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Our wolves had begun feeling anxious, and we shifted back as the air became thick with magic and stress, a scent not dissimilar to ozone coating our noses.

The pixies led us to a ridge and warned us to stay down as we peered over the edge at the sprawling haven below.

“Haven?”

Elias scoffed. “It’s a fucking prison.”

The camp was massive, surrounded by stone walls covered in strange runes that glowed in the moonlight. Guard towers loomed at each corner, and watchful sentries clad in black armor stood like statues as they surveyed the landscape.

Inside, rows upon rows of ramshackle barracks stretched into the distance, punctuated only by large, open squares where even at night, shifters were forced into labor.

From our distance we could hear the cracking of a whip and faint whimpers—the sound of a punishment.

“Moon, how many are in there?”

Nolan gasped.

“Too many,”

Camden spit. He looked over his shoulder to the pixie. “Why the hell did you bring us here?”

“Safe to hide, hard to find alphas in havens!”

Starbloom said. “Must blend in.”

I watched as a group of shifters—betas, most likely—crowded around a small fire, speaking in hushed voices.

“Are all shifters in havens like these?” I asked.

Dewdrop spun quickly around my head. “Yes, yes, many types of havens… Only mean alpha and nice omegas free.”

Kian’s violet eyes glowed in the moonlight, Petalwing making herself cozy on his shoulder. “Omegas? As in more than one?”

Julian growled. “Don’t get any ideas, bloodsucker.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,”

he sighed. “It’s just that Marlowe is known as the omega on Earth, so if we’re asking around and it turns out there’s a lot, we might end up following the wrong lead.”

As far as I was concerned, Kian had proven his trustworthiness to us enough. We had talked extensively on the drive, and I’d learned not only about his research on the Great War and what he’d discovered, but also his life. The oldest son of a vampyr elder, he was expected to take his place one day, but really just wanted to live a quiet life with his servaglio in Austin.

But my other pack mates would take a lot longer to warm over. Several generations worth of prejudice was hard to combat.

Camden clicked his tongue. “Speaking of omegas, you guys notice anything strange about the camp?”

We all turned our attention back to the shifters below us, observing the few that were still up at this hour.

“They’re all betas,”

I commented quietly. “Dewdrop, where are the alphas and omegas?”

“Alphas go to Soldier Haven, omegas go to Love Haven, betas go to Work Haven.”

This must have been the “Work Haven,”

then. It was easy to imagine what a “Soldier Haven”

was, but a “Love Haven” I could only assume was a pretty term for forced prostitution.

Starbloom zoomed around my head. “But pretty omegas taken. King loves omegas.”

“Omegas so nice! New omega is queen!”

“Queen omega!”

they said in unison. “So nice!”

Queen omega? “You saw Marlowe?” I asked.

“Hm, Marlowe? No name, but cute omega! Looks like mean alpha.”

“Mean alpha, but handsome.”

These pixies had seen Marlowe and Ezra together. My throat went dry at the thought of her in this world, navigating it without us to protect her. “Was she okay?”

“King loves new queen,”

Petalwing said. “Kiss kiss kiss!”

The involuntary growl that erupted from Camden’s chest frightened the pixies, and they flew behind Kian, shivering in place.

“Scary alpha,”

one of them whimpered.

Alpha was certainly the right word to use for Camden these days. For some reason, I’d never really thought to research the effects of alpha barks and commands in my own studies, but after the Conclave was executed and we took their positions in the interim, I’d noticed our “fearless leader”

seemed to carry himself with a bit more influence and forcefulness.

The transfer of power and dominance between alphas was in a sense its own sort of magic. It wasn’t just determined by strength—Eamon Frost would have won in a battle of brawn against Roland Thorne, for example, yet Roland was the one with the stronger bark and control.

No, there was some other power at play here, and with Roland’s death, it seemed that power had passed to Camden.

I wondered if anyone else had noticed yet.

“I’m sorry, ladies,”

Nolan said. “Cam is just upset because the Queen omega is our omega. We’re here to save her.”

“Save her, save her! She hates King, we know.”

That was a small comfort, at least. We looked back down over the haven. “We really appreciate all your help, but as alphas, I don’t know how we can blend in.”

“We hide trail, no worry! Stay here, still safe.”

And with that the pixies flew back in the direction we’d come from.

Elias watched them go and chuckled. “Alright, who had ‘Success dependent on three pixies the size of hummingbirds’ on their ‘Journey to the Fae World to rescue our omega from an evil king’ bingo?”

“Me,”

Kian replied flatly. “Now I just need ‘Complete side quest given by talking cat to find enchanted weapon’ and I’ll win.”

Camden snorted, finally giving the rest of the pack permission to laugh at the vampyr’s jokes.

“Well, I guess we’re stuck here until they come back, right?”

Julian asked.

A wave of love was sent down the bond from Marlowe, soothing the anxiety in my chest.

“What is it?”

Kian asked, sensing the change in atmosphere. Another whip cracked below us, and a female’s scream echoed through the air.

“Just Marlowe,”

I replied. “She’s just touching base, sending us her feelings.”

Another whip followed by more screaming sounded, and our unease returned.

“That must be nice,”

Kian said quietly. “I wish I had a connection to my servaglio like that.”

We fell silent again, now observing the guards—their movements, their rotations, and their positions.

Nolan scooted closer to Camden, pointing towards the tower closest to us. “The guards aren’t looking for anyone breaking in, they’re concentrating on the shifters inside. There’s a spot about twenty meters down the wall with ample coverage to hide our approach. If we wanted to sneak in, that would be the place to do it.”

We all peered over the edge to see where Nolan was talking about. The location was near a small copse of trees, and as he suggested, the guards weren’t even bothering to look outside the wall as they walked by.

“Okay, sure,”

Camden replied. “You’re forgetting a couple things. One—our pale, butt naked asses are like flashing billboards out here. Even if they don’t think we’re shifters they’ll probably think we’re ghosts.”

Julian scoffed. “Maybe your lily-white asses look like ghosts…”

I looked across the row of us laying on the ground and had to agree - our natural human bodies weren’t exactly made for stealth, and our wolves couldn’t climb.

I considered the merits of covering ourselves in mud to help blend into our surroundings, but then thought of a better plan.

“Kian, your shadows—can they obscure physical objects, or are they just for offensive attacks?”

He smiled and opened his hand, shadows pouring out of his palm and covering his body like a cloud. The darkness absorbed the light, leaving a near invisible hole in the space he occupied.

“Well, fuck…”

Julian said. “Why didn’t we get that power?”

After sharing his blood with us, our magic manifested more towards the physical or elemental - earth, fire, water, etc. But Kian had control over more immaterial forces, and I was practically salivating to find out why.

“As cool as that is,”

Camden continued. “The second thing we’re forgetting is—why should we even go down there in the first place? There are no alphas, or vamps for that matter, in that prison. We’ll be spotted immediately.”

For all their assistance, the pixies hadn’t realized this so-called haven wasn’t going to work as a hiding spot. At least they were helping to cover our trail, though.

“But don’t you want to find out where the alphas are?”

Elias looked at Kian. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but since you’re the only one who can fly and you can hide yourself with your shadows, would you be able to sneak in and ask someone?”

His shadows receded slightly and he looked back down. “Do you think they’ll want to talk to a ‘bloodsucker?’”

Elias winced slightly, his face apologetic. “Sorry, we’ve been total dicks, haven’t we?”

Well, I hadn’t been a total dick, but I kept my mouth shut so my pack could apologize properly.

Kian rolled over on his back, emitting small pulses of shadow from his finger and releasing them into the sky. “Look, it’s not like I was super thrilled when my father told me he wanted me to work with an alpha shifter pack, either. Especially when I found out the Council had tried to kill you all and steal your girl, I figured gaining your trust would be an uphill battle. And I don’t particularly like having to constantly prove myself.

“But these fae assholes killed most of my people and are itching to finish the job. If saving the vampyrs means working together, I’m in. I just don’t know if I’ll be facing the same kind of animosity with the shifters down there as I do on Earth.”

A lone wolf howled in the distance, sending a chill of submission down my spine.

“That must be Ezra,”

I whispered. “I hope the pixies were able to cover our scents well enough.”

After a few more minutes of silence, Kian finally growled his resignation and sat up. “Okay, I’ll sneak in by myself. But if things go south, you need to be ready to create a diversion so I can get out.”

Julian looked over and grinned. “Oh, I can do that.”