Command Centre
Hades
My life flashed before my eyes when the explosion rang out. There was no sound but it rang out in my head, shaking to my very core. My body moved miles before my mind and I didn’t wait for the outco of the explosion. I *couldn’t* wait to see if my life had ended. Too much of a coward to even dare.
But even as I raced to the exit of the command centre, the ground underneath turned to quicksand and I found myself drowning even as I began to move. No matter how fast I ran, I was still too slow. I felt like a snail, moving along, dragged back by my own mucous.
At the sa ti, my mind had long begun to flip through all the mories of her. Of us.
The pain, the hate, the anger, the slow blossom of sothing more than enmity. My chest was close to bursting open, the pulse no longer a distant thrum, it was a deafening pounding against my skull.
A crackling cleaved through the cacophony that my mind had beco, and for a mont I was not sure where I was, even as the wind hit in the face, officers moving about with ammunition and supplies. The camp felt like a fignt of my imagination. In my reality, the world had exploded the mont that bomb detonated with my wife just inches away from it.
The crackling persisted, until I snapped out of my suffocating panic, and clicked on the comm.
"—repeat, Luna is down! Luna is down! We need—"
My blood turned to ice.
"Status." My voice didn’t sound like mine. Too flat. Too cold. "Give status. *Now*."
A pause. Static. Then Victoriana’s voice—strained, barely controlled.
"Morrison’s dead. Explosion successful. But—" Her voice cracked. "Eve and Gallinti were caught in the blast. They’re both critical. Deltas are—"
"Critical." The word felt foreign in my mouth. Wrong. "Define critical."
"Massive trauma. Blood loss. Eve’s—" Victoriana’s breath hitched. "Her back, Hades. The wound is—it’s bad. Really bad. The Deltas are working on her now but—"
"I’m coming."
"Hades, you can’t—the fronts need—"
"I’m. Coming."
I didn’t wait for a response.
I shifted mid-stride—bones cracking, wings erupting from my back, the vampire form tearing through with a violence that should have hurt but didn’t. Nothing hurt except the *screaming* in my chest where the bond was.
I launched myself into the air.
The wind was brutal, tearing at my face, my wings beating hard enough that my shoulders burned. But it wasn’t fast enough.
*Nothing was fast enough.*
The gnawing that had plagued for hours had beco a *howl*—raw and agonized, like sothing vital was being carved out of with a dull blade.
The bond.
I could still feel it. Thin. Frayed.
Barely there.
But *there*.
She was alive.
*She had to stay alive.*
Below , Dawnstrike ca into view—a scarred wasteland lit red by the Bloodmoon. Smoke still rose from the center of no-man’s-land, green-tinged and toxic. Bodies littered the ground. Soldiers moved like ghosts through the carnage.
And at the edge of the field, the Delta tent glowed with healing light.
I didn’t bother landing gently.
I dropped from the sky, wings folding, shifting back to lycan form before my boots hit the ground. The impact sent shockwaves through my legs but I was already running.
"HADES!" Soone shouted—one of the gammas, trying to intercept .
I shoved past him.
Another soldier stepped in front of . "Alpha, the Deltas said—"
"*Move.*"
Sothing in my voice made him flinch. He moved.
I reached the tent and tore the entrance flap aside.
The scene inside stopped cold.
Eve lay on a cot—still in wolf form, too injured to shift back. Her massive black body was streaked with blood and sap and ash. Deltas sward around her, hands glowing, voices urgent and overlapping.
But it was her *back* that made my vision narrow.
A gaping wound stretched from her shoulders to her spine—deep enough that I could see *bone*. Ribs. The edge of a lung moving beneath torn muscle.
"—blood pressure dropping—"
"—need more hands here, she’s not stabilizing—"
"—keep the healing focused on the major vessels, if she bleeds out—"
One of the Deltas—Kerra, I recognized dimly—looked up and saw .
Her face went pale.
"Alpha—"
"How bad." My voice was a rasp.
Kerra hesitated. "Bad. The wound is—one of the worst I’ve seen. We’re doing everything we can but—" She stopped, eyes darting back to Eve. "We’ve been healing soldiers for hours. Our energy reserves are low. More Deltas are coming from other fronts, but—"
"But what."
Kerra’s jaw tightened. "Ti isn’t on our side."
My legs nearly gave out.
I moved forward, past the Deltas, and dropped to my knees beside Eve’s head.
Carefully—so carefully—I lifted her massive wolf skull and eased it into my lap. Her fur was matted with blood. Her breathing was shallow, labored.
"Keep working," I said to the Deltas, my voice rough. "I’m not in your way."
Kerra nodded and turned back to the wound, her hands glowing brighter as she poured healing energy into the torn flesh.
I ran my hand over Eve’s head, between her ears, feeling the heat radiating from her body. Fever. Shock. Her wolf was fighting, but—
Sothing *shifted* in my chest.
A pulling sensation. Like sothing was being slowly *drained* from .
The Fenrir’s Chain.
The bond that tied us together—life to life, soul to soul.
I’d felt it before, in monts of danger. A tug. A warning.
But this—
This was *different*.
It wasn’t pulling. It was *draining*.
My strength. My vitality. Flowing out of and into—
*Her*.
The bond was trying to keep her alive. Using ** as a reservoir.
My vision blurred at the edges. My limbs felt heavier.
"Alpha?" One of the Deltas—a younger man I didn’t recognize—was staring at . "Are you—"
"I’m fine," I said. "Focus on her."
But I wasn’t fine.
I could *feel* it. The more she faded, the more the bond pulled from . Trying to compensate. Trying to keep her tethered to this world.
If she died—
If she *died*—
The bond would take with her.
I didn’t care.
Let it take . Let it drain dry. As long as she lived.
"Alpha." Kerra’s voice was tight. "There’s sothing else."
I looked up.
Her expression was stricken.
"What," I said flatly.
Kerra glanced at the other Deltas, then back at . "When we were scanning her vitals, we found—" She stopped. Started again. "She’s pregnant."
The world stopped.
"What."
"Pregnant," Kerra repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. "Early. Maybe three, four weeks. But—" She hesitated. "It’s not just one."
My breath caught.
"*Twins*," Kerra said. "She’s carrying twins."
For a mont, I couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t *think*.
Eve was—
We were—
*Twins.*
"Alpha." Kerra’s voice cut through the haze. "You need to understand. The trauma she’s sustained—the blood loss, the Verdantin exposure, the shock—her body is trying to heal itself *and* sustain two developing pups. It’s—" She stopped, her hands trembling. "It’s too much."
"What are you saying."
Kerra’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "We’re not strong enough. Not right now. We’ve been healing soldiers all night—our reserves are almost gone. More Deltas are on their way, but they won’t arrive for another thirty minutes. Maybe more."
"Then you wait," I said. "You stabilize her until they get here."
"We can’t." Kerra’s voice cracked. "She’s fading too fast. If we wait, we’ll lose all three of them."
The words hit like a blade.
"We have to choose," Kerra whispered. "We can save her. Focus all our remaining energy on closing the wound, stabilizing her vitals. But—" She stopped, swallowing hard. "But the pups won’t survive. The strain on her body—we’d have to prioritize *her* healing over theirs."
Silence fell.
I stared at her.
"Or," Kerra continued, her voice shaking, "we try to save the pups. Keep them alive long enough for reinforcents to arrive. But that ans—" She stopped. "That ans diverting energy away from her wound. And if the reinforcents don’t get here in ti—"
"She dies," I finished, my voice hollow.
Kerra nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Alpha. But you have to choose. Her—or them."
The tent was silent except for the ragged sound of Eve’s breathing.
I looked down at her.
At my wife.
Her massive wolf form, broken and bleeding in my lap. Fighting so hard to stay alive.
Carrying our children.
*Twins.*
Two lives that didn’t even know they existed yet.
Two lives I’d never t. Never held. Never *known*.
And her.
Eve.
The woman who’d fought beside . Challenged . *Changed* .
The woman I—
I closed my eyes.
Opened them.
"Save my wife," I said.
Kerra’s breath hitched. "Alpha—"
"*Save my wife*." My voice was steady. Final. "I don’t care what it takes. You focus everything you have on *her*. Do you understand ?"
"The pups—"
"I know." My throat was tight. "I *know*. But if we lose her, we lose everything. The pups—" I stopped, my hand tightening in Eve’s fur. "The pups don’t have a chance without her. So you save *her*. And we hope—" My voice cracked. "We hope it’s enough."
Kerra stared at for a long mont.
Then she nodded.
"Everyone," she said, her voice shaking but firm. "Focus on the Luna. Major vessels first, then organ repair, then the wound. We stabilize *her*. Understood?"
The Deltas moved as one, their hands glowing brighter as they poured everything they had into Eve’s broken body.
I sat there, Eve’s head in my lap, feeling the bond drain .
Feeling her life flickering like a candle in the wind.
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