Chapter 99: His Mate. His Fucking Business.

While two grown Alpha wolves decided indoor shifting was a lifestyle choice, furniture be damned, across Helix, in an entirely different pack, a third Alpha was in for his own surprise.

The Goddess was running a three-ring circus tonight and every ring had an Alpha in it.

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EMBERCLAW ESTATE - THE ALPHA’S CHAMBERS

WHOOSH.

Maverick Emberclaw felt the surge before he saw it. He was in a towel, post-shower.

The fireplace in his chambers had flared white.

It pulsed like a heartbeat, matching the rhythm of the one he had felt in his chest since the moment he saw a cloaked girl set foot on sacred sand. The same girl he had seen flame turn white for.

Parchment floated in the center of the white. Untouched by the fire. Suspended like it had been placed there.

Emberclaws don’t burn. That is bloodline law. And any flame that isn’t sacred will turn red when an Emberclaw touches it.

So without an ounce of hesitation, Maverick Emberclaw reached for it. The white flame switched to red the moment his fingers made contact.

He pulled the parchment from the fire. Multiple pieces. Torn deliberately, then thrown into the flame by someone who wanted them destroyed.

The flame stayed red after he withdrew his hand, burning steady and loyal.

Maverick laid the pieces of the parchment on his desk. The handwriting was unfamiliar. The location was specific. His jaw tightened. He read it twice because the first time didn’t make sense and the second time made less sense.

The location was Thunderfang. His mate was in Thunderfang. The math was simple. The implications were not.

The next hour for Maverick Emberclaw would be one for the books.

One minute from now, his Beta would arrive with a report that every flame in the estate had gone white.

Nine minutes from now, something would tear through his body that would send him to the floor.

Twelve minutes from now, Maria would finally pick up his tenth hologram ping. Tavian Voltcrest would walk through the frame in the background wearing exactly nothing, and Maverick would add that image to the list of things tonight that could never be unseen.

That was the future. Right now in the present, there was a locked room on the fourth floor of a keep where a girl had just realized a second too late that she made the wrong judgement call.

✦✦✦

THUNDERFANG KEEP - EAST WING. FOURTH FLOOR. ROOM 412.

Nova’s scream was muffled against the glove before the man locked his hand around her neck, cutting off her windpipe.

"We could have done this the easy way, Nova," he said, voice still distorted.

She thrashed against him. Her boot connected with a shin. The grip didn’t loosen. She kicked again. Nothing.

Her eyes burned. Tears fell. Tears of anger at herself for coming. Tears of genuine fear because she couldn’t breathe. Tears of grief at the thought of Derek looking for her and blaming himself.

"Tears don’t work on me. Nobody is coming. Nobody knows you’re here."

The words landed somewhere in Nova’s chest and the terror that flooded her body was so aggressive, it made her vision tunnel. It was the kind of fear that lives below language, below thought. The kind everyone is born knowing but you don’t know that you know it until you face it. It spread outward until it was in her hands, her throat, and behind her eyes.

CRACK.

Lightning flashed outside. Thunder followed.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Three more flashes came in rapid succession.

The storm had been following her since the Moonfire. At this point it was less weather and more a personal escort with anger management issues.

The man stiffened behind her.

WHOOSH.

White flame ignited in the fireplace that hadn’t been lit. It was so bright that it lit the room.

Then something white-hot surged inside her that she didn’t understand at first. Rage. Pure, undiluted rage that was almost as strong as the fear. It felt like it was borrowed. Like it was someone else’s that she was observing.

At the same moment, the white flame turned blood-red. Then the man let go of her neck like she had burned him and she fell to the floor coughing.

"You little... that’s not supposed to happen yet, you slut."

The word slut was left field and specific. Nova knew who used it religiously: Kai and Celeste Starborne. She looked up at the man through her coughing.

He had staggered backwards.

His gloved hands were smoking. From touching her neck. She had burned a man’s hands off her own throat without knowing how, and the list of things she could apparently do was growing faster than the list of things she understood.

Every candle in the room ignited at once. Not warm. Not amber. Red. The flames bent towards the man like every fire in the room was pointing at him.

She pushed herself up, still coughing, still unable to breathe fully, and moved for the door.

"GET BACK HERE."

It was still locked.

She turned just in time to see three things happen simultaneously that made her wonder if she was hallucinating.

Blue and gold electricity shot through the window while a red fireball launched out of the hearth.

WHUMP.

All three hit him square in the chest like a coordinated strike from forces that hadn’t consulted each other but had arrived at the same conclusion independently.

The man flew backwards away from her.

The impact bought her seconds.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

She banged against the door hard enough to bruise. Being choked had stolen her voice, so screaming was cancelled. All she could do was make noise on the wood and hope someone would hear.

Then a shadow rose from behind her. Nova stopped banging and turned slowly, legs trembling, only to see the man getting back up the way things get up in nightmares.

Like the elements hadn’t touched him.

He didn’t lunge for her yet. Instead he cracked his neck. Crack, crack, both sides, the little ritual of a man who was just warming up.

Fingers on the mask. Off it went.

What Nova saw next would have made her scream if her vocal cords were working, but instead it came out like a whisper.