The transport didn't hum; it screamed. A high-frequency silver-pulse vibrated through the walls of the containment unit, a soundless noise that felt like a drill against my frontal lobe.
I was huddled in the corner of a six-by-six glass box. Beside me, Kaelen was a mountain of broken stone. His skin was gray, the Blood-Link wound in his shoulder weeping a dark, sluggish crimson that stained the sterile white floor. Every time he wheezed, my own lungs burned. Every time his heart faltered, my chest tightened in a phantom grip.
"Kaelen," I whispered, reaching out to touch his arm.
The moment my skin met his, a jolt of violet electricity snapped between us. He gasped, his golden eyes flickering open, glazed with agony. "Don't... Thora... the silver... it feeds on the link..."
"I can't just watch you bleed out!" I snapped, my voice echoing hollowly against the reinforced glass.
"You won't have to watch for much longer."
The voice came from the shadows outside the box. My mother, Valerius, stepped into the harsh fluorescent light of the transport bay. She had traded her white robes for a sleek, silver-threaded tactical suit. In her hand, she held a tablet displaying a biometric feed, our biometric feed.
"The Blood-Link was a clever move, Alpha Blackwood," she said, tapping the screen. "A romantic suicide pact. But the Order doesn't deal in romance. We deal in efficiency."
"Let him go," I rasped, standing up and pressing my palms against the glass. The silver etching in the panes bit into my skin, but I didn't pull away. "He has nothing to do with your 'Order.' Take me and leave his pack alone."
Valerius laughed, a cold, melodic sound that made my skin crawl. "His pack? Thora, darling, look at the satellite feed."
She turned the tablet toward the glass. My heart plummeted.
The Blackwood Stronghold was a speck on a thermal map, surrounded by swarming red dots. Dozens of them.
"Silas moved faster than I anticipated," my mother said, her eyes glinting with a twisted sort of pride. "The moment Kaelen's Alpha signature vanished from the territory, the Silver Moon moved in. Your 'father' is currently burning the Blackwood archives. He's looking for the same thing I am: the location of the Lunar Well."
"He'll kill them all," I whispered. "Miller... the omegas... the children..."
Kaelen let out a guttural snarl, trying to push himself up, but a fresh pulse of silver energy from the floor sent him crashing back down. He coughed blood, his fingers clawing at the glass.
"That's the point, Thora," Valerius said, leaning in until her face was inches from mine, separated only by the shimmering barrier. "The world of the packs is over. It's messy, violent, and obsolete. But you? You are the bridge to the old power. If you cooperate, I might decide to send a strike team to 'neutralize' Silas before he finishes his purge."
"You're asking me to choose between my father and my mate," I said, my voice trembling with a fury that was starting to turn the air inside the box frigid.
"I'm asking you to be a Queen," she corrected. "Now, give me the coordinates. You spent years in those archives. You know where the Well is hidden."
I looked at Kaelen. He was watching me, his eyes pleading, not for his life, but for me to stay strong. Through the link, I felt his thought: Don't give it to her. She'll kill us both the moment she has it.
I looked back at my mother. I saw the greed in her eyes, the same hunger I had seen in Silas. They weren't different. They were just two sides of the same coin, and I was the currency.
"You want the Well?" I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper. The temperature inside the glass box plummeted. Frost began to bloom on the silver-etched panes.
"Thora, stop," Kaelen wheezed. "The silver... it'll kill you if you flare..."
I didn't listen. I reached deep, past the fear, past the pain of the link, and grabbed the "cold hum" with both hands. I didn't try to phase through the glass. I tried to become the glass.
"I'll give you the coordinates," I said, my eyes turning a blinding, solid violet. "But you're going to have to come in here and take them."
Valerius frowned, sensing the shift in the air. "The suppression field is at maximum. You can't shift, Thora."
"I'm not shifting into a wolf," I growled.
I slammed my fist against the glass. But I didn't hit it. My hand passed into the molecular structure of the pane. The silver runes flared white-hot, burning my spectral flesh, but I didn't let go. I used the Blood-Link to pull from Kaelen's raw, physical agony, turning his pain into a battery of pure, chaotic energy.
The glass box didn't break. It detonated.
Shards of silver-etched glass flew outward like shrapnel. Valerius screamed, diving for cover as the high-frequency pulse generator exploded in a shower of sparks.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stood in the center of the wreckage, my body flickering in and out of existence, a shimmering ghost of violet fire. I felt the link to Kaelen thrumming with a new, terrifying strength. By shattering the cage, I hadn't just freed us, I had fused us.
"Kaelen! Get up!" I projected the thought directly into his brain.
He didn't need to be told twice. With the suppression field dead, his Alpha Aura came back like a tidal wave. He shifted mid-air, a massive black blur of fur and rage. He didn't go for Valerius; he went for the cockpit.
"Thora! The doors!" he roared in my mind.
I turned toward the rear of the transport. Four Hunters were already rushing in, their obsidian rifles raised.
I didn't run. I vanished, then I reappeared behind them, my spectral hands passing through their chests. I didn't kill them, I froze them. Their tactical suits turned white with frost as they collapsed, their hearts stuttering from the Wraith-chill.
I reached the cargo ramp controls and phased my hand into the wiring. I didn't push buttons; I commanded the electricity to flow.
The ramp hissed open. The mountain air rushed in, cold and sweet.
We were thousands of feet in the air, flying over the jagged peaks of the Blackwood Range. Below us, I could see the orange glow of fires on the horizon, the Stronghold was burning.
"Kaelen, jump!" I screamed.
The black wolf skidded to the edge of the ramp, looking back at me. And you?
"I'll catch you!"
We dove.
The fall was a blur of wind and gravity. As we plummeted toward the treeline, I expanded my form, becoming a wide, violet cloud of shadow. I wrapped myself around the black wolf, slowing our descent, turning us into a single, falling star.
We crashed through the canopy of an ancient pine grove, the branches snapping like toothpicks. We hit the deep snow with a bone-jarring thud.
I materialized back into my human form, coughing, my skin blue and shivering. Kaelen shifted back beside me, his shoulder wound finally starting to knit back together now that the silver was gone.
He grabbed me, pulling me against his warm chest. "We're alive," he gasped.
"For now," I said, looking toward the horizon.
The Blackwood Stronghold was a pyre. Silas's wolves were howling in victory. And somewhere behind us, my mother was regrouping with a thirst for vengeance that wouldn't end until I was in chains.
But as I looked at my hands, I saw something new. A faint, violet mark had appeared on my wrist, mirroring the Blood-Link scar on Kaelen's shoulder.
It wasn't a mark of a slave. It was a map.
"Kaelen," I said, my voice steady for the first time. "I know where the Well is. And I know how to use it to strip Silas of everything he has."
Kaelen looked at the mark, then at the burning ruins of his home. He stood up, offering me his hand.
"Then let's go pay your father a visit," he growled. "I have a pack to take back."