Carolina Moon

The Predator’s Wake Up Call: K.C.

The thud on the porch didn’t just wake me up. It ignited the bottleneck of Alpha energy in my chest. For the last hour, I had felt like a dying fire, but the threat was a douse of gasoline.

My body screamed in protest, my muscles cramping as the sickness made the surge of adrenaline feel like acid in my veins. I pushed myself up from the bed on shaky legs.

In the moonlight, Tess was frozen, her eyes wide. This was exactly what I promised her wouldn’t happen in Cypress Hollow. I felt a flash of failure, followed by a protective rage that overrode the pain.

I knew I couldn’t take the time to shift fully. I wasn’t even sure my heart could handle the strain. I forced myself into a combat shift anyways — all claws, teeth, and heightened senses.

It was agony. The bones in my hands lengthened. It felt like a fire burning as my skin stretched and my claws tore through. The shift was messy and painful, a symptom of the sickness. The fluid grace I’d had in Kingsport was gone.

There was a predatory hitch in my step as I moved toward the door. My vision had shifted into a heat-mapped tunnel of gold. My voice was gone, replaced by a low, guttural vibration that rattled the windowpanes.

I wasn’t going to wait for them to break in. I moved into the living room, my claws leaving gouges in the doorframe. I could smell him through the wood of the front door: gun oil, expensive leather, and a familiar, cold scent — Leon.

He wasn’t alone though. He was on the front porch, flanked by two enforcers I didn’t recognize. They weren’t attacking. Instead, they stood in a formal “V” formation — a submissive stance for an Alpha.

“Alpha,” Leon spoke through the door, his voice shaking. “We didn’t come to fight. Kingsport is burning. The Council failed. The Pack is tearing itself apart without a head. You have to come back or there won’t be a Silvercrest or Steelclaw left by morning.”

Tess came out of the bedroom, carrying a heavy iron fire poker. I froze when her eyes landed on me. She saw the sweat of the fever and the blood of the forced shift. She didn’t look repelled. Instead, she looked at me with a mix of pity and resolve.

She moved to the window and peeked through the curtain at Leon. The note, the coin — neither one were threats from an enemy. They were pleas for help from a dying organization.

I growled at Leon, my claws digging into the doorframe. “I don’t want the crown.” I wanted the girl. I wanted the quiet life.

“Darian didn’t exile himself, Kayvan,” Leon said, his words causing my heart to skip a beat. “He’s been taken, and the people who have him are coming for the Oracle next.”

The room tilted. The Oracle wasn’t just a name anymore. It was a neon target painted on Tess’s back.

My growl deepened, a sound that started in my gut and vibrated through the floorboards. The partial shift made every nerve ending feel like it was being scraped by a wire. The news about Darian acted like a stabilizing anchor. If Darian, with all his resources and massive paranoia, had been taken, Cypress Hollow was no longer a sanctuary.

“Who took him?” Tess’s voice was steady, but I could hear the sharp edge of the auditor coming back.

“A private military group,” Leon answered. “They’re calling themselves the Grid-Keepers. They scavenged the tech from the Whitmore ruins. They don’t want peace, Tess. They want to turn the city into a laboratory, and they need the one person who can rebuild the motherboard without frying the system.”

I slammed a clawed hand against the door, the wood splintering. “She isn’t going back. Not to Kingsport. Not to a lab.”

“Kayvan, look at yourself,” Leon pleaded through the wood. “You’re dying. The sickness is going to take you before the week is out. If you come back, the Pack bond will stabilize you. You can lead the resistance.”

“At what cost?” I snarled, my teeth aching in my gums. “I gave up everything to keep her away from that life.”

Tess stepped in front of me then, forcing me to meet her eyes. In the gold-tinted haze of my vision, she was the only thing that made sense. She reached out and placed a hand over my mangled, clawed fist. The heat of her skin against the cold, jagged edge of my shift sent a jolt through the energy in my chest.

“K.C., look at me,” she whispered. “Audit the situation. If we stay, then they come here. This town, the shop, the people… they’ll be collateral damage. If we go, we control the board.”

“I won’t let you be a pawn again,” I rasped, my human voice fighting through the wolf’s throat.

“I’m not a pawn,” she said, her chin tilting in that way that always made my wolf bow its head. “I’m the one who closed the books. If they want the Oracle, they’re going to find I’ve updated the safety protocols. Besides… you can’t protect me if you’re dead.”

She looked back at the door. “Leon, tell the drivers to get the cars ready. We’ll be ready in ten minutes. But if a single one of your enforcers touches either of us, I’ll burn whatever’s left of your city to the ground myself.”

Leon went silent for a minute, then I heard his footsteps retreating. “Yes ma’am.”

I felt the shift receding. The agony of my bones snapping back into place made me drop to my knees. The sickness rushed back in to fill the void, the fever spiking so high I could barely see.

Tess caught me, her small frame straining under my weight. “I’ve got you,” she murmured, her lips against my temple. “We’re going to find your ground wire, and we’re going to finish this.”