The steel grate vibrated with the force of Killian's snarl. Even in his massive wolf form, he looked less like an animal and more like a force of nature. His claws shredded the concrete floor, leaving deep gouges as he roamed the perimeter of the cage that separated them.
"Killian, stop!" Faith screamed, her voice cracking. "Vane is serious! The whole room is rigged with thermite!"
The black wolf paused. His golden eyes locked onto hers, and for a heartbeat, the terrifying predator softened. He huffed, a cloud of hot vapor hitting the glass, his gaze focused on the magnetic cuffs bruising her wrists.
"How touching," Vane's voice crackled over the intercom, dripping with malice. "The beast has a heart. But hearts are so easily punctured, aren't they?Alpha Nightshade, if you don't shift back and surrender to my guards in the next sixty seconds, I'll trigger the sequence. Faith will be nothing but a silver ash." Dare me!
The wolf's hackles rose. He looked at the heavy steel door behind him, where guards were already crowding to with silver-tipped rifles, and then back at Faith.
With a bone-chilling crack, Killian began to shift. It wasn't the graceful transition he usually displayed, it was raw, agonizing, and fueled by a desperation that made Faith's stomach flip. He collapsed onto the cold floor, naked and gasping, his skin slick with sweat and soot.
"Don't…. You dare touch her," Killian rasped, his voice a broken mess as he struggled to stand. He ignored the red laser dots dancing across his chest from the guards' rifles.
"Killian, please no! Don't surrender for me!" Faith pleaded, her fingers flying across the digital terminal.
She wasn't looking at the blueprints anymore. She was looking at the Red Cell's internal nervous system. Her mother hadn't just built a cage; she had built a backdoor.
"The Nightshades built the cage," her mother's note said. But the code in front of Faith finished the thought: "….but I kept the keys."
"In ten seconds, Killian," Vane taunted. "Kneel, or she dies."
Killian's knees hit the stone. The most powerful man in the North, a billionaire who had never bowed to the Council, was on the floor for a girl the world called a 'Dud.'
"I'm kneeling," Killian whispered, his eyes never leaving Faith's. "Just let her go."
"No," Faith whispered.
She found it. A line of code buried in a sub-directory labeled 'Lullaby.' It wasn't a weapon; it was a frequency.
Vane! Faith shouted, her voice echoing in the chamber. "You want the Lunar Grid right ?You want the power to trigger a shift in anyone?"
Vane paused, his hand hovering over the detonator. Have you solved it? "I've unlocked the broadcast," Faith lied, her heart hammering against her ribs. "But it requires a bio-metric sync. If you kill me, the encryption self-destructs and wipes every server in the North. You'll have nothing."
Vane hesitated. Greed was the one thing more powerful than his hatred for Killian. "Prove it."
Faith slammed her hand onto the terminal. Instead of a grid map, a high-pitched, harmonic pulse erupted from the speakers. It was a sound so pure it felt like moonlight.
Suddenly, the magnetic cuffs on Faith's wrists didn't just unlock, they shattered. The steel grate separating her from Killian groaned as the electromagnetic locks failed.
"What are you doing?!" Vane screamed.
"I'm opening the door," Faith hissed.
The pulse hit the guards outside. Being shifters, their heightened senses turned the sound into a physical agony. They dropped their rifles, clutching their ears and howling in pain.
Killian didn't waste a second. He lunged forward, his hand catching the bottom of the rising grate. With a roar of pure adrenaline, he pulled the steel slab upward, his muscles swelling with a strength that shouldn't have been humanly possible.
He burst into her cell, snatching her off the floor and shielding her body with his own as the terminal began to spark.
"I've got you," he growled into her hair, his scent, rain, smoke, and sheer possessiveness, overwhelming her senses. "I've got you, Faith."
The facility was falling apart. The 'Lullaby' protocol was overloading the power core.
"We have to get Leo!" Faith shouted over the alarms.
"Don't worry ,Marcus has him," Killian said, dragging her toward the exit. "He secured the Beta five minutes ago. Now, we leave."
They sped through the smoky hallways,Killian taking down any guard who dared to stand in their way with brutal, efficient strikes. They burst through the final security door into the cold night air, just as the bunker groaned one last time and the lights went dark.
Killian pulled her into the back of his armored SUV, slamming the door and locking it. He didn't call the office. He didn't check the stocks. He simply grabbed her face with both hands, his thumbs tracing the bruises from the cuffs.
"If you ever….ever run toward a gate like that again," he whispered, his forehead resting against hers, "I will lock you in my bedroom and melt the key. Do you understand me?"
Faith laughed, a shaky, hysterical sound. "You're so bossy, Killian."
"I'm serious, Faith," he breathed, his eyes stirring with a dark, terrifying heat. "I almost lost my mind tonight. I would have let them burn the city to the ground if it meant I get to keep you."
They reached the manor in silence. But as Killian led her into the foyer, they found a visitor waiting.
It wasn't Silas. It wasn't the Council.
It was a woman, dressed in simple trench clothes,her face partially scarred but her eyes, large, soulful, and intelligent. looking exactly like Faith's.
"Mom?" Faith whispered, confused with teary eyes.
The woman didn't look at Faith. She looked at Killian, her
Gaze furious and cold "I told you to stay away from her, Alpha. I told your father twenty years ago that a Nightshade would only bring her ruin. Why is my daughter wearing your ring?"