Episode 3
1372 Words
# Chapter Three
The Cage Beneath
Darkness swallowed the train car whole.
Only the red emergency strips glowed, painting everything in bloodlight.
Valente Senior’s scent rolled forward (cold iron, pine smoke, and the rot of old vendettas).
Seraphina’s spine went rigid against Dante’s chest.
Her fear tasted metallic on his tongue through the bond.
Dominic’s arm tightened around them both.
His claws pricked Dante’s ribs in silent warning.
Dante slid one hand up Seraphina’s waist, slow, claiming, until his palm rested over her racing heart.
She trembled but didn’t pull away.
“Stay behind me,” Dante breathed against her ear.
His lips brushed skin.
She shivered harder.
Valente Senior laughed, low and ugly.
“Still giving orders, Moretti?”
Silver chains clinked as he stepped closer.
“On your knees, boy. Both of you.”
Twelve wolves fanned out behind him.
All Valente blood.
All armed with silver.
The air thickened with it, burning Dante’s lungs.
Seraphina twisted free.
She moved like liquid violence, blade flashing.
One guard lunged.
She opened his throat before he blinked.
Blood sprayed hot across Dante’s face.
Dominic roared and shifted.
Gold fur exploded outward.
He crashed into three wolves at once, jaws snapping bone.
Chaos erupted.
Dante shifted a heartbeat later.
Black wolf met silver chains.
Pain seared where metal kissed fur, but he powered through.
He took a guard down on the spine, felt vertebrae shatter between his teeth.
Seraphina fought like something feral and beautiful.
Every move is precise, lethal, graceful.
Her braid had come fully undone; white-gold hair whipped like a war banner.
She bled from a dozen shallow cuts, but her eyes blazed crimson triumph.
Valente Senior watched from the shadows, untouched.
He lifted one hand.
The remaining wolves froze.
Even Dominic paused, fangs dripping.
“Enough,” the old wolf said softly.
Silver chains uncoiled from his fingers like living snakes.
They shot forward faster than sight.
One wrapped Dante’s throat.
Another locked Dominic’s forelegs.
A third snaked around Seraphina’s waist and yanked her backward against her father’s chest.
The silver burned cold.
Dante’s shift ripped away from him.
He hit the human floor and was gasping.
Dominic collapsed beside him, gold eyes wild with rage.
Seraphina struggled, but the chain only tightened, smoking against her skin.
Valente Senior pressed a silver blade beneath her jaw.
A thin line of blood welled.
Dante surged forward on instinct.
The chain around his own throat jerked him back, choking.
“Watch,” Valente Senior murmured.
He dragged the blade lower, parting the soaked fabric of Seraphina’s shirt.
Exposing the pale curve of one breast.
Her n****e hardened instantly in the cold air.
Dante’s vision went red.
Dominic snarled, straining against his bonds.
Muscles bunched and bled where silver kissed skin.
Valente smiled down at his daughter.
“I always said you’d be the perfect bait.”
Seraphina spat blood in his face.
He backhanded her.
Her head snapped sideways.
Dante felt the blow like it landed on his own cheek.
The old wolf leaned close to her ear.
“You were promised to the Moretti boy to end a war.”
His tongue traced the shell of her ear.
“Now you’ll start a new one.”
He looked at Dante.
“On your knees, Alpha. Beg for her.”
Dante’s knees hit the floor before his mind caught up.
Dominic cursed, low and vicious.
Seraphina’s crimson eyes locked on Dante’s.
Tears and fury warred there.
The bond screamed between them (pain, need, terror, want).
Valente Senior released her suddenly.
She stumbled forward into Dante’s arms.
He caught her, hands sliding over bare, rain-slick skin.
She was shaking.
So was he.
The old wolf tossed a key at Dominic’s feet.
“Unlock yourselves,” he said.
“My car is waiting topside. You have thirty seconds before my wolves rip this train apart with you inside it.”
Dominic snatched the key.
Silver burned his fingers, but he freed himself first, then Dante.
The moment the chain fell away, Dante pulled Seraphina closer.
Her nails dug into his back hard enough to draw blood.
Valente Senior turned to leave.
His wolves fell behind him.
No one spoke until the footsteps faded.
Then Seraphina shoved Dante away hard.
Her palm cracked across his face.
The slap echoed.
Dominic growled warningly.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
Chest heaving, shirt hanging in ribbons, blood and rain streaking her skin.
She looked like a goddess carved from vengeance.
Dante tasted blood where his lip split.
He didn’t move.
The bond throbbed between them, raw and bleeding.
Dominic stepped between them, eyes glowing gold.
“We don’t have time,” he snarled.
“Move.”
They ran.
Up emergency stairs slick with blood.
Through maintenance tunnels that stank of rat and rust.
Seraphina led, barefoot and fearless.
Dante and Dominic followed, shoulder to shoulder, the ghost of old habits.
They burst out into an abandoned station under the Bowery.
Moonlight speared through broken skylights.
Dust floated like silver ash.
The safehouse door stood open.
Inside was exactly as Seraphina promised (concrete walls, steel shutters, one cot, one table, a single bare bulb swinging overhead).
The door was sealed behind them with a hiss of hydraulics.
Silence fell, thick and suffocating.
Seraphina rounded on them the second the lock engaged.
She shoved Dante again, harder.
He let her.
Her palms slammed his chest until his back hit the wall.
Dominic watched, fists clenched, fangs bared.
“You rejected me,” she snarled in Dante’s face.
“You looked me in the eye and said you didn’t want me.”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Tears finally spilled, cutting clean tracks through blood and grime.
Dante caught her wrists.
Held them between their bodies.
His thumbs brushed the burns from the silver cuffs.
“I lied,” he said, rough.
“I’ve been lying for ten years.”
Her breath hitched.
Dominic made a broken sound behind them.
Seraphina leaned in until their foreheads touched.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
Her lips brushed his as she spoke.
“I hate you so much it hurts to breathe.”
Dante’s hands slid to her waist.
Pulled her flush against him.
She was still trembling.
Soaked fabric clung to every curve.
He could feel her heartbeat through two layers of ruined clothing.
“I know,” he breathed.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, soft, reverent.
Then harder.
She bit his lower lip until he bled.
The bond flared white-hot.
Dominic stepped up behind her.
His chest pressed into her back.
One large hand slid around her throat (possessive, not threatening).
His mouth found the bite mark Dante had left on her shoulder hours ago.
Teeth scraped.
She arched between them with a broken moan.
The air turned molten.
Three heartbeats synced.
Three wolves breathing the same ragged air.
Seraphina twisted suddenly.
Grabbed Dominic’s hair and yanked his mouth to hers.
The kiss was brutal (teeth, blood, ten years of rage).
Dante watched, c**k hard, wolf howling, every instinct screaming mine mine mine.
When they broke apart, all three were shaking.
Dominic’s eyes were pure gold.
Seraphina’s crimson.
Dante’s gray had bled to silver.
Outside, something heavy slammed against the safehouse door.
Then again.
Metal groaned.
Seraphina wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Smiled slowly and savage.
“They found us faster than I thought.”
Dominic cracked his neck.
“Let them come.”
Dante pulled two guns from the wall cache.
Tossed one to Dominic.
Kept the other.
Seraphina picked up her silver blade again.
The door buckled inward with a scream of tortured steel.
A dozen wolves poured through (half Valente, half Russian, all wearing the same silver collars that meant only one thing: berserkers).
Behind them, framed in the ruined doorway, stood Lucian Moretti and Valente Senior side by side.
Old enemies.
New allies.
Lucian’s winter eyes found Dante across the room.
His smile was gentle.
Almost paternal.
“Hello, son,” he said softly.
“Time to come home.”
Valente Senior lifted a small remote.
Pressed the single red button.
Every berserker collar detonated at once.
Silver shrapnel exploded outward.
And the world went white.
- Writer
