Exactly what Carrick wants.
My bear paces the entrance to the caves, claws scoring deep gouges in stone. The ocean calls to me through passages that lead down, down into depths where my family has guarded secrets for centuries. Every instinct screams to go deeper, to check the underwater approaches, to make sure nothing has breached the inner sanctums.
But I can't abandon this position. Can't leave Declan and his wolves to face whatever comes next alone.
Movement catches my attention. Shadows detaching from the cliffs, too many to count in the darkness. They're coming back, and this time they're not running.
The attack begins with gunfire.
Bullets ricochet off stone, whine past my head. My bear charges before conscious thought, four legs eating up the distance between me and the nearest threat. A man in tactical gear raises his weapon. I swat it aside, hear bones crack under my paw. He goes down screaming, and I'm already moving to the next target.
This is what I was made for. Guardian. Protector. Eight hundred pounds of muscle and fury standing between threatsand the sacred places my family has defended for centuries. Hesitation doesn't exist in this form. Neither does mercy for those who would violate these waters.
Another soldier tries to flank me. My head whips around, jaws closing on his arm before he can fire. The crunch of breaking bone echoes across the rocks. I release him and he stumbles backward, weapon clattering from useless fingers.
Wolves surge past me, grey and black and brown blurs in the darkness. Declan's pack moves like a single organism, flanking and harrying, taking down armed men with terrifying efficiency. But these aren't normal humans. They move too fast, recover too quickly. Enhanced somehow, like the prowler that attacked Isla.
One of them catches a wolf by the throat, lifting the hundred-pound animal like it weighs nothing. Impossible strength for a human frame. I barrel into him from the side, using my full weight as a weapon. We go down together, rolling across jagged rocks. My claws find purchase in his chest. He screams once before going still.
Chaos consumes the battlefield. Claws and teeth against bullets and blades. I tear through equipment, ripping apart generators and drilling rigs, making sure nothing here can be used again. Metal shrieks and sparks fly as I destroy machinery that took them weeks to position and hide. Men scatter before me, but they regroup quickly, working with military precision that speaks of extensive training.
Blood slicks the rocks beneath my paws. Some of it mine from bullet grazes that barely slow me down. Most of it theirs. No satisfaction comes from the killing, only grim determination. These men chose to invade sacred ground. They knew the risk.
One of them produces a device I've never seen before. Metal cylinder, glowing with runes that make my fur stand on end. He throws it at the cave entrance. The explosion isn't fire orshrapnel—it's pure magical force. The shockwave hits me like a physical blow, driving me backwards across the rocks.
My bear shakes off the stunning effect and charges again. The man with the magical weapon goes down under my weight, neck snapping with brutal efficiency. But more of them press forward, using the devices to drive us back from the cave entrance.
They're trying to create an opening. Trying to get past us to the passages below.
Declan's wolves form a defensive line, but we're being pushed back meter by meter. These enhanced soldiers keep coming, and they've got weapons designed specifically for fighting shifters.
Then Moira's voice cuts through the chaos, amplified by her sea witch magic. "Grayson! Where's Isla?"
The question stops me mid-charge. Isla. I left her at the community hall with Jax. She should be safe, coordinating communications from there.
"With Jax at the village center," I manage through the pack bond, using the connection that links all the brotherhood.
"She's not." Moira sounds strained, like she's working magic while speaking. "Jax says she ran. Said something about the eastern trenches and left before he could stop her."
Cold seizes my chest, colder than any ocean depth. The eastern trenches. The deepest point. Where the ward sits exposed to whatever Carrick might try.
"Find her," I send back. "Use your magic. Track her."
"I'm trying." Frustration bleeds through Moira's words. "But I can't feel her. She's either too far inland or?—"
"Or what?"
"Or she's underwater. Deep. Past the communion points where my magic can reach."
The world narrows to that single horrifying possibility. Isla in the depths, alone, facing whatever Carrick has planned. Isla, whose selkie form is still new to her, trying to navigate waters that would crush a submarine.
Sound tears from my throat, terror and rage combined. The noise reverberates off the cliffs, so loud that even the enhanced soldiers pause in their assault. For a heartbeat, the battle freezes. Then chaos resumes, but I'm barely aware of it anymore.
I need to go. Need to dive into those depths and find her before it's too late. Every instinct screams at me to abandon this position, to trust that the brotherhood can hold without me. My bear paces in tight circles, torn between the duty that's been bred into my bloodline for centuries and the primal need to protect my mate.
Generations of Hale guardians watch from memory, their voices echoing in my mind. My father standing in the cove on the day he explained what it meant to be guardian. His father before him, weathered and scarred, speaking of sacrifices that must be made. Great-grandfather, who died defending these approaches from a threat that came in the night. And beyond them, countless others stretching back through the centuries.
They all made the same choice when it mattered. The waters before everything. The duty before personal desire. The sacred trust that cannot be abandoned no matter the cost.
