The air inside the western watch house was heavy with the ozone smell of burning spiritual crystals.
Seraphina stood beside the iron floor grating watching the erratic pulses of violet light coming from the massive energy reservoir in the basement below.
The stone walls glistened with the condensation of the storm that was brewing outside.
“The line is settling, my Lady,” Callum said from the shadows beside the weapon racks, calmly adjusting his leather gauntlets.
Seraphina spun around to face him.
“It’s not steadying Callum.
“The frequency is falling.
“An internal source is being systematically drained of the crystals.”
Callum stopped, his hands flat on his belt.
The flickering violet light distorted his features.
“You’ve spent too much time listening to rumors, Lady Seraphina. Alpha’s specialists are on their way.”
“They are not coming in time,” she said and purposely moved toward the door.
“Because you signed the logbook for delivery of the containment dampeners three hours ago. You drained the emergency stores.”
There was no sound but the heavy thrumming of the dying crystals.
Callum’s politeness disappeared, replaced by the stiff, lethal stance of a seasoned northern fighter.
His inner wolf stirred, aggressive pheromones filling the small stone room.
‘You really should of stayed in the library Seraphina’ Callum murmured, his polite accent bleeding into a harsh northern dialect.
You were so much easier to manage in your first life.
“You cried. You begged. You walked right onto the executioner’s block without causing half this much trouble for the timeline.”
Seraphina shook.
He knows it.
Not just a merc, but tied directly to the thing that had caused the very fracture of time itself.
“Who’s doing your contract, Callum?” she asked, her eyes flashing gold as her inner wolf awoke.
“Is it Maris?” “Or the master she serves in the dark?”
Callum let out a short mocking laugh.
Maris is a way to get somewhere.
A greedy girl who thinks she can purchase a dynasty with a stolen child and forged pages.
“No idea what storm is coming over the border this evening,”
He moved a step closer, his hand on the hilt of his heavy broadsword.
“The Hunter does not take orders from second daughters, Lady Seraphina. He clears the board for the real line to occupy the seat.”
Seraphina did not pause.
Callum parried with his gauntlet, a sharp ping echoing as metal struck metal and sparks flew.
Seraphina spun on her heel, using the momentum to twist behind him, and drove her heel into the back of his knee.
He grunted and went down on one knee but his reaction time was monstrous.
He swung his heavy broadsword in a huge arc, driving her back against the weapon racks.
The wood cracked loudly as heavy iron spears rained down on the floor.
You’re quick,” Callum admitted, standing to his full height.
Should be way too fast for any low-tier wolf daughter.
But your spirit remembers the executioner’s block, and your muscles are yet soft.”
He lifted his sword, the steel blade shining with a faint, corrupted red light, the hallmark of silver-rot poison.
One scratch and her nervous system would be paralyzed in seconds.
“Let’s see how many times you can dodge before the poison takes your wind,”
Callum sneered and charged with overhead blows, forcing Seraphina to back toward the narrow staircase that led down to the reservoir.
She parried when she had to, the little dagger chipping against the huge broadsword.
She was running out of room.
Beneath it the reservoir crystal pulsed a violent angry crimson, its structural integrity completely failing.
“This watch house is gonna blow, Callum!” she yelled over the rising hum.
“If that dam goes, the whole eastern ridge will tumble into the valley!
“That’s the whole idea,” Callum yelled back, his eyes dilated as he swung an armored kick that caught Seraphina in the ribs.
The force hurled her back over the safety railing.
She fell heavily on the stone platform directly over the pulsing reservoir, all the breath driven from her lungs.
She felt a sharp, blinding pain shoot through her left side.
Callum went slowly down the stone steps, his heavy boots shaking loose mortar from the walls.
He loomed over her, the poison dripping from the red blade at her exposed throat.
“Goodbye Seraphina,” he said softly.
“Tell the Moon Goddess the North remembers.”
Before he could bring the blade down, a thunderous crash exploded through the reinforced wooden doors at the top of the stairs.
The stone walls shook as a huge dark shape ripped through the rising dust, smothering the remaining lanterns.
Alpha Kael Draven was here.
His red eyes glowed like two burning coals, his claws extended, dripping with the blood of the outer sentries.
He threw his huge bulk at Callum, the fury of a wild beast protecting its mate.
The force sent Callum flying off the platform, both men slamming against the support pillars below, savagely.
The pillars of stone cracked, and pieces of masonry fell into the red glowing reservoir.
Seraphina hauled herself to her feet, clutching her broken ribs, looking down to the brutal struggle in the darkness below her.
Kael’s claws cut through Callum’s heavy armor like paper, but Callum fought back with the unnatural strength of foreign magic.
“Alpha!” Seraphina yelled.
The dampeners are gone!
“The core’s going to be in less than two minutes!”
Kael pushed Callum up against the remaining wall, his fangs near the man’s throat.
Her voice made him look up, her eyes meeting his crimson ones through the smoke.
Callum took advantage of that split second of distraction to pull a small black crystal from his vest and crush it in his palm.
Between them a sudden burst of black, blinding smoke, the sickening smell of sulfur and moonshade ash filling the basement.
When the smoke cleared, Callum was gone, save for a torn piece of his vanguard uniform and a smear of smoking blood.
Kael did not follow him.
He turned, vaulting back onto the platform with Seraphina.
He clawed at the superheated edges of the iron emergency casing that encircled the pulsing core crystal.
His muscles strained savagely as he used sheer brute strength to force the heavy shielding back into place.
The horrible red light faded, the hum of violet returning as the emergency locks clicked into place.
Kael stood, breathing hard, scarred hands on the hot metal casing, eyes on Seraphina.
The silence was deafening, broken only by the rumbling rain beating against the roof above.
“He called you by your name,” Kael said, his voice dropping to a dangerously low, gravelly register.
He came lumbering in, chest heaving.
“He knew things about your past that are not in any ledger pack. Seraphina, who was he exactly? And what did he mean by your ‘first life’?”
Seraphina met his demanding look, her heart beating against her cracked ribs.
The secrets were spilling over the edges, her mask was tearing apart, and before she could make a single protective lie—
Suddenly a long, deep, haunting howl broke through the storm from the direction of the north gate.
It was an unearthly sound, a fearful sound, an ancient and suffocating vibration that took all the breath out of her lungs.