EMMA
Stone walls didn’t just hold heat; they held the smell of centuries of damp failure.
I leaned my forehead against the freezing granite of the High Tower, my breath hitching in a throat raw from screaming. The choice I’d made ten minutes ago—to seal the nursery’s blast doors and let Damien’s jet vanish into the storm—felt like a jagged stone sitting in my gut. I had saved the pups. I had saved the future. But in doing so, I’d let the devil walk out the front door with the keys to our DNA.
"Emma. Stop."
Gabriel’s voice was a low, fractured rumble. He was chained to the opposite wall, his wrists encased in heavy silver manacles that hissed every time he breathed. The Iron Fang leader had nearly disemboweled him before the "Inquisitors" had stepped in to "stabilize" the situation.
"I
