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CHAPTER 10

SOPHIA

T he first thing I register is pain. It slides through me like a knife drawn slow—dull at the edges but no less cutting. My limbs are heavy. My mouth tastes like copper and ash. I blink against a harsh, flickering light overhead. A buzzing fluorescent fixture. Cold floor beneath me. Stone? No, metal. Too smooth. Too uniform.

Where the hell am I?

I roll onto my side with a groan, pressing a hand to my head. The air smells of bleach and iron. Beneath that, something foul and sickly sweet—chemical. I push myself upright, bracing against the wall. It’s smooth. Seamless. The same metal as the floor. There’s no door. Not one I can see. Just a thick pane of glass in one corner—opaque from this side.

A cell.

The realization lands hard.

Memories slam into me—Lucas, the lab, the gas. His voice calling my name as the room spun sideways. His arms wrapped around me. The way his body trembled, power pulsing through his skin, his wolf just beneath.

I spin toward the glass, panic rising. "Lucas!" No response. I press my hand flat to the glass. "Lucas, answer me!"

A muffled thud echoes from the other side of the wall. Then a second. And a voice, rough and furious. "I’m here."

Relief crashes into me so fast I stagger. I press my forehead to the glass. "Are you okay?"

"No." His voice is tight. Controlled. Which means he’s absolutely not okay. "Where are we?"

"Underground," I say, looking around the cell. "A facility. It must be beneath the estate. Hidden."

I hear him pacing, heavy footfalls back and forth. Then a slam—his fist, probably—against his own wall. "The Crimson Claw patrols outside. I caught a scent just before I came to. We’re surrounded."

"They took our weapons."

"Of course they did."

I glance up. The ceiling’s just as seamless as the rest of the room. No vents. No obvious cameras. But they’re watching. I can feel it.

Something scratches softly to my left. I turn fast. There’s another cell beside mine. The glass in that one isn’t fully opaque. I squint, heart hammering. A body.

No—movement. Slow. Jerky. A man, crouched low, back to the wall. He’s muttering under his breath. His hair is long and matted. He’s thin—too thin—but something about the set of his shoulders sparks recognition.

"Lucas," I call softly, "someone’s in the next cell."

His voice sharpens. "Who?"

I press my face to the glass, willing my eyes to adjust to the shadows. The man moves, just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his face.

And my breath stops.

"It’s Max. Max Bennett."

A pause. Then: "You’re sure?"

"Positive. But he’s... different."

Lucas swears. Loud. Unfiltered. "Is he injured?"

"Not that I can see. But he’s not all there. He’s talking to himself. Pacing. Repeating things. Like he’s stuck in a loop."

Max’s voice rises suddenly, a rasping chant: "Can’t bleed silver. Can’t bleed silver. Can’t..."

Lucas growls. "They experimented on him."

I kneel near the glass separating Max’s cell from mine. "Max," I say softly. "It’s Sophia. Max, can you hear me?"

He stops. Just for a second. His head tilts. Then he smiles, too wide, too slow.

"The stormwalker. You followed the wind. I told them you would."

My blood runs cold. "Who did you tell, Max?"

But he just laughs and slams his head once against the wall. Then again.

"Lucas, Max has been exposed to something. We need to get out of here. Now. And we need to take him with us."

“We don’t know what they did to him. He might be dangerous.”

I laugh. Max is one of the Ironclaw Pack’s most formidable warriors. On his worst day, half dead, he was dangerous.

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t leave without him.” I can hear scrambling around coming from Lucas’ cell. “Lucas?”

Lucas doesn’t answer right away.

"Lucas?" I call again.

"I can’t shift," he says finally.

The words hang there between us.

"What?"

"I tried. Three times. The first felt wrong. The second... something cracked inside. Like I was being ripped in two."

Panic ripples through me. Lucas is one of the strongest wolves I’ve ever known. If he can’t shift from man to wolf or wolf to man... something is very wrong.

"They did something," he says. "To us. To the air, maybe. Or something in our systems. I feel my wolf, but he’s trapped. Like he’s bound and there’s a wall between us."

I close my eyes. Think. Focus.

I’m a Windrider. We don’t just fight storms. We listen to them. We belong to them. And right now, the wind is still speaking to me—soft, low, like a forgotten current beneath the world.

I press both palms to the wall.

"Sophia? Are you all right? What are you doing?" Lucas asks.

"Listening."

“To what?”

“To the storm.”

He doesn’t argue. Just waits.

The Windwoven bond hums inside me, old and quiet. I call to it—not in words, but in memory. The canyon. The rites. The day the elders placed the storm in my bones. I remember the taste of lightning on my tongue, the feeling of becoming more than blood and muscle.

I push deeper. Past the pain. Past the fear. The metal under my hands thrums. Not much. But enough. A weak point. Not in the wall itself—but in the frequency. A flaw in the design.

"I think I can break it," I whisper.

"You think, or you know?" Lucas’s voice is sharp.

"Does it matter?"

He huffs. "No. Do it."

I inhale sharply, drawing in the tempest with a fierce determination—not with raw power, but with the sheer force of memory and the relentless beat of my pulse that calls the storm. Within me, the bond ignites like wildfire, a deep primal connection, and the wind answers with a ferocious eagerness. It rages through me—swift and precise, eternal, a force both untamed and intimately known.

The sturdy walls stand firm, defiant, but the glass is not so lucky. A fragile hairline fracture races across its surface, a subtle yet glaring sign of impending doom. Another line follows, a chaotic web of cracks spreading like wildfire. The air reverberates with the high-pitched shriek of pressure finally succumbing, the glass bending and straining under the relentless, invisible weight of the storm.

Max howls from the other cell. Lucas slams his hand against his own wall. "Do it again. Harder."

I unleash a primal scream—not born of fear, but as an unstoppable force—and the storm erupts with savage ferocity. Lightning crackles violently in the air, illuminating nothing but chaos, while the wind's relentless howl echoes through the unseen sky. The power of the Windwoven surges through me with the force of a tsunami slamming into jagged cliffs, and the glass around me shatters outward in a dazzling explosion of razor-sharp shards. I collapse to my knees, breathless and quaking, my heart thundering in the aftermath of the untamed power that ripped through my very being.

Lucas is through the wall in seconds, hauling me up.

"Can you walk?"

"Yes."

His grip tightens. "Then run."

Behind us, Max begins to laugh again. "You won’t make it far. He sees you now."

“That’s nice. He can see you too, and you’re coming with us,” I say.

“Sophia…”

“I’m not leaving him here.”

Max faces me. His eyes are glowing faintly. Not wolf. Not human. Something in between, and for a moment, I can see through to the warrior he was before.

Lucas and I start to move, but Max doesn’t. I walk toward him, reaching out. He flinches. “Come back Max. Come back. We need to go.” I flex my fingers, beckoning to him. “Please.”

I don’t remember running. I don’t remember standing. I just remember the sound of Lucas breathing hard next to me, Max groaning in the corner, and the metal of the cell door groaning open like it’s dying a slow death.

The Windwoven left me drained. My skin’s too hot, my hands tingling from the storm I pulled through the ground. But it worked. We’re out of those cells, and whatever the hell they used to suppress Lucas’s wolf appears to be weakening.

The hallway outside is narrow, carved from old stone, with crude wiring stapled along the ceiling. It smells like piss, bleach, and decay. One long corridor lit by humming fluorescents, and far too many doors that promise things I don’t want to see.

Lucas catches my arm, pulls me behind him with a look that brooks no argument.

“I’m fine,” I whisper, yanking my arm back. “You lead, but don’t treat me like I’m breakable.”

He doesn’t argue. Just nods once and hands me the blade he took off the wall in the control room. He nods to Max. “Don’t fall behind.”

Max returns the nod. Perhaps he, too, can come all the way back.

I grin at Lucas, despite the fact that my legs feel like wet paper. “That’ll never happen.”

Max stumbles as we move, his steps uneven. I slide under his arm and let him lean on me. He reeks of sweat and old blood, but his eyes are clearer than before. Still wild, but tracking.

“You remember me?” I ask.

He nods slowly. “Windrider. Silver braid.”

“That’s Kylie.”

Max looks confused, but continues to move. “Knife-thrower. Talked shit to an Ironclaw general during a treaty meal.”

I laugh. “Again, that’s Kylie. But glad to know we made an impression.”

His mouth twitches. “Has she stabbed anyone yet?”

“Not today that I know of, but that can change at any time.”

Lucas throws a hand up, stopping us short. He listens—then points to a junction ahead. Two guards. Crimson Claw. Their scent is unmistakable. One has the scent we’ve come to expect, the other has the normal scent, plus something different—probably enhanced, like the ones we fought in the forest.

Lucas turns to me. “You take the one on the right.”

I blink. “You’re trusting me with the loud one?”

He doesn’t even glance at me. “I’ve seen what you do when you’re angry. I trust that more than I trust silence.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. Not now, not here, but later? I’m going to make him say that again.

He crouches, then launches. No more talk.

The fight is fast and brutal. The wolf is strong—bigger than most, faster than I expect—but not stronger than Lucas. He slams into the Crimson Claw operative mid-lunge, and the impact sends both of them crashing into the stone wall with a crack that echoes down the hall. I hear bones snap. Maybe Lucas’s. Definitely the wolf’s.

The second one sees me and lunges, jaws wide, claws raking through the air. No blade. Doesn’t need one.

I drop into a low roll, his claws grazing my shoulder as I slide beneath him. My knife flashes, slicing the back of his hind leg clean. He stumbles with a howl, skidding across the stone. Before he can recover, I’m already moving—on him, under him, past his fangs.

My blade drives straight into the soft spot just below his jaw. He jerks, claws scrabbling against the floor, trying to catch purchase.

He lets out a wet, broken whine.

“Too late,” I whisper.

I twist the blade and feel the body go still.

Lucas growls low, the sound vibrating through the corridor. The Crimson Claw wolf falls silent beneath him, a heap of fur and cracked ribs. Lucas’ fight ends in a pile of broken limbs and blood-slick stone. He steps back, chest heaving, one arm bleeding but still holding his blade like he plans to use it again.

“You good?” he asks.

I nod and turn toward Max. He’s slumped against the wall, panting, but he gives me a weak thumbs-up.

Blood pools on the floor. We keep moving.

Lucas grabs the radio from the guard’s belt and smashes it. “That’ll buy us two minutes. Maybe.”

We move again. The tunnels begin to climb; the stone giving way to packed dirt, then metal. I can smell the outside world—pine and damp moss, clean air seeping in through the cracks. We’re close.

Then I hear it—boots.

Lucas hears it too. He motions for me to duck behind a rusted panel. He yanks Max with him, keeping him pressed low while I tuck into the shadowed edge near the base of a half-collapsed stairwell.

Three more guards.

Lucas growls low, more sound than voice. “We don’t fight unless we have to. We draw them in, split them, and you take Max. Get him out.”

“Lucas—”

“I’ll find you. If I don’t?—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

He grips the back of my neck, just for a second. Grounding. Then he’s gone, slipping into the darkness like a predator who’s finally remembered what he is.

The first guard goes down with a sound that’s more crack than scream. The second turns—and I’m already moving, Max dragging his legs beside me as we sprint for the door Lucas just cleared. The third chases.

I don’t stop. I shove the next door open—blinding daylight. I blink once, then we’re out.

Max falls to his knees the second we’re clear of the estate, retching into the brush. I drop beside him, blade still in hand, body shaking with adrenaline.

Then Lucas is there, storming out of the trees with blood on his knuckles and fury in his eyes.

He crouches beside me, eyes scanning my face, my body, checking for injuries I don’t have time to process.

“Are you hit?” he asks.

“No.”

“Max?”

“Alive,” Max rasps, coughing up bile. “Barely. Thank you.”

Lucas grabs him under the arms and hauls him to his feet like he weighs nothing. “We move. Now.”

We don’t stop. Not when the howls rise behind us. Not when we hear reinforcements pour into the ruins. We run.

At the edge of the ruined estate, the morning air cuts sharp against my skin, thick with ash, old blood, and the distant howl of something still hunting. We’ve pushed hard to get this far, but we’re not out of the woods. Not yet.

Lucas glances back once to make sure we’re alone, then drops the pack beside a cluster of half-buried stones. “We run from here.”

I nod and start peeling off the borrowed shirt, the fabric sticking to the dried blood on my ribs. Every bruise, every scrape screams in protest, but I keep moving. Lucas is already unbuckling his belt, movements quick and efficient. No hesitation. No modesty. Just a soldier stripping for war.

Max grunts behind us as he tugs off the oversized hoodie we found in Cain’s bunker. He’s weaker than both of us, but there’s a steel in him that didn’t break under Cain’s experiments. That means something. He strips slower, wincing as he steps out of his pants, one leg stiff with a healing fracture, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t complain.

Lucas crouches by the pack and rolls each of our clothes tight, stuffing them in with practiced hands. “Keep close. If you fall behind, I’ll drag your ass the rest of the way.”

He says it to Max, but his eyes sweep over me as well. He means both of us.

The wind picks up, carrying pine and frost through the trees, and my wolf stirs under my skin, restless. Ready.

Lucas steps back, his body already thrumming with power. The mist answers him first, curling low around his feet, streaked with gray and blue. Thunder rolls deep and low as lightning threads through the fog, swallowing him whole in a sudden, electrified surge. When the storm peels away, the man is gone.

In his place stands a massive wolf, broad-shouldered and coal-dark, eyes glowing gold in the moonlight.

I drop to one knee, pressing my palm to the dirt. The wind comes fast this time, as if it’s been waiting. It wraps around me like a command, pulling at my skin, dragging the storm from deep inside my chest. Mist slithers up my arms, silver streaked with violet, and then it breaks with a single bolt of light.

And I am wolf. Silver-coated. Breath steady. Muscles primed.

Max stumbles as the shift takes him—less graceful, more pain—but he lands on all fours, panting, his wolf form lean and marked with old scars. Tired, but still standing.

Lucas lets out one sharp bark. A signal as he picks up the pack with our clothes.

We run.

It takes hours, and every step back toward the lodge feels like dragging fire through my bones, but we make it. Just outside the compound, we shift back, pulling on our clothes. The second we step through the gates, wolves flood the yard—guards, scouts, even some of the Nightshade elite. I see Isabella. I see Kylie. But it’s Ryder who steps forward first.

He takes one look at us—bloodied, bruised, clothes torn, faces drawn tight with the kind of pain that doesn’t fade quickly—and says the last thing I expect.

“Kylie reached out to your father. We need to talk,” Ryder says. His voice is quiet, but sharp enough to cut steel. “All of us.”

Lucas guides Max gently onto the stairs and straightens. His posture is relaxed, but I know that look in his eyes. It's the calm before something dangerous.

“Kylie, can you look after Max?” I ask.

“Take him down to the infirmary. Ask them to make sure he’s okay.”

Kylie nods, and I turn back to Ryder. “Talk about what?”

Ryder doesn't blink. “Everything. Cain. The Deep Below. The mutants. Your wind. My beta. What happens next.”

Behind him, someone closes the lodge door slowly. Just like that, I know. We’re not done, and it’s going to be a long night.