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The creases in the man’s face were caked in grime, almost underlining and enhancing them.

It made every expression, the attempt at a joke and the flat failure of it, all the more apparent.

Aaron opened the door of the cell, and his men inside just looked at it for a moment before belatedly getting to their feet and inching out.

They’d only been here a few days. I looked down the cells, saw the men pacing or collapsed in the corners of them, then felt the crystal pulse in my pocket.

I reached out and took Johnno’s hand. Unbidden, those green tendrils I’d seen in the darkness flared inside my mind, overlaying the gritty reality, obscuring it, then transforming it.

“Fuck,” one of the guys said, looking at Johnno in surprise. He stood straighter, rolling his neck and flexing his arms, then looked down at the healed gash on his leg.

“Thanks, Julie,” he said. “Now load us up with what weapons you’ve got, because we’re getting out of here.”

“We have a pitstop to make,” Aaron said. He met the quizzical looks of his men head on. “We’re releasing the women. They can come with us if they want.”

“Those bitches?” said one of the blokes in the nearby cells. “You’re telling me we’re spending precious fucking time rescuing them? No, no fucking way.”

“So, don’t,” Slade said. “The side gate’s open. There’s no one around, they’re all under the ground in the cavern. You wanna go? Go.”

“You gonna give us a gun?”

“No. We’ve got a mission to fulfil, and we’re going to need every one. They’re coming, the Volken. They’re going to swarm through here, through the surrounding land, and hunt down whatever they can find. You want a head start? Take it.”

The guy looked at the other bloke in the cell, and said, “Whaddya reckon, Ron? We can’t go back to Sanctuary.”

“Let’s bolt,” his cell mate said. “Whatever hero trip you’re on, I want no part in it. I just want out.”

The rest of the cells were much the same—the men either eager to be armed and help, or ready to leave the moment the doors were opened.

We unlocked, healed, and dispensed weapons until they were all out.

I looked around the dank room, feeling a sense of satisfaction for a moment that this was over, that there were no more of our people locked up.

Then I felt the rumble below us. That seemed to mobilise everyone.

The guys who were running, ran, and those who were staying, clustered around us.

“Jules!”

My head jerked up to see Finn was waving me over. We moved down the cells to his dads’ one, and I dropped to the ground.

“He was looking so much better,” I said, taking in the weakened body of Rhydian.

“He knows…” Grey muttered, pacing back and forth. “He knows, he knows, he knows.”

“Who knows, Dad?” Finn asked, the fear seeping into his voice.

“Max. Max, Max, Max. Always Max.”

“The crystal? Can it help him, them?” Finn asked.

I remembered the dream, where I’d waved my hand and people were healed, both mentally and physically, but as I looked at the small stone right now, I wondered. I shook my head as I felt the weight of Finn’s gaze on my cheek, and then reached out to Grey.

I now knew where Max was. That was the flaw in our plan, how we’d get him out. We’d hoped he’d have been left in Lian’s quarters, but that wasn’t the case. Grey was tapped into his bond with Max and saw what he saw—the great cavern of Lonan.

There’d been some dispute about whether Sylvan was telling us the truth about all this.

I could now confirm his stories were correct.

I saw back after black leather back, bared to the Great Wolf as he stood, partially hidden by the gloom within the cavern, his eyes burning like a low banked fire.

He regarded the lot of them but did not move a millimetre.

We were. My POV bounced as I piggybacked on Max’s field of vision.

He glanced down at his hands bound by manacles and chains as he was drawn along the broad pathway left clear leading up to the Wolf.

“Not far, my love,” Lian said, his smile as sweet as a child.

He looked ecstatic about what was about to come, like he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Soon…” Lian’s words trailed away as his eyes slipped down to where our collarbone would have been.

As if summoned by his regard, I felt it, the trickle of blood, the ache where Lian’s venom had seeped into the marks left by his fangs.

“M’lord, I’ve brought the women as requested.”

It was weird to see a Volken not laid out on the floor, just standing there and whispering to Lian like a kid passing notes in class, but by the looks he was shooting the all-powerful Wolf God, it made sense.

“We’re having difficulties keeping them quiet though, sir. They somehow know their fate.”

Lian scoffed at that, the noise ringing out throughout the cavern.

The Volken stared at his lordship, completely aghast, then dropped to his belly when the Black Wolf shifted, the cave shaking as he did so.

Lian shook his head and stepped over the man, mostly.

He dragged Max forward, trampling on the man’s fingers as they passed, but he didn’t make a sound.

“We need to get down there,” Rhydian said, lifting his head from the stone floor.

“In the caverns?” one of the men said. “You can’t be fucking serious! That’s where that bastard Great Wolf of theirs lurks. Letting some women out of their cages, I could get behind. Poor bloody things don’t want to be there anymore than we do. But facing down that bastard?”

Aaron settled down beside me, taking my hand in his.

“Can you heal them?” he said, nodding to Finn’s dads.

“I’m going down there. I’m not leaving Max to those fuckers! He’s just as likely to gut Dad and then play with the entrails as his god looks on,” Finn said.

“I know, mate,” Aaron said. “We all know.”

“Impending doom it is, then,” Jack said with a nod. He put a hand on Hawk’s shoulder, which was immediately covered by his mate’s.

“I think so,” I said belatedly, crawling over to take Rhydian’s hand.

It didn’t make sense, that Rhydian was in such a bad way again, but the crystal flared bright when I touched him, and I saw the ragged breaths slow and even out.

His muscles relaxed, and finally, he rolled slowly into a seated position.

His face still looked drawn, but he could look into each of our eyes now.

“You need to go. Get the hell out of here. Max wouldn’t want you throwing your and your pack’s life away for him. Go with these men, get as far away as possible. Tell Grace she’s free, help her move on with her life.”

“And the women they’ve taken down into the cavern?” Finn said. “How do they move on with their lives?”

“They don’t,” Rhydian said. “You’re not a kid anymore.

You as much as anyone know that it doesn’t always work out for everyone.

There isn’t always a happy ever after. Sometimes, there’s only an ending.

” He took Finn’s hand, both of them watching Grey pace back and forth.

“Thanks for coming, son. I can walk down into that place, proud to have seen the man you’ve become.

You’ve got a pack now, a mate. You need to go back, to protect Sanctuary, to become the leader you were supposed to be. Keep it safe. Keep Gracie safe.”

The man’s hazel eyes filled at that, the thin lines of his face growing sharper as they spelled out the pain inside more clearly than words.

Neither let each other go, though Rhydian urged us to, as the timer on this mission slowly ran out.

How could they? The minute they broke contact, it would be over.

Finn would be signing his fathers’ death warrants as they went to reform their pack one last time before disappearing down the Great Wolf’s gullet.

From death comes regrowth.

The words, an overture from the Great White Wolf, a memory, or an aside from my own Tirian, I didn’t know or care.

I rejected the idea with everything I had.

Lonan wasn’t death or regrowth, he was the complete negation of existence.

Nothing of Finn’s dads would remain but our memories.

He would take all they were and then blow them out, like the flames of candles.

I took Finn’s hand when the sobs began to wrack him.

He cried like a much-beaten child, silently and without tears, the power of what he was feeling betrayed only by his body.

Through the bond, I could feel it. He tried to throw himself over the pain, smothering the bomb blast of what he had to bear.

My fingers bit into his as they came, as Rhydian moved to take his son into his arms, thin biceps wrapping around the ribcage of his child, holding him firm as the tears finally broke through.

Grey stopped pacing, paused, and regarded Finn as if he’d only seen him for the first time.

“Finn?” he said, creeping closer, then dropping to his knees, his hands going to his slack mouth. “Finn boy?”

“Yes, love,” Rhydian said. “It’s our son.”

“Look at him! The spit of Max. I almost tricked myself into thinking it was him.” Grey’s hand went out haltingly to the bite mark on Finn’s neck. “You found her, the bright one. Good, good. She’ll hold you in her heart when the pain comes, like Gracie did me.”

“Dad…” Finn couldn’t get any more words out, throwing his other arm around Grey’s shoulder and pulling him down beside him.

Slade reached out for me as they drew in close.

I jumped at the touch, but soon relaxed when he held me against his chest. It hurt to watch, but it must have been agony to experience.

My mind wouldn’t accept it—for us to have come all this way, and to what?

Not bring the dads back? To let them walk into the wolf’s den alone?

Rhydian’s words about happy endings stuck in my throat, and I was unable to swallow them down.

“Get your guys to take the rest of them out,” he whispered to Aaron. “Get a head start. We’ll be along soon.”