(Third Person).
Draven stepped inside—tall, calm and unhurried, his presence filling the room like a storm.
His black coat swayed behind him, the faint silver glint of blood still on his knuckles. Jeffery entered next, his expression cold, eyes scanning the room.
Brackham froze, his relief bursting out in a shaky breath. "Draven! Thank God—you are here!"
Then, he lowered the gun slightly, staggering from behind the desk. "They are everywhere! Those vile creatures—they have broken in! You need to help , now!"
Draven’s gaze stayed fixed on him. There was no warmth there, only a still, deadly quiet that seed to press down on the room.
"I’m aware," he said softly.
Brackham nodded quickly, desperate. "Good—good! Then you can—you can get your n to drive them out again! I will give you whatever you need, anything, just—just get out of here alive!"
Jeffery stood by the door, watching in silence, his arms crossed. The faint curl of a smirk tugged at his mouth, but he said nothing.
Draven moved closer, slow, deliberate steps that made Brackham’s relief falter. "You seem afraid," Draven said, his tone almost thoughtful.
"Afraid? Of course I’m afraid!" Brackham snapped, his voice trembling. "Those creatures are tearing through my city again, after you promised—"
Draven cut him off with a quiet hum. "After I promised?" His voice was calm, but the air in the room shifted—dense, electric. "Remind , Brackham. What was it you promised and my people?"
Brackham swallowed. "I—I..."
Draven’s expression didn’t change. He ca around the desk, stopping just a few inches from him.
"You promised peace. You promised loyalty. But instead..." He tilted his head slightly, the faintest flicker of sothing dark passing through his eyes. "You experinted on my people. You tortured them beneath your city like beasts. And now you stand here, shaking, asking for my help."
Brackham blinked, his mouth parting in shock. "You... you found the lab?"
"I did," Draven said simply.
Brackham stepped back, his voice breaking. "You don’t understand—it wasn’t personal! It was for research—progress! I was trying to make us stronger, to protect humanity from extinction—"
The words barely left his mouth before Draven’s hand moved fast and delivered one clean, brutal punch. It sent Brackham sprawling across the desk, and papers flying.
Jeffery didn’t flinch. He just exhaled slowly, muttering under his breath, "You had that coming."
Brackham groaned, clutching his jaw as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "You... savage..."
Draven leaned down, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him upright. "You call savage, yet you built a graveyard for children under your own building."
Brackham’s eyes widened. He trembled violently now, but Draven didn’t release him. Instead, his voice dropped lower, quieter, more dangerous.
"You think death is the punishnt you deserve?"
Brackham’s voice ca out small. "Please... I—" He was starting to beg now after dropping his cockiness.
Draven’s fist t his gut this ti, the blow hard enough to fold him in half. The man gasped, wheezing for air.
Then, he dragged him forward, through the office, ignoring the trail of blood he left on the marble floor.
"No," Draven said, his voice low. "I will not kill you in your chair, Brackham. That would be rcy."
"Alpha," Jeffery said carefully, watching as Draven shoved the man toward the hallway, "what are you going to do with him?"
Draven stopped, glanced back briefly, his eyes a cold, burning amber. "Make him watch what rcy looks like when it runs out."
Then, without another word, he yanked Brackham by the collar and dragged him out of the office, down the hall toward the chaos below.
---
redith fed the last of the shredded files to the flas herself, watching the paper curl and blacken, the acrid smoke stinging her throat.
With each report that surrendered to ash, she felt a small, sharpened grief—not for the papers, but for what those pages had recorded: broken bodies, aborted experints, nas turned into data.
She ground the heel of her hand into her palm until the pain anchored her. There would be no trial worth the cost of keeping this place intact. There would be only fire.
When the lab burned, it burned clean. The heat ate the sterile sll away and left only the raw tang of iron and smoke.
redith stood with the warriors around her, their faces lit by the flas, the roar of the inferno filling the vaulted space.
For a terrible instant, she thought of the people behind those glass doors, the ones still alive and twisted by injections and machines. Her jaw tightened.
They were no longer the sa. The rcy she wanted for them had been stolen long before she found them.
"We move," she told the warriors, voice flat. "Watch the periter. Don’t let anyone follow the smoke back here."
They ford up, but it was not long before the sound of heavy boots echoed to them—soldiers coming back, reinforced and determined to reclaim their territory.
They poured into the tunnel, rifles flashing, shouts ricocheting off concrete.
"Contact!" one of the warriors barked.
redith didn’t hesitate. She drew her sword and led forward. The first volley of gunfire spat toward them; the roar of bullets was a bitter percussion.
She t it with motion—a fast, practiced arc that struck a rifle mid-spray, jangling it aside.
Steel sang as she redirected a second round of bullets with the flat of her blade; tal fragnts skittered harmlessly into the scorched floor. Her sword moved like water, precise and unsparing.
The werewolves fought beside her in close, brutal ballet. Draven’s n were thodical, efficient; they took down soldiers with silent, deadly strikes.
redith flowed through the fight, parrying bayonets, toppling a rifle with the poml, then driving an elbow into a man’s ribs to finish him before he could aim again.
For a while, it felt like control, a terrible, ordered storm. Then the numbers pressed in. Five soldiers broke free from the group and charged her at once, unholstered knives flashing.
For a heartbeat, she was surrounded: steel at her throat, fists knocking at her guard, a weight pressing at her side.
Her focus split. There were other warriors she could not see at that first angle, n grappling with gunn, the shouts of the wounded rising into a ragged chorus.
"Valmora!" redith cried, a raw note of panic and plea in it, seeing her n were being overpowered.
"Bear your losses," Valmora answered, cold and steady in her head. "Hold tight to what remains."
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