Carolina Moon

Accepting the Burden: K.C.

The moment we crossed the Marble Arch Bridge into Kingsport, I felt the pack bond slamming back into my system. The closer we got to the pack’s safe house, the more I could feel it surging through my veins like liquid fire, warming me from the inside out. The tremors in my hands stopped as the fever finally broke, and the bottleneck of energy that had existed in my chest for the last couple of weeks began to dissipate.

Even though I was starting to feel physically powerful again, I could still feel the sickness clinging to my heart.

I stepped out of the SUV, leaning against Tess. I could feel the collective rage and fear of the kneeling waves and was hit with a new wave of nausea. This time, it wasn’t a result of the sickness that had been running rampant within me, it was because of my new reality. I couldn’t just be “K.C. from the lumber yard” anymore. I had to be Kayvan, the Steelclaw Alpha.

The wolves looked at me with such desperation that the air felt stifling. Suffocating.

I watched Tess. Somewhere between South Carolina and Florida, she had already slipped back into The Oracle. The Rebel Rose manager was gone, replaced by the woman who wore sharp, tailored suits and midnight black armor. I watched as she gave orders to Leon, and I hated that I was the reason she was here instead of safely home in her bungalow.

Leon led us to a briefing room, but I could already feel the static from the Grid-Keepers’ pulse creeping through the reformed pack link. I could feel it in the back of my skull. It was a high-pitched whine that made the younger wolves feel on edge and brought out their aggression.

I could barely focus on anything Leon was saying. Instead, I was picking up on the fact that remnants of both Steelclaw and Silvercrest packs were here. I didn’t know how it started, but a fight broke out between two of the younger wolves. My wolf immediately began to growl as my instincts to rip the younger two apart and assert dominance flared up. I had to fight the wolf down, choosing instead to intervene with a voice of reason and authority rather than bared teeth.

“Enough!”

The word didn’t just leave my throat, it carried the weight of the Alpha. It was a physical shockwave that sent the two brawling wolves skittering backwards. They hit the floor, bellies exposed, their eyes wide with a terror that I hated seeing directed at me. I wasn’t just K.C. anymore, I was the hand on the leash.

I turned away from them, my stomach churning, and looked for Tess.

She was in the corner of the command hub, a cell phone pressed to her ear. The blue light from the monitors caught the sharp line of her cheekbone, but her expression was soft. It was the first bit of Cypress Hollow I’d seen since we left.

“I know, Sylvie, I’m so sorry,” she was saying into the phone. I stepped closer, my enhanced hearing picking up the frantic, high-pitched chatter of the boutique manager on the other end. “It’s a family emergency. My… my partner’s health took a turn. We had to get to a specialist in the city immediately.”

Sylvie was rambling about the fall display, about how she’d find coverage for the opening shifts, and a shipment of velvet hats that had arrived crushed. Tess listened with a patient, distant smile, her thumb tracing the edge of a metal desk.

“I’ll keep you posted, I promise. Just… keep the shop safe for me, okay?”

When she hung up, the silence of the shipyard rushed back in. It was heavy and metallic. She looked at the phone for a long second before tucking it into her bag. When she looked up at me, the softness was gone. The auditor was back.

“She’s going to keep an eye on my plants,” Tess said, her voice hollow. “She thinks I’m coming back in two weeks.”

“You are,” I said, though it felt like a lie the moment it left my mouth.

She gestured to the screens. “The Grid-Keepers are using the smelting plant as a relay. If they hit full power, they won’t just be pulsing the city. They’ll be broadcasting a frequency that forces a full shift of every wolf in northeast Florida. They want a riot. They want a reason for the government to step in and sanitize the territory.”

I looked at the video of Darian. He was slumped in that chair, his head lolling. He was the only one that had the bypass codes for the smelting plant’s main capacitors. If they broke him, they’d have the key to the kingdom I never really wanted.

Leon stepped up beside me. “The pack is waiting for a command, Alpha. They’re losing their minds to the static. If we don’t move soon, we won’t be able to move at all.”

I looked at my hands. The callouses from the lumber yard were there, but my claws were itching to break through the skin again. I could feel the thousands of minds in the city. Their fear, their hunger, and their jagged hope all funneled through me.

“I’m not doing this for the city,” I told Leon. My voice dropped to that low, terrifying, Alpha register. “Get the scouts ready. We move in the industrial district at midnight.”

I walked over to the balcony that overlooked the shipyard. The air was thick with the scent of salt water and impending violence. I let out a howl, a true Alpha call that rippled through the shipyard, and echoed off the skyscrapers of downtown. It was a sound that told the Grid-Keepers we were here.

But even as the wolves below howled back in a deafening chorus, I didn’t feel like a king. I felt like a man watching his last bridge burn.