by fact. But this… this was something else. This was manufacturing a monster in order to justify its destruction.
I found my father again near the balcony, deep in discussion with another minister. He paused when he saw my expression.
“You look pale,” he observed. “Are you unwell?”
“No,” I said. “Just… a bit warm.”
He nodded absently. “You’ll grow used to it. Have a glass of wine. You’ll feel better.”
After what I’d heard, I sincerely doubted that.
Later that night, I followed Dr. Helena Voss.
She left the gala through a side corridor, heels clicking softly against marble, a dark gray tailored overcoat hiding her white lab coat. I waited long enough for the string quartet to swell, for laughter to rise and fall, for my father’s voice to disappear into the hum of conversation once more.
Then I went after her.
The conservatory’s service wing smelled of polish and ozone. I kept to the shadows, keeping my posture relaxed and my expression bored, showcasing the practiced ease of a minister’s son who had grown up knowing which doors were important and which ones weren’t.
She headed into the underground, turning a corner and descending one of the old escalators that had stopped working ages ago.
I moved quietly, following the echo of her heels through the old subway tunnels.
The first holding room stopped me cold. I stepped inside, stunned by what I was seeing.
Wolves lay restrained on steel platforms, bodies strapped down with iron shackles.
Masks covered their muzzles, tubing snaking back to canisters that pulsed faintly, releasing a thin, colorless mist. Their eyes were wild, some glassy, some furious, some pleading.
A few had already begun to convulse, muscles jumping beneath skin as the stimulant did its work.
I edged closer, heart hammering, and focused on the details: the rate at which the mist flowed; the way pupils dilated in sync; the tremor that preceded the first, fractured howl.
I memorized it all. The labels on the canisters.
The serial numbers etched into the restraints.
The notation scrawled on a clipboard, ‘Behavioral escalation achieved within 3–5 minutes.’
A door slid open behind me.
I turned, expecting guards.
Marcus Ashcroft stood there instead.
He looked exactly as he had beneath the glass dome: impeccable, composed, his silver hair neat, his pin understated. The only difference was the absence of pretense.
My mouth was dry. “This is wrong.”
He smiled, small and indulgent. “I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Mr. Hale. My word is the law in this city now.”
Two handlers flanked him. They were wearing matte-black gear, faces blank, eyes trained on me.
“You have to stop this,” I said. “You’re manufacturing ferality.”
Ashcroft stepped past me, unbothered, and studied the nearest wolf like a sculptor appraising stone. “We are doing what’s necessary.”
“You’re drugging them,” I said.
“Of course,” he replied.
“I won’t be silent,” I said.
“That’s understandable,” he said pleasantly. “Silence is boring.”
He nodded to the handler.
“Release one.”
The restraints snapped open on the far platform.
The wolf rose in a violent surge, the mask tearing free as it inhaled the last of the mist. Its roar shattered the room, a sound of pain and fury braided together. It staggered, then locked onto me with an intensity that made my blood run cold.
I ran.
The corridor narrowed too quickly. Doors I’d passed moments before were sealed now. I slammed my palm against one, felt the unyielding refusal, and turned back as claws scraped steel behind me.
Ashcroft didn’t move.
He just watched me.
The wolf lunged. I ducked, felt the wind of it pass, and then crashed into a lab cart, sending a couple of canisters clattering to the floor. My foot slipped. The world tilted. Teeth closed on my forearm and pain flared white.
I screamed and kicked, connecting with the wolf’s ribs. It recoiled. Handlers rushed in then, batons cracking, driving it back into a cage with practiced cruelty.
I lay on the floor, breath ragged, staring at the blood blooming beneath my sleeve.
Ashcroft crouched beside me, close enough that I could smell his cologne. He examined the bite like a physician might, calm and curious.
“There, there now,” he said in a soft, patronizing manner. “It’s not a fatal bite. We are not savages after all.”
“You’re a monster,” I scoffed.
“Perhaps,” he smirked.
I felt hands seize my shoulders, forcing me back to the floor.
“Don’t,” I rasped. “You don’t have to do this.”
Ashcroft crouched again, bringing himself to my level. Up close, he smelled faintly of citrus and antiseptic, the scent of someone who never touched anything dirty if he could help it.
“My dear boy,” he said softly, “I very much do.”
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a syringe.
Clear liquid. No markings.
My heart began to pound, not with fear this time, but fury. I twisted, trying to wrench free, but the handlers were too strong. One pinned my uninjured arm. Another pressed a knee into my chest, not enough to break ribs, just enough to make breathing difficult.
Ashcroft held the syringe delicately, like a pen.
“You were too curious, Mr. Hale,” he said conversationally. “You saw things you were never meant to see.”
“I’ll tell them,” I snarled. “I’ll expose—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he interrupted, the warmth draining from his voice.
He slid the needle into my neck, his thumb pressing down.
Cold flooded my veins.
I gasped, the world lurching violently as my muscles began to betray me, strength bleeding out of my limbs in a rush that made me feel suddenly, terrifyingly small.
Ashcroft withdrew the syringe and rose smoothly to his feet.
All of a sudden, I was being dragged down into darkness that pressed in from all sides. I fought it out of sheer spite, but my body no longer obeyed me.
The last thing I heard was Ashcroft’s voice, distant and composed.
“Make sure to dispose of him properly.”
I woke to the sound of waves.
At first, I thought it was another hallucination, just my mind scrambling for familiar shapes as the drugs burned their way out of my system.
Cold bit into my skin.
Real cold.
I groaned and tried to move. Pain flared through my arm, terrible and insistent, and I sucked in a breath that tasted of salt and open air.
Open air.
I forced my eyes open.
Gray sky loomed overhead, heavy and low, pressing down on a jagged stretch of coastline. The sea crashed against rocks below, white foam tearing itself apart again and again in a violence that felt honest compared to the controlled cruelty I’d left behind.
I lay on my side, half-curled, my clothes damp and stiff with dried blood. My arm throbbed where the bite had been hastily bandaged.
I was in Ireland.
I didn’t know how I knew, only that I did.
Boots crunched on stone behind me.
I tensed weakly, fear spiking anew, but the sound moved away from me, not toward me. Then I heard voices, their tones muted and dismissive.
“Leave him,” one said.
“He won’t last long here anyway.”
A pause.
“What a waste.”
They walked away.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the sky, the sedative fog thinning just enough for clarity to hurt. When I finally forced myself upright, my legs shook beneath me, but they held. I gathered what little strength I had and began to walk inland.
I didn’t know how long I had—hours, days—but I knew one thing with absolute certainty as the cliffs gave way to grass and trees.
Ashcroft had made a mistake.
He had assumed that becoming a wolf would erase me.
I gritted my teeth.
He was wrong.