While I fought the ghosts of my past in the sterile upper levels, Killian was fighting for the very survival of his soul in the pits deep below the mountain. The “Training Grounds” were a series of sunken circular arenas, the walls lined with high-voltage emitters and silent cameras that recorded every drop of Alpha blood spilt on the sand for Lilith’s data logs. The air down here was thick with the scent of old copper, sweat, and the electric tang of the dampening fields that kept the beast at bay.
Killian stood in the centre of the main pit, his clothes reduced to scorched rags and his massive body a map of fresh, angry scars. In front of him were three “Mk-II Ghost-Wolves”—towering, mechanical constructs of brushed steel and synthetic fur that had been specifically designed to mimic
