Chapter 2 - Slade
1732 Words
The hiss is the sound of my worst memory.
Silver gas eats the air before it eats flesh. I know that smell, that chemical tang with a burnt-sugar aftertaste, the mark of Vargheist experimentation. My old pack liked to test on their omegas.
On me, especially.
“Back!” I shout.
The Alpha behind me—Rhea Robur, if my intel’s right—doesn’t hesitate. Good. Maybe she’ll live long enough for me to regret saving her.
I grab the grenade, feel the heat through my glove, and pitch it toward the far wall. It explodes midair, a flash of silver light that sears the inside of my eyelids. My prosthetic leg jerks as shrapnel peppers the floor; a chunk ricochets off the metal calf with a sharp ping.
She’s already moving—no panic, just muscle memory and authority. “Exit plan?”
“Culvert, west side!” I bark. “It's flooded, but it's open!”
We run. My leg drags for a split second before the joint resets; I adjust my gait and keep pace. The gas curls behind us, eating oxygen. Every breath burns like hell.
We hit the culvert door, chain hanging loose. She must’ve prepped it before the blast. Smart Alpha. She yanks it wide and waves me through.
“You first,” she orders.
“Not how this works,” I say. “Move.”
She glares like a command could melt me. My lungs disagree with both of us—every inhale feels like smoke and knives. I grab her wrist and shove her toward the opening. “Go!”
For half a heartbeat, we’re nose to nose. Her scent hits—dark pines, clean storm, and something else, something unimaginably delicious. My wolf, half-buried and scarred, claws up hard enough to make my hands shake and taking in huge, greedy lungfuls.
Mine.
I shove the thought down hard, follow her into the culvert, and hit the freezing water. It slams through the burn in my chest, stealing my breath. We slog through the tunnel, water to our thighs, moving fast as the current allows.
Behind us, the warehouse roof gives a long metallic groan and collapses. Shockwaves roll through the tunnel like thunder. The flash lights the water silver, then dark again.
“Keep going,” she yells.
I snort. “I’m not planning on dying tonight.”
“Then shut up and run.”
Even through the echo, I can hear her grit-teeth tone, half fury, half disbelief that I’m still here. I almost laugh. Alphas—they think survival’s a solo act until someone refuses to let them die alone. Idiots.
We spill out into open air behind the ridge, the night thick with smoke and mist. My ears ring. My leg aches where shrapnel hit. I flex the knee joint; it grinds, but holds.
She rips off her mask, gasping, eyes wild. Up close, she’s more than I expected—sharp angles, blood on her temple, authority coiled tight like a spring. No perfume, no makeup, just skin and iron will.
Her wolf scent hits again, and mine answers before I can stop it.
Fate, you son of a b***h.
“Who the hell are you?” she demands.
“Slade Thorn,” I say. “And you’re welcome.”
She straightens, chest heaving. “You’re with them?”
“If I were, wouldn't you already be dead?”
Her gaze flicks to the prosthetic, to the dented plating on my shin. “You’ve seen their weapons.”
“I helped build half of them,” I say flatly. “Before I stopped believing their lies.”
That earns a twitch in her jaw. She’s calculating. She’ll have to. Everything about me screams liability—a stranger, an omega, a traitor, a reminder of the kind of horror she just fought.
“You were Vargheist,” she says slowly.
“Yes, was. Past tense.”
“Explain.”
“Not while they’re regrouping.” I jerk my chin toward the warehouse. “You’ve got about ten minutes before a retrieval team sweeps this area.”
Her nostrils flare, wolf instincts warring with strategy. Finally she nods. “Follow me.”
“I’m not your soldier, Alpha.”
“Then keep up,” she snaps, already moving.
I grin despite myself. Moon, she’s infuriating.
We climb the slope toward the forest. The ground is slick with rain and silver residue, but she moves like the earth belongs to her. It probably does. Her name means oak in the old tongue—Rhea Robur, the unbending one. That tracks.
By the time we reach cover, my chest’s on fire again. I rip open my med pouch, jab a detox ampule into my arm. The burn fades to a dull roar. She watches, assessing.
“Silver poisoning?” she asks.
“Residual,” I say. “Their compounds hit the lungs first. I’ve had worse.”
She eyes the scar running along my throat, the one shaped like a collar chain. “I don’t doubt it.”
I almost tell her the story—the rejection ceremony, the bite that never came, the pack that burned my name off their records—but her expression says she wouldn’t pity me, and I can’t decide if that’s comforting or infuriating.
Branches c***k ahead. My pistol’s up before thought. Her hand shoots out—palm open—telling me to wait. The gesture’s confident, command in motion. Two wolves burst through the trees: a woman with a crossbow (Holly, if I caught the scent right) and a younger male, barely past twenty, panting hard.
“Alpha!” the boy gasps. “We thought—”
“Alive,” she cuts in. “Report.”
“Three down, rest scattered. Council line’s holding.” His eyes flick to me, then to my leg. “Who’s he?”
“Nobody,” I say.
Rhea doesn’t correct me. She just says, “He helped us get out.”
“That true?” Holly asks, voice cool but curious.
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?” I holster the gun, ignoring the way my knee twinges. “You can check my story later. Right now, you need to move.”
Rhea studies me for a long moment. “Where’s the nearest safe zone?”
“Half a mile east,” I say automatically. “Old power substation. They won’t track you there.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Convenient that you know that.”
“Convenient that you’re still breathing,” I counter. "You're welcome, by the way.
A faint smile touches her mouth before she kills it. “Lead the way, then, Thorn.”
Holly’s eyes narrow at the name. “Thorn? As in—”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “That Thorn.”
The silence that follows is thick enough to bite. Everyone knows the name. The Thorn line was Vargheist elite, silver engineers, enforcers, zealots. And I’m the failure they branded a defect.
“Later,” Rhea says. “We move.”
We slip through the trees, keeping low. The wind shifts; the faint hum of drones rides it. Vargheist retrieval units. I gesture for silence, crouch, and pull a small transmitter from my pocket. I flick a switch; the device emits a faint pulse. The drones veer off-course.
Rhea stares. “You jammed them.”
“Built it myself,” I say.
Her tone softens, almost imperceptibly. “Useful.”
“Occasionally.”
We reach the substation: a squat concrete building half-eaten by vines. I check for tripwires, sweep with the jammer again, then motion them inside. The walls hum faintly from residual current—enough to mask heartbeats.
Holly seals the door. Acker slumps against the wall, wiping grime off his face. Rhea stands near the doorway, every line of her body alert. She doesn’t trust me, but she’s not afraid either. That’s new.
“You can talk now,” she says.
I lean against a breaker box. “They’ll come for me.”
“You mean for us.”
“No.” I meet her gaze. “For me. You just got caught in the blast radius.”
Her eyes flash. “Then why risk saving me?”
“Reflex,” I say.
She steps closer. “That wasn’t reflex. You knew what kind of grenade it was.”
“I’ve buried enough people who didn’t.”
Something like recognition flickers between us—pain wearing different faces. Her wolf scent swells, strong and grounding, dragging mine up again despite the danger. The pull between us is magnetic, vicious, undeniable.
I take a half step back. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you feel it too.”
Her jaw sets. “You think I don’t know what this is?”
“I think you’ll wish you didn’t.”
She tilts her head, predator-quiet. “You were Vargheist property once. They branded you. Rejected you. And you think that scares me?”
“I think you don’t understand what they’ll do when they find us together,” I say. “They don’t forgive broken experiments—or Alphas who steal them.”
The silence that follows hums with more electricity than the walls. Her gaze drops briefly to the prosthetic, then rises to meet mine again—defiant, unflinching.
“Then they can come,” she says. “Let them see who breaks.”
I almost smile. Saints, she’s terrifying.
Then the wind shifts again.
I freeze. My wolf hears it first—the wrong rhythm in the forest. Too steady, too mechanical.
“Drones?” Holly whispers.
“No,” I say, straining to catch it. “Worse.”
The sound grows—a low hum layered with metallic chittering.
Rhea’s nostrils flare. “What is that?”
My blood goes cold. “Silver seekers.”
Her eyes narrow. “Those are a myth.”
“They were. Until they built them.”
The first seeker breaks through the trees—a metal hound, sleek and glowing at the seams, silver gas leaking from its jaw vents.
It sniffs the air, finds us, and lets out a shriek that curdles bone.
“Everyone down!” I shout.
The wall explodes inward.
To be continued…
- Writer
