-Adrian-
The scent of the pack hospital burns my nostrils as I stride down the hallway, Killian and Jamison flanking me like sentinels. Nox paces restlessly beneath my skin, sensing my unease.
"I smell fear and blood," Nox growls inside my mind. "Someone has harmed what should be protected."
"We'll find out who's responsible," I respond internally, keeping my face neutral despite the rage building inside.
I give the receptionist a curt nod—no time for pleasantries when my mind is racing with the implications of what Xander found.
"I should have ended this years ago," I growl under my breath, my voice low enough that only my closest men can hear. "Amos has been operating unchecked for too long."
"We were merciful when we should have been deadly," Nox snarls. "A mistake we won't make twice."
Ahead, I spot Asher leaning against the wall, his posture deceptively casual, but I catch the tension in his jaw. Beside him, Xander paces like a caged animal, running his hands through his hair repeatedly—a nervous habit he's had since we were pups.
Asher kicks off the wall the moment he sees me, alerting Xander who spins to face me, his eyes wide with a mixture of defiance and apprehension.
"I'm sorry, Alpha," Xander blurts out, holding his hands up in immediate surrender. "I know what my mission was—surveillance only, no engagement—but I couldn't leave her in there." His hands drop and his spine straightens, eyes hardening with conviction. "I wouldn't leave her in there. Not after what I saw them doing to her."
"He did right," Nox rumbles approvingly. "We protect the innocent."
The raw emotion in Xander's voice tells me everything I need to know. Whatever he witnessed was bad enough to risk disobeying a direct order from his Alpha—something he's never done before.
I place my hand on his shoulder, feeling the coiled tension beneath my palm. "It's okay, Xander," I say, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I trust your judgment. If you felt extraction was necessary, then it was."
Relief washes over his face, though the haunted look in his eyes remains. Whatever he saw in Roxie's establishment has left its mark.
"Introduce me to our guest?" I ask, my voice deliberately gentle.
Xander leads me into the patient room, his steps measured and careful, like he's approaching a wounded animal. Dr. Matthews stands at the bedside, checking vitals on a young girl whose back is turned to us. All I can see is a cascade of flame-red hair trailing down her slender back.
"Elara," Xander calls softly, "are you up for some company?"
The girl sighs, the sound so heavy with resignation it makes something in my chest tighten. "Sure," she says, defeat coloring her voice. "When do I get to go home?"
I move around to face her properly, and I have to physically lock my muscles to prevent myself from reacting visibly. When Xander reported finding a girl at Roxie's, I was expecting another werewolf, maybe even a human.
Not a Fae. And certainly not one so young.
"A CHILD," Nox roars, his fury making my vision sharpen. "They took a CHILD! We will tear them apart for this!"
"Patience," I caution him, though I share his rage. "We need information first."
"There is no patience for those who harm children," he snarls back.
"I think after a few questions," I say, keeping my voice steady despite the fury building inside me, "my Beta, Asher, can arrange for you to use the portal and get you home in a few hours."
The relief that washes over her face is palpable, her slender shoulders releasing tension she's probably carried for years. Despite her attempt to remain stoic, I can see the desperate hope flickering in her too-old eyes.
"How is she, Matthews?" I ask, turning to our pack doctor, already dreading the answer.
Dr. Matthews glances down at his tablet, his expression carefully neutral—the face of a medical professional who's seen too much and learned to compartmentalize. "She's anemic from the blood loss," he says clinically, but I catch the slight tremor in his hand. "And she has..." he clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable, "extensive scarring. This is all consistent with the... circumstances of her captivity."
Blood loss. The words echo in my mind like a death knell. I can guess what Amos wanted with her blood—the same thing he wanted with mine and Asher's when he held us captive for five long years. The same twisted obsession that's driven him to abduct species from across the supernatural world.
My scars itch with phantom pain, memories of needles and tubes and my own blood filling vial after vial as Amos worked to isolate the power in our bloodline. I glance at Asher, and a silent understanding passes between us—we're the only ones who truly know what this girl has endured.
"I've been tracking Amos's activities for years," I say, my voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. "His obsession with creating the perfect werewolf has only escalated. I've intercepted reports of his failed experiments, but nothing this..." I struggle to find the word, "barbaric."
"I'll heal," Elara says flatly, as if reciting a mantra she's told herself countless times before.
I cross my arms over my chest, trying to contain the violence building inside me. Every instinct I have is screaming to hunt Amos down right now, to tear him apart with my bare hands for what he's done to this child. But first, I need information.
"Ask what they did to her," Nox demands, his voice thick with rage. "Every detail. Every name. We'll hunt them all."
"We will," I promise him. "But carefully. She's fragile."
"Elara," I begin, keeping my voice as gentle as possible, "how old are you?" I know Fae aging is complicated—they mature slowly until adulthood and then essentially stop aging—making it difficult to determine their true age.
She hesitates, her brow furrowing slightly. "What's today's date?"
I tell her, watching carefully as she processes the information. Something flickers across her face—realization, perhaps grief.
"I'm sixteen," she answers finally.
Sixteen. A child by Fae standards. Practically an infant. I nod, fighting to keep my expression neutral when all I want to do is howl with rage.
"How long were you held by Amos and Roxie?" I push, needing to understand the full scope of this atrocity.
Her entire body tenses at the names, fear flashing across her delicate features. "I was with Amos for a year before he sent me to Roxie's as punishment."
"Can you tell me what happened to you there?" I ask, my voice carefully controlled despite the rage building with each second.
Elara's eyes go distant, looking through me rather than at me. "When I first arrived at Amos's compound, he seemed almost... kind. Called me 'special,' said I was going to help him change the world." Her fingers trace an invisible pattern on the bedsheet. "The first extraction didn't hurt much—just a needle, a few vials. But then he needed more."
She pulls up her sleeve, revealing track marks running the length of her forearm—some fresh, some faded to silvery scars. The sight sends a wave of nausea through me, memories of my own arms looking exactly the same way after months in Amos's "care."
"He designed a machine that could draw blood continuously," she continues, her voice hollow. "He'd hook me up for hours, sometimes days. When I was too weak to stand, he'd pump me full of herbs and wait for my body to regenerate enough to start again."
Asher's breathing has gone shallow beside me, and I know he's remembering our own time strapped to those machines—the burning cold of the needles, the weakness that followed, the endless hunger as our bodies scrambled to replace what was taken. The phantom sensations make my skin crawl, but I force myself to remain focused on Elara.
"Amos kept saying he was close to a breakthrough," she continues, her fingers now tracing a particularly vicious scar at her wrist. "Said my blood was the missing ingredient—something about Fae magic helping stabilize the transformation. When I started fighting back, refusing to cooperate... that's when he sent me to Roxie."
"What happened at Roxie's?" I ask, though part of me doesn't want to hear the answer. I've seen enough of Roxie's establishment to know it's a hellscape disguised as a pleasure house.
"Don't make her relive it," Nox growls protectively. "We know what happens in places like that."
Elara's hands begin to shake, and Dr. Matthews quietly passes her a glass of water. She takes a small sip, her throat working hard to swallow.
"The first night, she told me I needed to learn my place," she finally manages, her voice barely above a whisper. "That Amos had given her permission to 'break me' however she saw fit, as long as I remained... usable." Her voice cracks on the last word. "She brought in five men that first night. Made me service them all while she watched. Said it was my 'initiation.'"
A tear slides down her cheek, glistening in the harsh hospital light. "After that, it was clients. Different men—sometimes women—every night. Roxie said my 'exotic nature' commanded top dollar." Her eyes finally meet mine, and the emptiness there is more devastating than any tears could be. "And every third day, Amos would come to collect his blood samples. He said my 'heightened emotional state' produced more potent magic in my blood. Sometimes he'd stay to watch the clients... said it was 'quality control.'"
The room has gone deadly silent. Even Dr. Matthews has stopped pretending to check his tablet, his face ashen with horror. The only sound is the soft beeping of monitors and Elara's shallow breathing.
"The worst part," she whispers, twisting her hospital gown between her fingers, "was when the experiments started failing. He'd bring these werewolves in—ones he claimed were 'genetically inferior'—and inject them with his serum right in front of me. So I could see what my blood was 'accomplishing.'"
My jaw clenches so hard I can feel my teeth grinding. I've been aware of Amos's experiments for years—reports of missing wolves from smaller packs, rumors of failed transformations—but hearing the brutal reality from this child's lips makes the rage inside me burn hotter.
Bitterness creeps into her voice, laced with a guilt no child should ever have to bear. "They'd scream for hours as their bodies rejected the transformation. Sometimes their skin would split open, or they'd start bleeding from everywhere at once. And he'd make me watch, saying it was my fault for not producing pure enough blood."
"MOTHERFUCKER!" Xander roars, slamming his fist into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster. The outburst startles Elara, who flinches violently, curling into herself as if expecting punishment.
I shoot Xander a warning look, and he immediately steps back, running a hand down his face. "I'm sorry," he says to Elara, his voice softer now. "I'm sorry for what he did to you."
She relaxes slightly, but her eyes remain wary, tracking every movement in the room like a cornered animal. The sight makes my blood boil even hotter—this child has been conditioned to expect pain from every direction.
I let Xander's rage settle, understanding it's an external manifestation of what's boiling inside me. A sixteen-year-old child, sold into sexual slavery, used as a blood bank for dark magic and twisted science, forced to witness atrocities beyond comprehension. The monstrous reality of it makes me physically ill.
"Did he ever mention what he was trying to create?" I ask carefully, needing confirmation that his obsessions haven't changed.
Elara nods, her gaze distant as if reading from a script burned into her memory. "He called it his immortality serum. Said it would make werewolves invincible—stronger, faster, immortal." Her eyes find mine with unsettling intensity. "He said he needed pure blood from the original werewolf bloodlines, mixed with other supernatural DNA to stabilize it. That's why he took vampires, elves... and me."
He's been collecting blood from different supernatural species, using them as living blood banks while he experiments on werewolves. My intelligence network has been tracking shipments of medical equipment and unusual disappearances for months.
She tugs at her hospital gown, revealing a series of intricate, deliberate scars across her collarbone—not random injuries but precise patterns etched into her skin. "He started carving runes into me last year. Said they would 'channel the magic' in my blood more effectively. Each time he'd cut a new one, he'd collect the blood that flowed from it, saying it was 'specially charged.'"
"Dark magic," Nox hisses, recoiling at the sight. "He's binding her essence to his experiments."
"This goes beyond science now," I acknowledge. "He's dabbling in something much worse."
I exchange a loaded glance with Asher, whose face has gone pale beneath his tan. That explains why Amos targeted us as children—we carried the blood of the original werewolves blessed by the Moon Goddess. His obsession with bloodlines hasn't changed, only evolved to include other species and more barbaric methods.
"Did you ever see his lab?" Asher asks, his voice tight with controlled rage. "Or meet other... subjects?"
Pain flashes across Elara's face, a memory she'd clearly rather forget. "There was an elf in the cell next to mine for a while. We would talk through the vents at night when the guards weren't listening." Her voice softens with genuine grief. "She didn't survive the experiments. One day they took her away, and she never came back. I heard her screaming for hours."
She pulls the blanket tighter around herself, as if seeking protection from the memories. "And there were vampires too. He was keeping them in special containment cells, harvesting their blood just like mine. But all his test subjects were werewolves. He said only wolves had the genetic structure to handle the transformation."
"He seeks to corrupt what the Moon Goddess created," Nox snarls. "To twist our sacred gift into something monstrous."
"We won't let him succeed," I vow silently. "Not while I still draw breath."
I take a deep breath, steadying myself for what I know I must do next. Elara has given us more than enough to justify a full-scale assault on Amos's operation, but there's one more piece of information I need.
"Elara," I say gently, "I know this is difficult, but I need to ask you about Roxie. We believe she's more than just Amos's accomplice—she's running her own operation within his network. Did you ever hear anything about her business dealings? Her clients? Anything that might help us shut her down permanently?"
Elara's eyes darken, and for the first time, I see a flash of something beyond fear and resignation—hatred, pure and undiluted. "Roxie likes to talk when she drinks," she says, her voice steadier now. "And she drinks a lot. She told me once that Amos is just the beginning—that there's a whole network of buyers waiting for his 'product.' Rich supernaturals who want to be stronger, more powerful."
"A network," Nox growls. "This is bigger than we thought."
"All the more reason to tear it out by the roots," I respond, feeling cold determination replace the hot rage from before.
"She also mentioned a shipment coming in," Elara continues, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Something big. She was excited about it—said it would make her rich enough to break away from Amos entirely. I think... I think it's happening soon. Within the next few days."
My blood runs cold. A shipment. More innocents being trafficked, more lives to be destroyed in Amos's twisted pursuit of power. I exchange a look with Asher, who gives me a subtle nod—we need to move, and fast.
"Thank you, Elara," I say, reaching out slowly to pat her hand, careful not to startle her. "You've been incredibly brave. I promise you, Amos and Roxie will pay for what they've done to you and the others."