Page 35

35

JACKSON

I ’ve called Halbrook ten times.

Still nothing.

The PEACE emergency lines are dead, and the channels I do manage to breach sound like static and warzone panic.

Something's off.

Something huge .

Seraphine’s gone dark. I felt the bond dim—like someone turned the volume way down but didn’t hit mute. I know she’s alive, but wherever they’ve got her, it’s shielded to hell.

And I swear to god, if they’ve touched her, I’ll rip them apart one spell-slinging bastard at a time.

So I stop waiting.

PEACE is compromised, useless, or stalling. And I’m done with bureaucracy.

I call in my own team.

Rafe is the first to show.

Leather jacket, silver-lined weapons, eyes like a wolf who’s seen too much and still wants blood. He doesn’t ask questions when I say it’s Sera. Just loads his shotgun.

Dez and Kirin follow—twin mages I worked with during the East Sector riots. They're both covered in tattoos that move when they cast, and both of them owe me more than one life.

By midnight, I’ve got a team of six. Not much, but more than enough to start a goddamn war if we hit hard enough.

We move fast—quietly through the tunnels under the city, using an old Fae map Sera left me just in case.

I never thought we’d actually need it. She did.

Of course she did.

The moment we get underground, I can feel the bond between us pick up slightly. I decide to follow that like a beacon, and the others don’t question me.

As I look over the map as we make our way through the tunnels, I realize where it’s taking us. An abandoned castle that was a stronghold and protected by the veil until about seven years ago. No humans dare go near it and most of the supernatural has stayed away from it due to its history. It’s out of the city, deep in the forest. It’s buried deep in the hills past the southern wardline—an old cult compound sealed with sigils that shimmer red when you get too close.

But they didn’t count on us coming in through the ground.

We breach the sublevel in silence, shadows at our back, rage in my blood. Dez drops the shields with a pulse of her glyphs, and Kirin lays out the first two guards with a sonic trap that turns their eyes to jelly.

It’s brutal. It’s necessary.

We push through corridor after corridor of dark stone and twisting hallways, taking out anyone who gets in our way.

I don’t stop.

I don’t blink.

Every step I take is closer to her.

Every body I drop is a warning.

I’m coming.

I hear her scream right before we break through the main chamber doors.

It’s not a pain scream.

It’s a spell. A rupture. A fucking detonation.

The world shudders. The walls ripple like water, and the ground cracks beneath our boots as the ritual collapses inward.

We stumble into a sea of chaos—cultists screaming, magic tearing apart the altar, bodies writhing from the backlash.

And in the middle of it all?

Sera.

On her knees.

Power pouring from her like a god cracked open. Her hair’s wild, glowing with residual force, and her eyes are pure shadow and starlight. She’s got blood at the corners of her mouth, one arm hanging limp, but she’s smiling.

Like a wolf who bit back.

I run to her, grabbing her just as she sways forward.

“I had it handled,” she croaks, smirking even as she leans against me.

“Bullshit,” I whisper into her hair. “But thanks for leaving me something to kill.”

She laughs, broken and beautiful, and then pushes herself to her feet.

Together, we turn back to the room.

Half the cult is gone, disintegrated by her sabotage. But a handful escape—cloaked figures slipping through shadow portals before we can stop them.

Rafe tries to pursue but a caster blasts him backwards against the wall.

“The leader of this whole thing is with them,” Sera pants as I try to stand her to her feet.

“Did you see who it was?”

She shakes her head. “No, but he’s gone. They’re not done.”

“Well, neither are we.”