Adriel's POV
The alarms didn't stop screaming.
They ripped through the penthouse like wounded animals, sharp and relentless, setting my nerves on fire. Red lights flashed along the walls, bathing everything in warning and shadow. My wolf paced inside me, claws scraping, reacting to the threat before my mind could catch up.
Mason was already moving.
"Stay behind me," he ordered, his voice calm but iron-hard, the kind of tone that didn't allow argument.
I should have bristled. I should have reminded him I wasn't helpless.
Instead, I obeyed.
That realization unsettled me almost as much as the alarms.
Mason crossed the living room with swift, precise movements, tapping commands into the wall panel. Screens lit up, showing different angles of the building—hallways, stairwells, the garage, the street below.
"Three intruders," he muttered. "No heat signatures. No facial ID."
My stomach twisted. "They're not human."
"No," he agreed. "But they're not pack either."
That made my blood run colder.
The kind of beings that moved between worlds, between rules, were always the most dangerous.
Mason grabbed something from a concealed compartment near the bar—sleek, matte-black, unfamiliar. Not a gun. Not exactly.
"What is that?" I asked.
His jaw tightened. "Insurance."
He glanced back at me, eyes sharp, assessing. "Can you run if I tell you to?"
The question wasn't insulting. It was tactical.
"Yes," I said. "But I won't leave you."
Something flickered across his face—surprise, then something deeper. Approval, maybe. Or something more personal.
"We'll see," he said quietly.
The alarms cut out abruptly.
Silence slammed into the room, thick and ominous.
My ears strained, catching sounds beneath the city's constant hum—footsteps too light, too synchronized. The pressure in my chest returned, that same sensation of being watched, measured.
"They're on the roof," I whispered.
Mason didn't ask how I knew.
He nodded once. "That was fast."
The rooftop door shuddered as something heavy struck it from the other side.
Once.
Twice.
Mason positioned himself between me and the door, his body a shield without hesitation. He pressed a finger to his ear, listening to something only he could hear.
"Override the failsafes," he murmured. "Level Black."
I stared. "Level what?"
He didn't answer.
The door burst inward with a metallic scream.
Three figures stepped through the smoke and splintered metal, their forms blurred at the edges, as if reality itself rejected them. Their eyes glowed faintly—silver, not gold. Wrong.
Not wolves.
Hunters.
My wolf snarled, recognizing the danger instantly.
Mason raised the device in his hand. "You picked the wrong building."
One of the figures tilted its head, voice echoing unnaturally. "We are not here for you, human."
Mason smiled—and it was cold. "Everyone who comes through that door is here for me."
He activated the device.
The air exploded.
A pulse of energy slammed into the intruders, throwing them backward like rag dolls. The windows rattled violently, glass spiderwebbing but holding. I was knocked off my feet, landing hard against the couch.
"Mason!" I shouted.
"I'm fine," he snapped, already moving again.
The figures screeched, the sound piercing and inhuman. Smoke poured from their bodies where the energy had struck them, but they were already rising.
"They adapt," I warned. "You can't hit them the same way twice."
"Good thing I don't plan to," Mason replied.
He moved with lethal confidence now, no hesitation, no fear. He knew exactly where to stand, how to angle his body, how to anticipate their attacks before they happened.
This wasn't instinct.
This was training.
One of the hunters lunged at him, claws flashing. Mason ducked and drove his elbow into its throat with brutal efficiency. The creature howled, staggering back.
I felt something inside me snap.
I shifted—not fully, but enough.
Power surged through my limbs, heat rolling beneath my skin. My nails lengthened into claws, my senses sharpening painfully. I leapt forward, intercepting the second hunter before it could reach Mason.
We collided hard.
I slammed it into the wall, claws slicing through its shadowed form. It shrieked, dissolving into black smoke that burned my lungs.
The third one hesitated.
Mason seized the moment.
He pressed his palm to the floor, muttering something under his breath—words I didn't recognize, sharp and ancient. Symbols flared briefly along the marble, glowing blue.
The hunter screamed as the symbols ignited, binding it in place.
Silence fell again.
Real silence this time.
I stood there, chest heaving, half-shifted, staring at the scorch marks on the floor and walls.
Mason straightened slowly, eyes scanning the room until he was certain the threat was gone. Only then did he turn to me.
For a moment, he just looked.
At my claws.
My glowing eyes.
The power is still crackling around me.
"You didn't run," he said quietly.
"I told you I wouldn't."
He nodded once. "Good."
The adrenaline faded, leaving exhaustion in its wake. My shift receded, bones aching as my body returned to human form. I swayed.
Mason caught me instantly.
"Easy," he murmured. "I've got you."
He guided me to the couch, kneeling in front of me, checking me for injuries with careful hands.
"You used magic," I said, breathless. "Not tech. Magic."
His hands stilled.
I looked up at him. "Who are you, Mason Sharp?"
For the first time since I met him, he looked… hesitant.
He leaned back, running a hand through his hair. "That's a longer story than tonight can handle."
"I think tonight already crossed that line."
A faint smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Fair."
He stood, pouring me a glass of water, then sat across from me instead of looming. A deliberate choice.
"I didn't always run a tech empire," he began. "Before SharpTech, before the money, I worked for a private division that doesn't officially exist."
My heart skipped. "Hunters."
"Not like them," he said. "We dealt with threats that couldn't be explained away. Things governments didn't want the public to know about."
"And you left?"
"I survived," he corrected. "Most didn't."
The weight in his voice told me that wasn't an exaggeration.
"They taught us how to fight beings stronger than us," he continued. "How to protect civilians. How to build contingencies for the impossible."
I swallowed. "Why leave?"
His gaze darkened. "Because the line between protection and control blurred. They wanted to own what they couldn't understand."
My chest tightened. "Like the pack."
"Yes," he said softly.
The similarity hung between us.
"I walked away," he went on. "Changed my name. Built something new. But I never stopped preparing."
"For this?" I asked.
"For you," he corrected quietly.
The honesty of it hit harder than any blow.
Before I could respond, his phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen—and went still.
"What is it?" I asked.
His expression hardened. "Someone just accessed a sealed file. One that hasn't been touched in years."
"About what?"
He met my eyes. "About a subject labeled Unbound."
My blood ran cold.
"That's what the voice called me," I whispered. "Child of the Unbound."
Mason's grip tightened on the phone. "Then this wasn't a coincidence."
Outside, thunder rolled across the city, though the sky was clear.
And deep beneath the building, something old and powerful shifted—as it had just realized I was awake.
As Mason pulled up the classified file bearing my name—and a photograph taken years before I ever met him—I understood the terrifying truth: He hadn't just found me by chance. He had been part of the story long before I ever ran.