Kira's POV
The Council assassin's magic slammed into me like a freight train.
I barely had time to think before my shadow abilities took over, turning my entire body into darkness just as deadly spells flew through the space where I'd been stood. Elder Seraphine dove behind her desk as magical fire burst against the stone walls.
"You can't run forever, little wolf," the assassin growled, raising both hands as more shadow chains formed in the air. "Your bloodline belongs to us."
My bloodline. The words from Seraphine's reveal still rang in my ears. I wasn't just Marcus Blackthorne's adopted daughter - I was the child of two Council members who'd tried to escape their dark group.
And now they wanted me back.
"I don't belong to anyone!" I shouted, my shadow form flickering as anger made my powers unsteady.
The killer laughed coldly. "Your parents thought the same thing. Look how that ended for them."
Something snapped inside me at the name of my birth parents. These monsters had killed them, then spent twenty-eight years searching for me. They'd destroyed my real family, and now they wanted to destroy my chosen one too. "Elder Seraphine," I called out, keeping my eyes on the killer, "get out of here. Warn the pack."
"I'm not leaving you, child!"
"Yes, you are!" I put more power into my shadow form, becoming something that wasn't quite solid and wasn't quite spirit. "This is my fight now."
The assassin's eyes widened slightly. "Impossible. You're untrained. You shouldn't be able to hold that form for more than seconds."
But I could feel strength running through me that I'd never had before. Not just my shadow-walking skills - something deeper, older, more dangerous. Like a sleeping dragon finally waking up in my chest.
"Maybe I'm stronger than you thought," I said, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly powerful instead of just broken.
I launched myself at the assassin, moving through shadows like they were doors. One second I was across the room, the next I was behind them, my claws extended and ready to strike.
The attacker spun around just in time to block my attack with a shield of crackling dark magic. "You fight well for someone who doesn't know what she is."
"I know exactly what I am," I growled, circling them like the tiger I'd learned to become during ten years as a rogue. "I'm the daughter of people who picked love over power. And I'm done running from monsters like you."
We exchanged blows in a deadly dance of shadow and magic. The assassin was definitely more experienced, but my rage gave me speed and my desperation made me unpredictable. Every magic they threw at me, I somehow managed to dodge or absorb into my shadow form.
But I was getting tired, and they seemed to have endless energy.
"You're weakening," the assassin noted, landing a glancing blow that sent me stumbling. "Untrained power burns itself out quickly."
They were right. My shadow form was flickering, and I could feel tiredness creeping into my bones. In a few more minutes, I'd fall completely.
That's when I heard running footsteps in the hallway outside.
"Seraphine!" Zander's voice echoed through the hallway. "What's happening? I felt the strange disturbance from—"
He stopped dead in the doorway, taking in the destroyed room, the assassin radiating dark power, and me half-collapsed against the wall in my unstable shadow form.
For a moment, nobody moved. Then the killer smiled coldly.
"Perfect. The mate comes just in time to watch her die."
"Touch her and I'll tear you apart," Zander snarled, his Alpha power filling the room like a physical force.
"Empty threats," the killer laughed. "You're just a monster. I am Council-trained, centuries old, and—"
They never finished the sentence.
Because Zander did something I'd never seen before. Instead of shifting into his wolf form, he seemed to call on magic of his own. Dark power that made the air itself turn cold and heavy.
"Impossible," the killer breathed. "You're not just a werewolf."
"No," Zander said quietly, his eyes now sparkling with power that looked exactly like mine. "I'm not."
I stared at my mate in shock. "Zander, what are you?"
He looked at me with a face full of guilt and secrets. "I'm Council-born too, Kira. My real name is Zander Nightfall-Shadowbane."
The world seemed to stop spinning.
"Shadowbane," I whispered. "Like my father?"
"Marcus Shadowbane was my uncle," Zander said, his voice barely audible. "Which makes us cousins."
The killer started laughing, a sound like breaking glass. "Oh, this is rich. The Council's two lost families, mated to each other without even knowing it. Do you have any idea what kind of power your children would have?"
Horror washed over me as I understood what they meant. If Zander and I were both descendants of the most powerful Council families, our children would be magical weapons unlike anything the supernatural world had ever seen.
"That's why you've been so cold to me," I realized, looking at Zander with new understanding. "You knew what we were."
"I've known since the moment I scented you," he revealed. "The mate bond wasn't random, Kira. The Council arranged it somehow, probably years ago. They wanted us to meet, to mate, to make the next generation of super-powered Council members."
"But you never told me—"
"Because I was trying to protect you!" Zander's resolve cracked, showing the pain he'd been hiding for months. "I thought if I kept you at a distance, if I made you believe I didn't want you, maybe you'd leave and be safe."
The killer clapped slowly. "How sweet. But it doesn't matter now. You'll both come with me freely, or I'll drag your unconscious bodies back to headquarters."
They raised both hands, preparing to hit us with enough knockout magic to end the fight.
But as the spell formed in the air between their hands, something impossible happened.
My shadow powers and Zander's dark magic reached for each other across the space between us, like two parts of the same whole finally coming together.
When our forces touched, the magical explosion was unlike anything I'd ever felt.
The assassin's spell shattered like glass. Every window in Elder Seraphine's room exploded outward. And a pulse of combined Shadowbane power shot out from us in all directions, so strong it made the entire pack house shake.
"What have you done?" the killer screamed, but their voice sounded different now. Scared instead of confident.
I looked at Zander and saw my own amazement mirrored in his face. Our combined power wasn't just stronger than our individual skills - it was something completely new.
"I can feel it," I whispered. "Our magic isn't just mixing. It's changing."
"The Prophecy," Elder Seraphine breathed from her hiding place behind the desk. "The lost bloodlines reuniting to birth something the Council has never seen before."
The assassin's form was starting to flicker, like our power was somehow unmaking their actual presence in our world.
"This isn't over," they growled as they began to fade. "The Council will send others. Stronger ones. And next time, we won't try to take you alive."
They vanished totally, leaving only the smell of burned magic and the sound of our combined heartbeats.
Zander and I stood frozen, looking at each other across the destroyed room. Our powers were still connected, still humming with promise that felt both wonderful and terrifying.
"So," I said finally, my voice shaky. "We're cousins who were magically manipulated into being mates so an evil supernatural organization could breed us like prize cattle."
"That's about the size of it," Zander agreed.
"And now they're going to send stronger assassins to either capture us or kill us."
"Probably."
I felt something that might have been laughter or tears growing in my chest. "Is there anything else you haven't told me? Any other life-changing secrets you've been keeping?"
Zander opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak, Elder Seraphine's crystal started glowing again.
This time, instead of one voice, we heard dozens. The full Shadowlands Council speaking in unison.
"Zander and Kira Shadowbane," they said, their combined voices making the very air vibrate with strength. "You have twenty-four hours to present yourselves at the Whispering River for judging. Refuse, and we will unleash the Shadow Army upon your land."
The crystal went dark, but the danger hung in the air like poison.
I looked at Zander, then at Elder Seraphine, then at the magical devastation we'd accidentally made.
"The Shadow Army," I said quietly. "That sounds bad."
"It's worse than bad," Seraphine whispered, her face pale with fear. "It's an army of the dead, controlled by Council magic. They've never used it before because the cost is too high."
"What cost?" Zander asked.
"To raise the Shadow Army," she said, her voice barely audible, "they have to sacrifice every living Council member except the three most powerful."
My blood turned to ice as I realized what this meant.
"They're willing to kill themselves just to stop us?"
"No, child," Elder Seraphine said, looking at us with eyes full of old fear. "They're ready to become something worse than dead. The three remaining Council members will absorb all that sacrificed power and transform into beings of pure dark magic."
"Beings that can't be killed, can't be reasoned with, and have enough power to unmake reality itself."
I sank to my knees as the full weight of our situation hit me.
We weren't just facing arrest anymore. We were facing the end of everything.
And we had less than twenty-four hours to figure out how to stop it.