The Shattered Pack

Chapter five

For three days, the archives became my sanctuary and my fortress. Alpha Kaelen did not return, but his presence hung over the lower levels like a gathering storm. Every meal Martha brought me came with a side of castle gossip—the warlord's rages were getting worse, the livestock on the southern borders were being found torn to pieces, and the pack council was whispering about a vote of no confidence.

The curse was accelerating.

On the fourth night, the heavy iron bar on my door didn't slide back at its usual time. Instead, a sharp, frantic knocking rattled the wood.

I sat up on my cot, pulling the hidden journal from beneath my mattress and tucking it into the waistband of my trousers just as the door burst open. It wasn't Martha. It was Elder Vance, his face pale and his spectacles hanging crookedly off his nose.

"Get up, girl," he wheezed, his hands trembling as he grabbed my forearm. "The Alpha... the Alpha’s beast has taken over. He’s locked himself in the grand hall, and he’s tearing the place apart. The council wants to use silver-laced tranquilizers to subdue him."

I pulled away from his grip, my mind immediately racing through the medical logs I had memorized. "If they inject him with silver while his aura is volatile, it won't subdue him. It will cause a cardiogenic shock. His heart will rupture."

Elder Vance stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "How do you—"

"Where is the Beta?" I demanded, already running past him into the cold stone corridor.

"In the grand hall! But you can't go up there, Evangeline! You're a Latent, if he catches your scent—or lack of it—he'll mistake you for an intruder and kill you!"

I didn't listen. I took the stairs two at a time, my unshifted lungs burning as I pushed my body to its absolute physical limit. I knew the layout of the upper levels perfectly from the blueprints I had studied in the archives.

When I reached the double doors of the grand hall, the scene was pure chaos.

A dozen elite enforcers were stationed outside, holding heavy cross-bows loaded with gleaming, silver-tipped bolts. Beta Gideon, a towering wolf with a scarred face and a desperate expression, was shouting orders. From inside the hall, a sound echoed that didn't belong to a man or a normal wolf. It was a deep, guttural, demonic roar that literally vibrated through the stone floor beneath my boots.

CRASH.

A massive oak table splintered against the inside of the doors, making the heavy wood bulge outward.

"Load the silver!" Gideon roared, his own eyes flashing gold with panic. "If he breaks through these doors, he'll s*******r the lower-ranking members in the courtyard! We have no choice!"

"Stop!" I screamed, forcing my way through the crowd of massive warriors.

Gideon turned, his nostrils flaring as he looked down at me in shock. "What is this defect doing here? Get her back to the eastern wing!"

"If you shoot him with that silver, you will kill him!" I shouted, standing directly between the enforcers and the doors. "The ancestral curse binds his wolf to his cardiac rhythm. The silver will cause systemic rejection. Look at the medical logs from the third dynasty! It happened to his great-uncle!"

Gideon froze, his amber eyes widening. "How do you know about the third dynasty logs? Those are classified."

"Because your archives are a mess and I can read!" I snapped. "Listen to me. His beast is looking for a threat. Every single one of you is radiating dominant, aggressive pack energy. You are feeding his frenzy. You need to withdraw."

"Withdraw?" one of the council members, a pompous old wolf named Caleb, sneered from the back. "And leave the Citadel defenseless? She is a spy from Timber Claw! She wants him to tear us apart!"

Another roar shook the doors, followed by the terrifying sound of tearing metal. Kaelen was ripping the iron hinges straight out of the stone wall.

"Gideon," I said, stepping closer to the Beta and forcing my voice to drop into a calm, steady cadence. "I have no scent. I have no wolf. To his beast, I am not a threat, I am not a rival, and I am not a predator. I am a ghost. Let me go in alone."

"You are insane," Gideon whispered. "He will snap you like a twig."

"He's going to die anyway if you shoot him with that silver," I countered, looking him dead in the eye. "Trust my weakness, Beta. It’s the only thing in this castle that won't provoke him."

Gideon looked at the splintering doors, then at the silver bolts, and finally at me. The sheer weight of the decision pressed down on him.

"Five minutes," Gideon growled, stepping aside. "If you aren't dead in five minutes, we're coming in with the silver."

I didn't waste a single second. I slipped past the enforcers, unlatched the heavy iron bolt of the side servant's entrance, and stepped into the darkness of the grand hall.

The air inside was thick with the suffocating, ozone-heavy scent of an Alpha's rage. The grand chandeliers had been ripped from the ceiling, leaving the massive room illuminated only by the pale, eerie light of the moon filtering through the high glass windows.

In the center of the destruction stood the Warlord.

Kaelen didn't look human anymore. His muscles were grotesquely enlarged, his fingernails replaced by four-inch pitch-black claws, and his skin tore slightly at the shoulders where his wolf form was trying to force its way out of a human frame. His head was bowed, his chest heaving as thick, dark blood dripped from his knuckles onto the shattered remains of his throne.

The heavy oak doors behind me groaned as he spun around, his head snapping toward the sound.

His eyes were entirely gone. There was no gold left—only a void of midnight black that seemed to swallow the moonlight. He let out a low, terrifying hiss, his body dropping into a predatory crouch as he prepared to spring across the room and tear me to pieces.

I didn't move. I didn't raise my hands to protect myself. I didn't even draw a deep breath.

I let my shoulders drop. I let my heart beat in its steady, fragile human rhythm. I stood in the shadows, entirely empty of threat, entirely submissive to the terrifying storm in front of me.

"Kaelen," I said softly, using his name without his title for the very first time.

The giant beast paused, his massive chest freezing mid-breath. His nostrils flared wildly, snorting the air, trying to find the challenge, trying to find the wolf. But all he found was me. A frail, unshifted girl who smelled of nothing but dust and old paper.

He didn't attack. Instead, he tilted his head, a confused, agonizing whine cutting through the low growl in

His throat.

The monster was listening.