Rain mingled with the metallic tang of blood in Elara's mouth.
The silver shackle clamped around her left ankle wasn't just heavy; it was a branding iron against her skin, sizzling softly with every step that splashed into the mud.
Keep moving.
Stop and you're dead.
Stop and you're worse than dead.
She dragged her injured leg forward, her breath hitching as a white-hot spike of pain shot up her shin.
Ahead, the rusted chain-link fence loomed like the skeleton of a dead giant against the stormy sky.
Red warning signs, faded by years of acid rain, screamed a silent warning: ROGUE TERRITORY.
NO LAWS.
NO EXIT.
The "Red Line." The boundary between the civilized hypocrisy of the Silas pack and the lawless hell of the exiles.
A gunshot cracked the humid air.
A bullet whizzed past her ear, biting a chunk out of a concrete pillar to her right.
Elara didn't flinch.
She threw herself at the fence.
Her fingers, raw and muddy, hooked into the cold metal mesh.
She hauled herself up, gravity fighting her every inch of the way.
As she tumbled over the top, landing hard on a pile of rotting shipping pallets, the gunfire abruptly ceased.
Silence.
Only the drumming of the rain remained.
She scrambled backward, pressing her spine against the cold, corrugated steel of an abandoned shipping container.
Her chest heaved.
Why did they stop?
Casper never stopped.
He enjoyed the hunt too much.
"Hold fire!" A voice boomed from the other side of the fence.
Arrogant.
Grating.
Elara wiped the rain from her eyes, peering around the rusted edge of the container.
A dozen figures stood at the boundary line.
Leading them was a man in a pristine, waterproof tactical vest that looked ridiculous against the grime of the outskirts.
Casper.
The Silas family's favorite attack dog.
"We don't shoot across the Red Line," Casper shouted, his voice carrying over the storm.
"The Council's treaty is strict. If we wake up the filth living in those ruins with gunfire, the paperwork will be a nightmare." He unclipped a serrated combat knife from his belt, the steel gleaming dull grey in the low light.
"Squad B, flank the perimeter. I'll flush the rat out myself. Blades only."
Paperwork.
He was worried about bureaucracy while hunting a woman he'd framed for murder.
Elara forced herself to stand, limping deeper into the maze of stacked containers.
The layout here was chaotic, a graveyard of commerce.
The ground was slick with oil and moss.
She needed a weapon.
Her eyes darted across the debris—plastic bottles, a drowned rat, a shattered glass bottle...
no, too brittle.
There.
A jagged shard of slate, likely fallen from a crumbling roof tile.
It was triangular, sharp enough to tear skin.
She palmed it, the rough stone biting into her lifeline.
It was pathetic against a trained Beta, let alone a high-ranking Alpha command officer like Casper, but it was all she had.
She turned a corner and skidded to a halt.
Dead end.
Three containers were stacked in a U-shape, blocking her path against the dark, churning water of the bay.
Footsteps splashed behind her.
heavy, deliberate.
"Nowhere left to run, little widow."
Elara spun around.
Casper stood at the entrance of the alleyway, blocking her escape.
He didn't rush.
He took his time, savoring the fear he expected to see.
Two of his subordinates flanked him, sneering.
"You killed two husbands," Casper said, stepping closer.
The rain plastered his hair to his skull, highlighting the cruel set of his jaw.
"The Silas family can't have a cursed womb polluting the bloodline. But don't worry. I won't kill you quickly. The Elders want an example made."
He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding.
The air around him seemed to vibrate.
He was gathering his Aura—the Alpha Command.
"Kneel," Casper thundered.
The command wasn't just sound; it was a physical wave of psionic pressure designed to crush the will of any lower-ranking wolf.
Usually, an Omega like Elara would be flattened instantly, bones cracking under the compulsion to submit.
Elara braced herself against the cold metal, teeth gritted, waiting for the crushing weight.
It didn't come.
Instead, she felt...
a pull.
A strange, hollow suction in the center of her chest.
The suffocating pressure Casper released didn't hit her; it was swallowed.
It felt like cool water pouring into a parched throat.
The terrifying aura washed over her and simply vanished into her skin, feeding a hunger she didn't know she had.
She stood upright, blinking.
She wasn't trembling.
She felt energized.
Casper's smirk faltered.
His eyes widened in genuine confusion.
"I said, Kneel!"
He pushed harder, his veins bulging.
Elara felt the suction intensify.
The air around them warped.
Then, a wet snap echoed.
Casper stumbled back, clutching his face.
Blood gushed from his nose, streaming through his fingers.
The backlash of a rejected Alpha Command was brutal—like trying to punch a wall that suddenly turned into a vacuum.
"What..." Casper gargled, choking on his own blood.
"What are you?"
Opportunity.
Elara didn't waste breath on a witty retort.
She lunged.
She wasn't aiming for Casper—he was still too dangerous even when disoriented.
She targeted the subordinate to his left, who was staring at his captain in shock.
Elara dropped low, sliding on the wet concrete, and drove the slate shard into the back of the man's ankle.
The man screamed as his Achilles tendon severed.
He collapsed into the mud.
"You bitch!" the second subordinate roared, raising a baton.
Elara scrambled back, clutching the bloody stone, ready to die biting.
Above them, on the roof of the highest container, a pebble skittered down.
Elara's eyes flicked up instinctively.
A scrawny figure—a boy, maybe eighteen, dressed in rags—was crouched on the edge.
A Rogue scout.
He was looking down at the scene, his eyes wide.
But he wasn't looking at Elara.
He was looking past her.
Above her.
His expression shifted from curiosity to pure, primal terror.
The scout scrambled backward, mouthing a word that was lost in the wind, and vanished into the shadows.
What scared a Rogue in his own territory?
The air pressure dropped.
The rain seemed to pause.
BOOM.
Something massive slammed into the center of the open space between Elara and Casper.
The impact was so violent it cracked the concrete foundation.
Mud and water sprayed outward like shrapnel.
Elara was thrown off her feet, slamming hard against the container wall.
Her ears rang.
Through the curtain of debris, a figure rose from the crater.
He was enormous.
At least six-foot-five, shirtless, his skin covered in scars that looked like roadmap lines of violence.
Muscles coiled under his skin like steel cables threatening to snap.
But it was the noise—or the lack of it—that froze Elara's blood.
Draven.
The Urban Legend.
The King of the Exiles.
He was in the grip of the Moon Madness.
His eyes were glowing a chaotic, bloodshot gold, the sign of a wolf that had lost all human reason to the beast.
A low growl started in his chest, a sound that vibrated in Elara's very bones.
It was the sound of impending slaughter.
Casper, despite his bleeding nose, recognized the threat.
His face went pale.
"Draven... we... we are leaving..."
The giant didn't hear him.
He turned his head, the movement jerky and mechanical.
He was going to kill everything in this alley.
Then, he locked eyes with Elara.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't breathe.
The slate shard slipped from her numb fingers.
The giant roared—a sound that should have shattered windows.
But as the sound wave hit Elara, that strange, hungry vacuum in her chest flared to life again.
It surged, stronger than before, pulling at the wild, chaotic energy radiating from him.
The red haze in the giant's eyes didn't vanish, but it flickered.
The overwhelming aura of violence receded, sucked into the void within her.
The monster blinked.
For the first time, there was clarity in that golden gaze.
He looked at his own hands, then at the trembling, blood-soaked woman in front of him.