Chapter 18 – Accelerated
1286 Words
For a long moment, all I could hear was my own pulse roaring in my ears.
Serapha’s name on the slate. The symbol from the mercenary’s pin. My own name in that same cold script, lined up under “potential corrective protocol” like a line item on a to-do list.
They weren’t just poisoning my Alpha.
They were scheduling me.
“You’re sure,” I said, because the part of me that clung to denial needed one more chance.
Wren snorted softly. “I risked my hide and two firewalls to pull this. I don’t do maybes.”
Beside them, Cassian watched me like a wolf studying a wounded animal to see if it would bite or curl up and die.
“Breathe, Lyris,” he said quietly.
I did, because my lungs apparently still took orders even when my brain didn’t.
“In your world,” I managed, “what does ‘corrective protocol’ mean?”
“In mine?” Wren shrugged. “Usually means ‘make it look like an accident before she causes trouble.’”
“And in theirs,” Cassian added, “it means what you heard in the woods: a patrol gone wrong, a fall from a wall, a collapsed roof. Something your pack can mourn without asking why the Council’s so relieved.”
The night I died pressed in around me—heat, smoke, the crack of beams giving way. Eryx’s calm voice.
For the good of the pack.
My stomach lurched.
“They already tried once,” I said, staring at the slate. “In my first—” I bit the word off, throat closing. “In the infirmary fire. They’ll do it again.”
Wren’s brows shot up. “First what?”
“Not your business,” Cassian said, without looking away from me. “What matters is that they don’t get a second shot.”
I laughed, a short, ragged sound. “And what, you’re going to stop them? You and a borrowed hacker and your charming reputation?”
He stepped closer, into the thin strip of moonlight between us. Up close, I could see the ghosts of old scars at his throat, the faint notch in one ear. His scent wrapped around me—storm, pine, steel.
“I already have,” he said. “Twice.”
The knife at my throat. The mercs with my father’s blend. He’d been there both times.
“You could’ve stayed out of it,” I said.
His mouth twitched. “I could’ve. Didn’t.”
“Because you hate the Council.” My voice came out dull.
“Because I hate watching them turn wolves into pawns and then corpses,” he corrected. “And because every time they try to fix their mess with more blood, it spills over my borders.”
Wren slipped the slate back into their cloak. “We should move. The longer we stand here, the better the odds someone with a Moon fetish stumbles onto this little book club.”
My grip tightened around the packet of results.
“What do I do with this?” I asked. “Walk into Rylan’s next briefing and wave it under Serapha’s nose?”
“If you want to die before dawn, sure,” Wren said. “Otherwise, you use it quietly. Build your own net. Turn their weapons into your evidence.”
Cassian’s eyes didn’t leave my face. “And you accept that you can’t stay in Mistveil as you are, on this trajectory, without ending up on a slab.”
“Leave,” I said. “Just like that. Abandon my parents, my brother, my pack to her and the Council.”
“They’re already abandoned,” he said softly. “They just don’t know it yet.”
The words hit harder than any physical blow.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Not yet. If I vanish now, Serapha paints me as proof she was right. ‘See? The Beta was corrupted. She ran to the rogues.’ They’ll tighten their grip, and my family will thank them for it.”
Cassian’s jaw flexed. “Then you have to make them see before you move. Fast.”
“How?” My voice cracked. “They trust her. They trust Eryx. They trust the Council more than they trust their own eyes.”
“Not all of them,” Wren said. “You’ve got cracks forming already. Young ones. Discontent. Your Gamma glaring like someone pissed in his patrol routes. That friend of yours with the sharp mouth.”
Kessa.
“Cracks aren’t enough,” I said. “I need a break. Something undeniable.”
Cassian nodded toward the papers in my hand. “This is your start. Get it in the right paws. Your father. Your Alpha, if you can get a clear moment past the haze. Anyone who still remembers what real sickness looks like.”
“And when Serapha accelerates?” I asked. “Because she will. Once she knows I’m not swallowing her rites, she’ll move up the timetable.”
Wren’s expression went grim. “She already has.”
I looked up sharply. “What?”
They pulled another sheet from their cloak—a snatched scrap of schedule, hastily copied, Council shorthand scribbled along the margin.
“Flagged,” they said, tapping a line. “Mistveil: full compliance review moved up. That means more ‘tests,’ more ‘incidents,’ more pressure on your Alpha to fall in line. And if he doesn’t—”
“They break him,” I finished, throat tight. “Or remove him.”
“And you with him,” Cassian said. “You’re a loose thread, Lyris. They don’t leave threads.”
The forest felt like it was closing in.
“So I have to stay,” I said. “Long enough to put this in front of the right people. Long enough to make it impossible to sweep under the rug. And then…”
“Then you run,” Cassian said simply. “Preferably before they light the match under your next ‘accident.’”
“To you,” Wren added. “Since you’re already halfway in our laps whether you like it or not.”
My wolf bristled. We don’t run. We fight.
“We don’t win if we die in their script,” Cassian said, as if he’d heard her. “You want to cut the rot out of Mistveil? You don’t do it from inside their noose.”
I looked between them—the outlaw Alpha who shouldn’t care, the runner with temple scars in their eyes, the dark trees of Duskhowl at my back and the familiar weight of Mistveil at my front.
“Tie this to anyone’s name but mine,” I said, holding up the proof, “and you’ll never see me again.”
Cassian’s gaze held mine, unflinching. “I don’t need to tie it to your name. I need to tie it to theirs.”
He inclined his head toward Mistveil. “Go. Before your absence becomes a convenient excuse for a search party.”
“And Lyris?” Wren added, already melting into shadow.
“What.”
“Next time the Council tries to offer you ‘clarity,’” they said, “remember they already wrote your obituary.”
The words followed me all the way back to the border.
By the time the last of the Duskhowl scent faded and Mistveil’s markers wrapped around me again, my decision had settled like a stone in my gut.
I would stay.
I would put their poison on the table.
And when they tried to correct me, I’d make damn sure they choked on the attempt.
- Writer
