Chapter 26
Dahlia’s POV
The gravel bit into my feet through the thin soles of my indoor shoes, but I didn’t slow down. I couldn’t. Axel was a dead weight in my arms, his small body still radiating a faint, residual heat that felt like the hum of a low-voltage wire. Behind me, I could hear the quick, frantic footsteps of Aidan and Ariana. They weren’t crying anymore; they were beyond that. They were in that cold, silent state of shock that follows a brush with death.
The driveway was a winding ribbon of grey asphalt that seemed to stretch forever. The forest on either side felt different than the woods around the old pack house. These trees were taller, older, and they felt like they were leaning in, watching us with a thousand needle-sharp eyes.
“Mommy, my legs hurt,” Ariana whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind.
“I know, baby. Just a little further,” I lied. I had no idea where “further” was. I just knew that every step away from that glass house was a step toward being human again.
A set of headlights cut through the twilight behind us.
The beams were long and aggressive, bouncing off the trunks of the pines as a vehicle rounded the bend of the upper driveway. My heart hammered against my ribs. I didn’t need to look back to know it was the black SUV Nate used. I knew the sound of that engine. It sounded like him—powerful, relentless, and loud.
“Into the trees! Now!” I hissed.
I scooped Ariana up with my free arm, staggering under the combined weight of both children. Aidan didn’t need to be told twice; he dove into the thick brush of the ravine, his small hands grabbing at ferns and roots to pull himself down the slope. We scrambled into the shadows just as the SUV roared past our position, the tires screeching as Nate slammed on the brakes a hundred yards ahead.
The doors clicked open. The silence that followed was worse than the engine noise.
“Dahlia!” Nate’s voice boomed. It wasn’t an Alpha command this time. It was the voice of a man standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down. “Stop. Just talk to me. It’s nearly dark, and the temperature is dropping. You have the children out here in their pajamas. You’re going to get them killed before the Elders even find us p>
I stayed huddled behind a massive, moss-covered boulder, my hand clamped over Ariana’s mouth to keep her whimpering silent. Axel was starting to stir in my lap, his eyes fluttering.
“I know you’re there,” Nate said. His footsteps crunched on the asphalt. He was walking toward the edge of the ravine. “I can smell your fear, Dahlia. I can smell the ozone on Axel. You can’t hide from me in these woods. I grew up in these shadows p>
“Then stay in them!” I yelled back, my voice echoing off the rock. I didn’t care about being quiet anymore. If he wanted to find us, he would. “Go back to your laboratory, Nate. Go back to your ’indispensable’ data. We’re done being your project p>
I heard him stop at the edge of the slope. I could picture him standing there, his jaw tight, his hands clenched.
“It was never a project,” he said, and for a second, his voice sounded small. Broken. “I was trying to build a world where they didn’t have to hide. I was trying to find out how much time we had before Axel’s power became too much for his body to handle. The ’Heart’ isn’t a gift, Dahlia. It’s a parasite. If we don’t learn how to stabilize it, it will burn him out from the inside p>
I looked down at Axel. In the dim light, the silver lines on his palms looked like scars. Was Nate telling the truth? Or was this just the latest version of the “Alpha logic p>
“You should have told me,” I said, my voice shaking. “You don’t get to keep secrets like that. Not about my son p>
“I was afraid!” Nate roared, and the sheer volume of it made the birds scatter from the trees above. “I was afraid that if you knew how bad it was, you’d do exactly what you’re doing now. You’d run. And if you run, I can’t protect you. The Elders aren’t just coming for a visit, Dahlia. They’ve invoked the ’Ancient Rite of Reclaim.’ They think Axel is the reincarnation of the First Alpha. They want to harvest him p>
The word harvest made the blood in my veins turn to slush.
“They’re not coming,” I whispered. “You said we were safe at the Ridge p>
“I lied!” Nate’s silhouette appeared at the top of the ravine, a dark shadow against the purple sky. “The Ridge isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a fortress because it has to be. They’re already in the valley. They’ll be at the gates by dawn. Please, Dahlia. Bring them back inside. Let me shield them p>
I looked at Aidan. He was staring up at the shadow of his father, his face a mask of confusion and terror. Then I looked at Axel. He had finally opened his eyes.
“He’s lying, Mommy,” Axel whispered.
The voice wasn’t Axel’s. It was that deep, resonant vibration again—the voice of the mountain. Axel’s hand reached out and touched the mossy rock behind us. As his fingers made contact, a soft, green light pulsed through the stone.
“The man in the house wants to keep the fire,” Axel said, his silver eyes fixed on the sky. “But the blue lights… they want to put the fire out. Neither of them wants me p>
Suddenly, the air was sliced by a high-pitched, electronic whistle.
Nate spun around, looking back toward the gates of the Ridge. Down in the valley, a single blue light flared. Then another. Then a dozen more, forming a perfect, glowing semi-circle at the base of the climb.
The Elders. They weren’t waiting for dawn.
“They’re here,” Nate breathed. He turned back to the ravine, his face full of a frantic, wild energy. “Dahlia, get down! Get as deep into the rocks as you can p>
He didn’t wait for my response. He shifted.
It wasn’t the slow, painful shift I’d seen other wolves go through. It was an explosion of fur and bone. One second he was a man in a torn shirt, and the next, a massive, midnight-black wolf stood on the edge of the asphalt. He let out a howl that shook the very foundation of the mountain—a warning, a challenge, and a cry of pure agony all wrapped into one.
The blue lights below began to move. They weren’t lanterns. As they drew closer, I realized they were glowing orbs of cold fire, floating several feet off the ground. Behind them followed the “Hollows”—the high-ranking pack members who had given their souls to the mountain’s dark side. They moved with a jerky, unnatural grace, their eyes glowing with that same sickly blue light.
“Aidan, grab my hand,” I commanded, my maternal instinct overriding the terror.
We couldn’t go back to the house, and we couldn’t stay in the ravine. We had to move laterally, across the face of the ridge. I knew there were old mining tunnels somewhere in these hills; the local legends were full of stories about miners who got lost in the Silver-Crest “veins p>
We scrambled through the undergrowth, the sounds of the battle beginning behind us. I heard the sounds of snarls, the wet thud of bodies hitting the ground, and the sharp, unnatural crack of the Elders’ magic hitting the trees.
Nate was holding them off. One wolf against an army of ghosts.
“Is Daddy going to die?” Ariana sobbed as we crested a small ridge.
“No,” I said, though I didn’t believe it. “He’s an Alpha. He’s stubborn. Now move p>
We found it ten minutes later—a rotted wooden frame sticking out from the side of a cliff. The air coming from the hole smelled of damp earth and ancient dust. It was the “mouth” of the mountain.
I hesitated. Every cell in my body screamed at me not to go back underground. The last time we were in the dark, the world had collapsed. But the blue lights were behind us, and the “Gilded Cage” was a war zone.
“In,” I whispered.
We crawled into the tunnel. The wood groaned above us, but the stone held. As we moved deeper into the darkness, the sounds of the fight outside began to fade, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic dripping of water.
We walked for what felt like hours, guided only by the faint, silver glow coming from Axel’s palms. He was walking on his own now, his hand trailing along the stone walls as if he were reading a map only he could see.
“This way,” Axel said, pointing toward a side-tunnel that looked far too narrow.
“Axel, we need to stay on the main path,” I said.
“The main path is where they want us to go,” he replied. His silver eyes were bright now, illuminating the cavern. “The mountain wants to show me something. It says the Alpha and the Elders are both wrong about the Heart p>
“What does that mean?” Aidan asked, his voice echoing.
“It’s not a battery,” Axel said, his small face taking on a look of intense concentration. “And it’s not a parasite. It’s a key p>