Callum forces himself upright, one hand gripping Lyanna’s arm as they steady each other. She’s shaking, pale, but her fingers find his and squeeze once before she lets go. Her hands drift to her sides, tracing patterns I can’t follow. Healing herself or preparing to heal others—I can’t tell.
They don’t speak. They don’t need to. They flank the right side of the breach in perfect sync, a unit forged from something deeper than training.
Ben breaks through last before Harper, and the Fade nearly takes him.
He collapses forward, catching himself on his hands, blood streaming from his nose and ears in a way I remember too well. His whole body convulses, fighting the realm’s wrongness. A bruise blackens his jaw—someone’s fist. Claw marks rake down his forearm, barely clotted. He’s been through hell before he ever stepped through that breach.
But he gets up.
He drags himself to his feet, expression cold and calculating, and breaks wide to the left. His eyes track every exit point, every angle of approach. He doesn’t look at anyone directly—
—until Harper steps through behind him.
She hits the Fade and crumples.
A cry escapes her lips as she falls, blood already at her nose, her ears, her eyes. The realm rejects her with brutal efficiency. She curls in on herself, arms wrapped around her stomach, shaking violently.
Ben moves before thought. Before calculation. Before the cold mask can stop him.
He’s at her side in two strides, hands hovering over her like he’s afraid to touch, afraid not to. “Harper.” Her name comes out wrecked. “Harper, look at me.”
She reaches for him blindly, fingers closing on his wrist. He flinches—Loss is carved into every line of his body—but he doesn’t pull away. His hand covers hers. Holds.
“I’ve got you,” he says, so quiet I barely hear it. “I’ve got you.”
He helps her stand, one arm around her waist, taking her weight. She leans into him—just for a moment—before she finds her footing. Steps back. Wipes the blood from her face with the back of her hand.
Ben lets her go. Steps back. The mask slides into place—that cold distance he wears like armor. He moves to his tactical position without looking at her again.
But I saw it. That split second when instinct overrode everything he’s been hiding behind.
They’re all bleeding. All broken. Covered in wounds from fighting through whatever stood between them and this breach. Kari’s left eye is swelling shut. Callum favors his right leg. Lyanna’s hands shake as she traces her patterns. Ben’s breathing comes ragged through what might be cracked ribs.
But they’re here.
This fractured, splintered pack. These wolves who’ve been at each other’s throats for weeks. Who questioned loyalties and nursed grievances and let manipulation drive wedges between them.
They’re here. Standing. Together.
Pride hits me like a fist to the sternum. These broken, bleeding wolves chose to follow us into hell.
Harper anchors the rear now, steadier than she should be after what the Fade just did to her. Her focus isn’t scattered. She’swatching the space between us all, not the threats around us. Reading the fractures. Seeing what might still break.
The Fade reacts instantly to their presence. The air vibrates. Colors shift and blur.
Callum snarls, body tensing as he turns toward Rafe. “You led us into a trap.”
Rafe hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken. He’s the only one not bleeding—and the Fade twists that into suspicion. Makes his composure look like foreknowledge. Like betrayal.
Kari freezes mid-step, knife still raised. Her eyes dart between Rafe and the circuit, uncertainty flashing across her face; an expression I’ve never seen on her.
The pack bonds twist.
Faelan doesn’t move. Doesn’t attack. The realm itself is his weapon.
Something stirs in my blood—the part of me that isn’t wolf. The part that remembers older wars. It burns not with heat but with recognition.
Ninety percent of the wolves who stepped through that breach carry angel blood.
