Vale's POV
The explosion rocked our prison cells so hard that concrete dust rained from the ceiling.
"What was that?" I shouted over the ringing in my ears.
Before Dante could answer, gunfire erupted somewhere in the warehouse. Not the controlled shooting of Dr. Voss's men, but wild, desperate bursts that echoed through the darkness. Someone was fighting their way in.
"Your father's people," Dante said, gripping the bars of his cell. "Marco must have tracked us here."
More explosions shook the building. Emergency lights started flashing red, casting eerie shadows on the walls. In the distance, I could hear Dr. Voss screaming orders at her men.
"Get the moon child to the transport vehicle now!"
Heavy footsteps ran toward our cells. Dr. Voss appeared with four armed guards, her perfect hair now wild and her ice-blue eyes blazing with anger.
"Change of plans," she snapped at her men. "We're leaving immediately."
One of the guards started unlocking my cell while the others kept their weapons trained on Dante. I pressed myself against the back wall, but there was nowhere to run.
"Don't touch her," Dante snarled, his eyes flashing silver.
"Or what?" Dr. Voss laughed coldly. "You're locked in a cage, dog. You can't protect anyone."
That's when the warehouse lights went out completely.
In the sudden darkness, chaos erupted. Men shouted and guns fired blindly. Someone screamed in pain. I heard Dr. Voss cursing as she stumbled around, trying to find her flashlight.
But in the blackness, I heard something else. The sound of metal bending and breaking.
Dante was tearing apart his cell with his bare hands.
"Impossible," Dr. Voss whispered. "Those bars are reinforced steel."
A low growl echoed through the darkness. Not human, but not quite wolf either. Something in between that made my skin crawl with terror and excitement.
"Silver bullets," Dr. Voss ordered her men. "Shoot anything that moves."
Gunfire lit up the warehouse like deadly fireworks. I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the shooting to stop. When it finally did, the silence was worse than the noise.
"Status report," Dr. Voss called out.
No one answered.
"Johnson? Martinez? Where are you?"
Still nothing.
I heard her fumbling around, trying to find a working flashlight. When the beam finally cut through the darkness, it revealed something that made her gasp.
All four of her guards were unconscious on the floor. Their weapons were gone, and they were tied up with strips torn from their own clothing. None of them appeared to be seriously hurt, just knocked out cold.
"Dante?" I whispered into the shadows.
"I'm here," his voice came from right next to my cell. I could barely see his shape in the dim light from Dr. Voss's flashlight. "Are you hurt?"
"No, but how did you—"
"Questions later. We need to get you out of here before her backup arrives."
Dr. Voss spun around, shining her light on us. "You can't escape. I have more men coming, and they'll hunt you down no matter where you run."
"Let them try," Dante said calmly. He grabbed the lock on my cell and crushed it in his fist like it was made of paper.
Dr. Voss raised a gun I hadn't seen her pull. "Step away from the girl, or I'll put a silver bullet through your heart."
"No!" I shouted, pushing past Dante to shield him with my body. "Don't hurt him!"
"How touching," Dr. Voss sneered. "The moon child has feelings for her pet werewolf."
She fired the gun.
The silver bullet hit Dante in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the concrete wall. He slid to the floor, blood spreading across his shirt in a dark stain.
"Dante!" I dropped to my knees beside him, pressing my hands against the wound to stop the bleeding.
"I'm okay," he gasped, but I could see he wasn't. His face was pale and sweat beaded on his forehead. Silver bullets were poison to werewolves.
"Fascinating," Dr. Voss said, walking closer with her gun still raised. "The moon child's protective instincts are even stronger than I expected. This will make my research so much more interesting."
I ignored her, focusing all my attention on Dante's injury. The bullet hole was small but deep, and blood kept flowing no matter how hard I pressed.
"Stay with me," I whispered to him. "Don't you dare die on me."
"Vale," Dante's voice was getting weaker. "The bullet... it's silver. You have to get it out or..."
He didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. If the silver stayed in his system, it would kill him.
Without thinking, I placed both hands directly over the wound.
"What are you doing?" Dr. Voss asked, suddenly interested instead of threatening.
I didn't answer. I couldn't answer. Something was happening that I didn't understand but couldn't control. Heat flowed through my palms, warm and tingling like sunlight on water.
Silver light began to glow between my fingers.
"Impossible," Dr. Voss breathed. "You're untrained. You shouldn't be able to access that level of power without years of instruction."
The light got brighter, spreading up my arms and across my whole body. I felt Dante's pain like it was my own, felt the silver poison burning through his blood. But I also felt something else - the ability to fix it.
Power flowed from my heart, down through my arms, and into Dante's wounded shoulder. I felt the bullet dissolving like sugar in water. I felt torn muscles knitting back together. I felt his werewolf healing kick into overdrive, working ten times faster than normal.
In less than thirty seconds, the wound was completely gone.
Dante sat up, staring at his shoulder in amazement. There wasn't even a scar where the bullet had hit him. His shirt was still bloody, but underneath, his skin was perfect.
"How?" he whispered, looking at me like I was something from another world.
I stared down at my hands, which were still glowing with soft silver light. The power was incredible, but it scared me too. Where had it come from? How had I known what to do?
"Magnificent," Dr. Voss said, clapping slowly. "I've never seen healing of that caliber from someone so young and untrained. You really are everything the old stories promised."
"What old stories?" I demanded, finally looking at her.
"The prophecies about the last moon child. The one who would be born with enough power to tip the balance between the human and supernatural worlds." Her eyes gleamed with greed. "The one who could control every magical creature on Earth."
I felt sick. "I don't want to control anyone."
"What you want doesn't matter. What matters is what others will do to possess that power." Dr. Voss raised her gun again. "Starting with me."
But before she could fire, new voices echoed through the warehouse. Rough, familiar voices shouting orders in Italian.
"Papa?" I whispered.
Dr. Voss cursed and started backing toward an exit. "This isn't over, moon child. Others know what you are now. They'll never stop hunting you."
She disappeared into the shadows just as armed men in expensive suits burst into our area. At their head was a man I somehow knew was my father, even though I couldn't remember his face.
Marco Rossi was shorter than I'd expected, with silver hair and dark eyes that looked just like mine. When he saw me, his whole face crumpled with relief.
"Valentina," he said, his voice breaking. "My little girl."
But I barely heard him. I was staring at Dante, who was looking at me with an expression I'd never seen before. Wonder and fear mixed together in his silver eyes.
"You're not just Marco Rossi's daughter," he whispered, so quietly that only I could hear him. "You're something much more dangerous."
And deep in my heart, I knew he was right.