CAGED BY THE LYON

Chapter 4: In the Dark

No one breathed. Kael pushed me behind him without a word, his hand still locked around my wrist like he thought I might bolt, and honestly, some part of me wanted to. Rowan had already pulled a knife from beneath his jacket, the blade catching the thin light bleeding through a window near the ceiling, the only source of illumination left in the room.

Another knock.

"Kael," Silas called, almost bored now, like he had all the time in the world. "Don't make this difficult."

"You have ten seconds to leave," Kael said, and Silas only laughed from the other side of the door, low and amused

"You know I never listen."

The first hit shook the metal door hard enough to rattle the hinges, and I stumbled back a step despite myself, my shoulder colliding with a supply cabinet. The second hit was worse, the overhead shelves trembling until a tray of surgical tools crashed to the floor, scalpels and forceps scattering across the concrete with a sound like breaking glass.

"Is he trying to break in?" I asked, pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat.

"No," Rowan said, without turning around, his whole body angled toward the door like a coiled spring, and a third hit landed. "He already has."

Before I understood what he meant, glass exploded behind us, the tiny window near the ceiling bursting inward in a shower of glittering shards, and a dark shape slipped through before they even hit the ground. Then another. Then a third, all of them moving with a speed that no human body should have been capable of.

"Wolves!" Rowan shouted, and everything happened at once, the room dissolving into motion too fast to track.

One came straight at me, teeth bared but Kael moved faster than I could follow,faster than seemed possible for someone his size, catching the attacker by the throat mid-lunge and slamming him into the wall hard enough to c***k the concrete behind him. Another lunged for Rowan, who met him halfway, the flash of a blade catching what little light there was, and the attacker hit the ground with a cry that echoed off the walls.

I backed toward the supply cabinet, heart in my throat, understanding for the first time that this wasn't a fight club anymore, this wasn't stitches and bruised knuckles and men who'd taken a hit too hard. This was an attack, and I was standing in the middle of it with nothing but a scalpel and a metal tray between me and whatever these men wanted.

A fourth man was already climbing through the shattered window, eyes locking on me the second his boots hit the floor.

"There she is."

I grabbed the first thing my hand found, a metal tray still slick with Marcus's blood from earlier, and swung it into the side of his face with everything I had. He staggered, more startled than hurt, blinking at me like he couldn't quite believe what had just happened.

"Seriously?" he muttered, rubbing his jaw.

"I was aiming for your nose," I snapped, reaching behind me for the scalpel on the counter, my fingers closing around the handle with a steadiness that surprised even me. "If you come any closer, I'll use this. I've done stitches all night. I know exactly where to cut, and I know exactly how much it'll hurt".

His smile faltered for half a second, but he rushed me anyway, and I slashed without thinking,muscle memory taking over where fear should have paralyzed me. The blade catching his forearm, and he hissed and stumbled back, blood welling dark against his skin, and for one strange, suspended second I just stared at my own hand, stunned that I'd actually cut him, that I'd actually fought back instead of freezing.

"Mira!" Kael shouted from across the room, and I barely had time to answer before another attacker crashed into him, sending them both into a rack of shelves that toppled with a deafening crash.

"I'm fine!" I yelled back, and it was mostly true.

The clinic had turned to complete chaos, broken glass and blood and growling filling every corner of the room, and then, all at once, every wolf in it went perfectly still, like someone had hit pause on the entire fight.

A scent bloomed in the air, sweet, almost like jasmine after rain, cutting clean through the copper and sweat, and the attackers' eyes went wide with something closer to shock than anger, something closer to fear.

"No," one of them whispered, backing toward the broken window. "It can't be."

"Her scent," another breathed, and Kael's expression changed instantly,all the fury draining out of his face and leaving something else behind. For the first time since I'd met him, he looked afraid.

"Rowan," he said quietly, not taking his eyes "We're leaving."

"What about"

"Now."

The attackers retreated all at once, not because they were losing, not because Kael and Rowan had beaten them back, but because something had shifted in the room, something bigger than the fight itself , and the man I'd cut looked back at me one final time before he vanished through the shattered window.

"She isn't what we were told."

Then they were gone, and the clinic fell silent, and I looked down to find blood on my hands, dark and sticky, some of it not mine.

"What just happened?" I asked, voice smaller than I wanted it to be and Kael didn't answer right away, just crossed the room, took my hand, and studied the shallow cut across my palm where the glass had nicked me. A single drop of blood hit the concrete, and the moment it did, his eyes lifted slowly to mine.

"Damn."

"What?"

He didn't answer, just looked toward the shattered window, jaw tightening. "We're too late."

My stomach sank. "Too late for what?"

He met my eyes, and the fear in them was worse than anything Silas had said all night.

"They've seen enough."