Page 20 of Flint’s Fate (Silver Falls Shifters #3)

CHAPTER 19

JENNA

J enna stood at the orchard’s edge, the wind curling through the trees like something alive, carrying the scent of rain and something else—something old. The earth beneath her boots vibrated with the quiet hum of power, a presence she couldn’t see but could feel deep in her bones.

The chamber was calling her… and she was done ignoring it.

Behind her, the others were gearing up. Wes checked the magazine in his rifle, Ridge stood near the tree line, his sharp gaze fixed on the dark horizon, waiting for any sign of movement. Sybil paced, restless energy rolling off her in waves. Ember had taken to the skies in her dragon form.

Only Flint wasn’t moving.

He was standing just beyond the entrance to the underground chamber, arms crossed, his body radiating a different kind of tension—one that had nothing to do with battle preparations and everything to do with her.

“We should go in now,” Jenna said, keeping her voice even. “Before McVey or the Ghost Walkers force our hand.”

“No,” Flint said flatly.

Jenna clenched her jaw, refusing to look away. “You want to wait until they get here? Until we’re backed into a corner?”

Flint’s expression was carved from stone. “I want to wait until we have a damn plan.”

“We have a plan,” she countered. “You just don’t like it.”

His jaw flexed, frustration rolling off him. “You have no idea what’s down there.”

“Neither do they,” she shot back. “That’s the point. I’m not giving them the chance to find out first.”

Sybil cleared her throat. “She’s got a point, Flint.”

He cut a sharp glare toward his sister, who responded by crossing her arms and sticking her tongue out at him, providing a much needed moment of comic relief.

“Whether we open that chamber or not, the fight is coming,” Jenna pressed. “Would you rather walk into it blind, or take control now?”

Flint didn’t answer, but the muscle in his jaw ticked again.

Jenna stepped closer, dropping her voice. “You know this is the only move we have left. If I don’t open it, someone else will. Someone who won’t give a damn about what they have to do to me to get it opened and unleash whatever is in there.”

“I don’t like it,” Flint snarled.

Jenna reached out, brushing her fingers against his arm, barely a touch, but enough. “I know, but I can do this, Flint.”

He let out a breath through his nose, his body tight with resistance. Then, after a long, measured silence, he nodded once. “We do this my way. No heroics, no rushing in blind. The second things go sideways, we get the hell out.”

Jenna swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Deal.”

Flint turned toward the others. “Move out.”

They worked fast, positioning themselves around the clearing. Ridge joined his sister in the skies, shifting into his dragon form with a silent, predatory grace. The rest of them followed Jenna to the entrance, where the stone door loomed, covered in intricate carvings—ancient runes that no one had been able to decipher.

Until now.

Jenna’s heart pounded as she stepped forward. The moment the soles of her boots touched the stone threshold, the air crackled. Something deep beneath them stirred. The runes ignited in a rush of golden light, pulsing with an energy that made the hair on her arms stand on end.

Behind her, Flint cursed under his breath. “That’s new.”

Jenna lifted a hand, fingers hovering just over the carvings. The closer she got, the stronger the pulse became, syncing with the rhythm of her heartbeat.

“It recognizes me,” she murmured.

“Yeah?” Wes muttered. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Jenna wasn’t sure. She inhaled sharply, then pressed her palm against the stone.

The world tilted.

Power surged up through the ground, slamming into her like a tidal wave. Jenna staggered, but Flint was there in an instant, steadying her with a firm grip on her waist.

“Jenna,” he growled.

“I’m fine,” she said, even as the power wrapped around her like invisible chains, dragging her deeper, demanding something—something only she could give.

The runes burned brighter. The stone beneath her hand grew warm.

And then, with a deep, grinding groan, the entrance to the chamber began to open.

A gust of stale, ancient air rushed up to greet them as the heavy stone doors slowly began to part. The ground trembled, the trees shivering as if the very earth was resisting what was happening.

Jenna pulled her hand back, her breath coming fast.

“Holy shit,” Wes breathed. “That actually worked.”

Jenna turned toward Flint. His face was unreadable, but his hand was still on her waist, holding her steady.

She met his gaze. “There’s no turning back now.”

His fingers tightened slightly, just for a moment. Then he nodded. “No, there’s not.”

The chamber had been waiting for her.

And whatever was inside… was waiting too.

As the chamber doors cracked open wide, the world seemed to hold its breath. The golden light from the runes flickered, pulsing in time with Jenna’s heartbeat, casting shifting shadows against the jagged stone walls inside. The stale air reeked of old magic and forgotten things. The energy pressing down on her wasn’t just power—it was history, waiting to be claimed.

But before Jenna could take another step forward, a sound cut through the night. Not the wind. Not the quiet hum of the earth waking up beneath her feet. Something else. Something coming.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose. “Flint,” she said, voice low.

He was already turning, already reaching for his weapon. Then the forest exploded.

The Ghost Walkers didn’t come like raiders, howling and reckless. They moved with silent precision, slipping through the trees like wraiths. Dozens of them, their bodies nearly invisible against the night, their forms flickering in and out of sight as if they were part of the darkness itself.

Jenna barely had time to move before the first one lunged for her. Flint was there in an instant, his gun roaring as he put two bullets in the attacker’s chest before it could touch her.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered, voice sharp.

Jenna ignored him, already drawing her knife.

“Here we go,” Wes muttered, lifting his rifle and taking aim.

The fight ignited like a powder keg. The Ghost Walkers swarmed in, silent and lethal, their weapons flashing in the dim light of the chamber’s entrance. Flint, Wes, and Sybil met them head-on.

Ridge landed and moved in front of the entrance, guarding like Cerberus at the gates of hell. He was like a storm, tearing through enemies with inhuman speed, his claws raking through flesh. Sybil darted through the chaos, wielding two knives that flashed in the moonlight, her movements efficient and deadly.

Flint was a force of nature. Jenna had seen him fight before, but not like this.

He moved with brutal precision, his body coiled with the lethal grace of a predator fully unleashed. He didn’t waste energy, didn’t play with his enemies. He cut them down fast and without hesitation, his gun and blade working in tandem, his mountain lion a breath away from breaking free.

She could feel him, could feel his rage burning hot, the primal drive to protect her overriding everything else.

But there were too many Ghost Walkers. Jenna caught movement from the corner of her eye—a Ghost Walker breaking past their defenses, slipping around Ridge and moving toward the chamber entrance.

No. She lunged forward, twisting her knife in her grip. The Ghost Walker turned just in time to see her coming. Jenna feinted left, then pivoted, bringing the blade up in a swift arc. It caught it across the throat, cutting deep. Blood sprayed as it staggered back, gurgling.

Jenna didn’t stop to watch it fall. The chamber was wide open.

She turned, breath coming fast, and stepped inside.

The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the runes blazed with renewed light, and the air changed. The chamber didn’t just contain the dead; it wasn’t just a tomb. It was something else. There was something alive.

Power thrummed through the stone walls, humming beneath her skin like a second heartbeat. The energy wrapped around her, curling into her senses, whispering things she didn’t understand but felt deep in her bones.

At the center of the chamber, resting atop an ancient pedestal, was the source of it all. The artifact. It wasn’t some rusted relic or crumbling piece of history.

It hummed with power, with a kind of life—an object that had no business belonging in the human world. Made of obsidian and gold, its shape was deceptively simple—a thick, circular disc, smooth as glass, yet fractured with thin, glowing veins of molten amber. The closer Jenna stepped, the brighter the veins pulsed, like something inside was waking up.

Ancient runes carved along its outer rim morphed beneath the glow, rearranging themselves in patterns Jenna’s mind couldn’t quite comprehend—but somehow, her blood did. The power inside the artifact wasn’t just reacting to her presence. It recognized her.

It was waiting for her.

Strange symbols—not Ghost Walker, not Calloway’s stolen scripts, but something older—flashed along its surface in steady pulses, keeping time with her racing heartbeat. The energy in the chamber thickened, the very air charged, making the hairs on her arms rise.

Jenna swallowed hard. The artifact wasn’t a key, it was a gate, and she was the key.

And if McVey or the Ghost Walkers had gotten here first, they would have torn the world apart, sacrificed her to whatever gods they believed in, to force it open.

It was a living thing. It pulsed, glowing with an eerie, molten light. The shape wasn’t fully solid, shifting between forms as if deciding what it wanted to be. It wasn’t magic in the way she’d always understood it. This was something older, something deeper.

And it knew her. The second she stepped closer, the artifact’s glow intensified.

Jenna sucked in a sharp breath. It wasn’t reacting to her presence. It was reacting to her blood.

Understanding slammed into her like a freight train—this was never meant for the Calloways.

The Ghost Walkers had been wrong.

McVey had been wrong.

This power had never belonged to them.

It had always belonged to the Walkers—not the Ghost Walkers, although the name now made more sense—but to her mother’s ancestors. It belonged to her.

Jenna lifted a trembling hand, reaching toward the artifact. The second her fingertips brushed against its surface, the chamber shook.

A blinding surge of light erupted outward, slamming into the stone walls, sending cracks racing through the ancient carvings. The power roared, burning through her veins, demanding something—Outside, a voice shouted her name.

Flint.

Jenna’s head snapped up just in time to see a figure rushing toward her. A Ghost Walker, breaking past the chaos of the battle outside, its blade raised. Jenna spun, power still racing through her, and met it head-on.

FLINT

The world blurred. Flint didn’t think, didn’t breathe, didn’t hesitate.

One second, he was locked in a brutal fight, his knife buried deep in the ribs of a Ghost Walker who had gotten too close. The next, he saw her.

Jenna.

A blade arcing toward her chest.

One of the Ghost Walkers had broken through, slipping past the others while they fought tooth and nail outside the chamber. Flint saw the gleam of metal, the way Jenna spun to face her attacker, the shock in her eyes as the blade came down.

Something inside him shattered.

Flint lunged.

He didn’t register the bodies he tore through, the scent of blood thick in the air, the sounds of dying Ghost Walkers gurgling their last breath. His mountain lion pushed closer, an overwhelming force crashing into his human side, but Flint didn’t let it take over. Not yet.

His only focus was her.

The Ghost Walker lunged. Jenna twisted, fast—too damn fast for someone human. The energy pulsing through the chamber had changed her. He could feel it, even from a distance. But she wasn’t invincible. She was still his to protect.

Flint reached them as the blade slashed downward. Jenna barely dodged, the tip catching her shoulder. Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t falter. She pivoted on her heel, her own knife flashing up, slicing deep across the Ghost Walker’s abdomen.

Not enough. Flint hit it. He didn’t just knock the bastard back—he destroyed it.

His body slammed into the Ghost Walker, tackling it to the stone floor with a force that cracked bone. Flint’s hands gripped the thing’s skull, slamming it against the ground once, twice, until there was nothing left but a broken mess.

Inside his mind, his mountain lion roared for more. More blood. More violence. More vengeance.

Jenna was bleeding. Flint turned, vision tunneling as he spotted another Ghost Walker lunging toward her. Flint’s blade whistled through the air, embedding deep in the thing’s throat before it could even make it two steps. It gurgled, fingers clawing at its neck, before crumpling.

Then silence.

The last enemy fell and with its fall, Flint watched as Mayor Calloway scurried off into the night—the last rat deserting the ship. The Ghost Walkers lay scattered in the dirt, some still groaning, most dead. Ridge was heaving for breath, blood streaking his scales, his dragon shimmering and then enshrouded in mist as he shifted back. Wes leaned against a rock, panting, his rifle still gripped in his hands. Sybil wiped her blade on her pants, her face a blank mask as she kicked over a corpse to make sure it stayed dead.

But Flint couldn’t process any of that.

Because Jenna was still standing. Alive. Barely.

She was swaying slightly, one hand pressed to the wound on her shoulder, her breathing uneven. Her dark eyes locked onto his, something unreadable flashing there, something that burned into his soul.

He didn’t think. Didn’t care. Flint closed the distance, his blood still coursing with the fury of the battle. He grabbed her, hard, hauling her into his chest, his hands shaking as they slid over her arms, her back, checking—making damn sure she was still whole.

Jenna sucked in a breath, stiffening for half a second before relaxing against him, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

Flint buried his face against her hair, breathing her in, the metallic scent of blood mixing with something uniquely Jenna—fire, defiance, the scent that had been driving him insane since the moment they met.

“Never again,” he growled, his voice low, guttural. The promise rumbled through his chest, into her skin, binding itself into the very fabric of the night.

Jenna didn’t pull away. Didn’t argue. She knew.

Flint lifted her without another word, one arm bracing her legs, the other curling around her back. She let him. Didn’t fight him for once.

She wasn’t just his responsibility. She was his, and he was done waiting.

The battlefield was still littered with bodies as he walked past—the scent of blood thick in the air, but none of it mattered. Not McVey. Not Calloway or the Ghost Walkers. Not even the power still pulsing beneath the earth. The only thing that mattered was the woman in his arms, her fingers fisting in his shirt, her breath uneven against his throat.

Flint turned, heading toward the farmhouse. The others watched, but no one spoke. No one dared.

Jenna belonged to him. And now? The whole damn world was going to know it.

At the farmhouse he crossed the porch, pushing through the door with a single-minded purpose. His heart thundered, his grip unbreakable because she would never be without his protection again. Never.

Jenna moved against him, tilting her head until her lips brushed the rough edge of his jaw. “Then stop waiting,” she whispered.

Flint stilled as the door swung shut behind them.