Atlas Hayes sat in the gallery, his stomach churning as he watched the monitor feeds.
The High Council sat in a semi-circle above him, their faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods.
“The breach is successful,” Elder Titus announced, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.
“The Silver-Blood unit has entered the pack.
The Alpha is engaged.”
“You’re going to kill him,” Atlas said, his voice shaking.
“You’re going to kill a Pack Alpha in his own home.
Don’t you know the consequences of doing that?”
“Grimshaw forfeited his rights when he lied to us,” Titus said, looking down at Atlas with milky eyes.
“We gave him a Dilution.
He tried to hide a Primal.
That is treason, Atlas.
And treason is answered with blood.”
Atlas looked at the screen.
He saw Ariella being dragged away by the twitchy rogue girl.
He saw the silver mist of the Huntsmen closing in.
“And my sister?”
“She will be stabilized,” Titus said.
“Her power is too volatile for Grimshaw’s bed.
We will strip the bond, purge the Ironfang mark, and she will be placed in the Breeding Sanctuary.
Her pups will be the new foundation of the Council’s army.”
Atlas felt his wolf growl—not in submission, but in a rough, protective rage he hadn’t felt in years.
Breeding Sanctuary.
The words were a death sentence for a woman like Ariella.
He looked at his father, Richard, who was sitting in the corner of the gallery.
Richard didn’t look at the screen.
He was looking at his hands, his face a mask of stoic acceptance.
“Father,” Atlas whispered.
“We have to stop this.”
“It is done, Atlas,” Richard said, his voice flat.
“The pack comes first.
Always.”
Atlas looked back at the screen.
He saw the Huntsmen leader break past Silas and head for the hidden passage.
He realized then that the “A” Litter had been a lie.
They weren’t pillars of the pack.
They were the architects of their sister’s execution.
He stood up, his chair clattering back.
“Atlas?
Where are you going?” Titus demanded.
“I’m going to finish my research,” Atlas said, his eyes turning gold.
The air in the emergency tunnels was damp and smelled of sulfur.
Mina was moving like a blur, her copper wires clicking against the stone walls.
“Almost there, Luna!
The Ash-Walker will meet us—”
Mina stopped abruptly.
It was a slip of tongue, she shouldn’t have mentioned Ash-walker.
A silver tether lashed out from the darkness, wrapping around Mina’s throat.
She was yanked backward into the shadows, a muffled yelp the only sound she made.
“Mina!” Ariella lunged forward, but a second tether slammed into the stone at her feet, erupting into a web of liquid silver that pinned her to the wall.
The lead Huntsman stepped out of the dark.
He moved with a terrifying, mechanical grace.
He didn’t have a scent, but the air around him felt cold—deader than Grimshaw’s Void.
It was the scent of a vacuum.
“Ariella Hayes,” the Huntsman said.
“The Council has come for its property.”
“I am not a property!” Ariella roared, her silver spark fighting against the dampening field of the silver web.
Her skin began to glow, the metallic mist swirling around her arms.
“You are an anomaly,” the Huntsman said, raising a specialized silver needle.
“And anomalies must be corrected.”
He stepped closer, the needle glowing with a faint, oily light.
Ariella closed her eyes, searching for the Command, for the Sovereignty, but the silver web was draining her, feeding on her spark.
She felt weak.
She felt like the girl in the storage room again.
Suddenly, a sound echoed through the tunnel.
It wasn’t a wolf’s growl.
It was a metallic, bone-shaking rasp.
“Get.
Away.
From.
Her.”
The Ash-Walker dropped from the ceiling, his obsidian broadsword cleaving through the air.
The silver web shattered as his blade hit the stone, the dark energy of the Rogue meeting the Siphoner-tech in a violent explosion.
The Rogue landed in front of Ariella, his bone-wolf mask glowing with a furious, charcoal-red light.
He didn’t look at the Huntsman.
He looked at Ariella.
“Are you hurt?” he rasped, his gloved hand reaching back to check her, even as he faced the enemy.
“Mina…
he took Mina!” Ariella gasped, pointing into the shadows.
The Ash-Walker’s red lenses flared.
He turned back to the Huntsman, his body vibrating with a raw, unrefined rage.
“You took a pup of the Ash,” the Rogue growled, his voice dropping into that deep, human rumble that Ariella still couldn’t place.
“Now, you pay in blood.”
The fight was a blur of high-speed violence.
The Huntsman was fast, but the Ash-Walker was vicious.
He used his blade, his fists, his teeth.
He caught the Huntsman’s arm, his fingers crushing the silver-blood armor.
“Tell Titus,” the Rogue hissed, slamming the Huntsman into the tunnel wall.
“Tell him that the Ash doesn’t hide anymore.
We hunt.”
Huh, Ariella exclaimed.
The Ash doesn’t hide anymore?
As in Ash-walker won’t be hiding anymore, is that it?
She thought.
He drove his blade through the Huntsman’s chest.
The creature didn’t bleed red; it bled a thick, glowing silver that hissed as it touched the obsidian.
The Huntsman dissolved into dust, leaving only the silver needle behind.
The Ash-Walker turned to the shadows, slicing the tether that held Mina.
The girl tumbled out, gasping and clutching her throat.
“Go, Mina.
Take the Luna to the mine.
Now.
“What about you?” Ariella asked, reaching for him.
The Rogue paused.
He looked at her—at the emerald dress she was still wearing, at the mark on her neck.
He reached out, his gloved thumb brushing the bruise Grimshaw had left.
“I have to finish the dance with the Alpha,” the Rogue rasped, his voice softening.
“He’s losing.
And if he falls, the pack falls with him.”
“You hate him,” she whispered.
“Why help him?”
“Because we share the same soul,” the Rogue said, a cryptic, haunting truth that Ariella didn’t understand.
“Now, run.”
He vanished back toward the end.
Mina grabbed Ariella’s hand.
“No time, Luna!
The other two are still up there!
We gotta move!”
As they ran toward the Old Sunder Mine, Ariella felt the silver spark in her chest begin to thrum in a new way.
It wasn’t just heat, more like a connection.
She looked back at the end, which was silhouetted against the dark sky.
She had been saved by the Rogue again.
But the Ash-Walker’s words echoed in her mind.
‘We share the same soul.’
It couldn’t be what she was thinking right?
She thought of Grimshaw’s grey eyes.
She thought of the Rogue’s red lenses.
The Lukan lie was starting to crumble.
And as she reached the gates of the mine, Ariella realized that the war didn’t just start in the Fracture.
It was inside the man who owned her.