Adramal spoke, his words slow and gravelly. “We have a vested interest in chaos. But the girl is not to die, not until Maltraz says.” He fixed his stare on me. “If you fail again, you answer to him. Directly.”
I felt the sweat bead under my collar. “I won’t fail.”
He nodded, once, then glanced at his companions. “Show them.”
The two silent demons lifted small briefcases onto the table. They opened them in perfect sync. Inside: a dozen glass vials, each filled with a clear liquid. Labels in a spiky, runic script.
Adramal: “Maltraz was feeling generous. He decided to give you the most potent toxin for your use. The toxin and antidote. Derived from wild shifter blood.”
Vex leaned in, eyes wide. “Is it safe to touch?”
The demon’s hand shot out, fast as a bullet, and gripped her wrist. “Not for you.” He released her, and Vex cradled her hand, a red mark already forming on her skin.
I watched, savoring the moment. She’d been riding high, but now she was reminded of her place.
Adramal rattled off instructions, precise and unfeeling. “Pour into water main. Walk away. It is undetectable.”
The meeting wrapped in five minutes. The demons left, sucking the heat from the room as they went.
The four of us sat in silence. Rook had said nothing the entire time, but I could feel his anger simmering. He didn’t like being shown up in front of outsiders, especially not the demon kind.
Vex broke the quiet. “They didn’t even blink. You sure this isn’t going to come back on us?”
I looked at the vials. “We’re just the trigger. They’re the bomb. When it goes off, we’ll be gone.”
I watched them leave. Vex and Dagger, side by side, whispering like wolves at the edge of the pack. Rook hung back, his shadow blotting out the doorway.
He waited until the others were gone, then turned to me. “You keep this up, you’re going to get us all killed,” he said, voice low.
Back on the club floor, Alexis caught my eye from across the room. She raised her glass, a dare. I liked her more every minute.
But when I looked at her, all I saw was Parker—her hair, her eyes, her neck bared just enough to show where I’d bite her when I finally got my hands on her.
I leaned against the bar, the glass vial burning cold against my ribs, and pictured her chained to my bed. The way she’d fight. The way she’d break. The way she’d beg for mercy, and I’d give her exactly none. Exactly what I'd do to the entire Iron Valor pack. After four long years, victory was at my fingertips.
Chapter 24
Parker
We met in the new war room, a bunker rebuilt in the image of the old: no windows, large wood table, every surface scrubbed of comfort. The fluorescent lights hummed in concert with the buzz in my ears, the sickness a fever sweat inside my skull. Bronc sat at the head of the table, posture rigid enough to splinter, his eyes shining with that blue-cast clarity only terminal patients or drowning men possess. Doc was to his left, a coffee mug braced between both hands as if the ceramic alone could warm him. I sat next to Wrecker, who slumped in his chair as though the years of military discipline had all unspooled at once.
We’d all known it was bad, this plague. At first, it was just a headache, the kind you could blame on hangovers or the west Texas wind. Then the muscle aches, a dull lead that settled in your thighs and calves, made walking to the bathroom a project worthy of debate. Now, it was everything. My ribs throbbed where they had been healed. My skin burned, nerves confused by a dozen signals at once. When I reached out for Wrecker, I could feel his heat from a foot away; his wolf ran feverish and broken, a trapped animal pounding at the cage.
The rest of the pack was the same, or worse. Maddie had missed the meeting. Pearl was home, quarantined and delirious, calling Bronc every hour to update him on her latest symptoms, as if there were a scorecard. Even Gunner—usually indestructible—was curled in the far end of the room, hood up and sunglasses on, breathing through his mouth so he didn’t puke.
The screens at the far end flickered, and then the kings came online. Their faces swam in the toxic blue light. Rafe was on high alert, knowing things were bad. Menace was ready to come through the screen. He couldn’t get here fast enough. Kazimir was worried about us. Everyone was baffled.
“Let’s get this over with,” Bronc rasped. His voice had gone gravelly and thin.
The camera panned down. I saw a listless row of lieutenants, all of them hunched, all of them gray.
Rafe led off. “What can we do? What is happening specifically? Doc, tell me you have something.”
Doc pinched the bridge of his nose. “We sequenced the bug. It’s not natural, not engineered either, not by human hands. There’s something in it…almost adaptive. We pump one antiviral, it morphs. Throw antibiotics, it eats them. Wolf healing is nonexistent. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Kazimir purred, “You’re saying this is demonic.”
Doc didn’t answer, but his eyes said,Isn’t everything lately?
