"Get down!"
Kade shoved me behind the couch as a massive grey wolf sailed through the window. Glass exploded everywhere, glittering like diamonds in the firelight.
I hit the floor hard, knife clutched in my hand. The bond screamed warnings through my entire body.
The grey wolf landed, shifted mid-air, becoming a man covered in scars. His eyes glowed that unnatural amber. "Hello, Seer. Time to come with us."
"She's not going anywhere." Kade's voice dropped to pure alpha command. The air around him shimmered with power.
More crashes. More windows shattering. Wolves poured into the house from every direction. Too many. Way too many.
Through the broken doorway, the three shadowed figures stepped inside. The Collectors. Finally showing themselves.
The first was a woman. Tall. Elegant. Silver hair despite looking no older than forty. Her amber eyes fixed on me with hunger that made my skin crawl.
The second was a man. Massive. Built like he could tear through walls. Tribal tattoos covered his arms, glowing faintly in the darkness.
The third made my blood freeze.
Elena.
But not the Elena I'd trained with. This Elena's eyes glowed amber. Her smile was cold. Triumphant.
"Surprise," she said. "Did you really think I was helping you out of the goodness of my heart?"
The betrayal hit like a physical blow. "You knew my mother."
"I did. And I helped kill her." Elena moved closer. "Everything I told you was true. Your mother was powerful. A Seer who could see certainties. And when we drained her during the last blood moon, we gained access to futures even she couldn't see."
"You're lying."
"Am I? Touch me and find out. Oh wait, you can't. Because I taught you to shield. Taught you to block visions. Made you weak." She laughed. "You fell for it so easily. The tragic mentor. The woman who wanted to protect you. All I wanted was to prepare you for harvest."
Kade snarled, shifting partially. His eyes blazed gold. "You're not taking her."
The massive Collector smiled. "You can't stop all of us, Alpha Thorne. You're powerful, but you're one wolf against an army."
As if on cue, more wolves flooded in. Thirty. Forty. Maybe more. All with those amber eyes. All Collector operatives.
We were surrounded.
"Last chance," the silver-haired woman said. Her voice was soft. Deadly. "Come willingly, Seer. Let us take your gift. Or we kill everyone in this territory. Starting with your mate."
The bond pulled tight. Through it, I felt Kade's fury. His fear. Not for himself. For me.
"Don't," he said quietly. "Don't give yourself up for me."
"I'm not." I stood slowly, knife still in my hand. "I'm giving myself up for everyone."
"Sera, no—"
I looked at him. Really looked. "You said I needed to weaponize my visions. That I needed to get powerful." Through the bond, I pushed every ounce of certainty I had. "Trust me. Just this once. Trust me."
Understanding flickered in his eyes.
I turned to the Collectors. "Fine. You want me? Come and get me."
The silver-haired woman smiled. "Smart girl. Restrain her."
Two wolves moved forward.
I touched the first one's arm.
The vision hit him instantly. I didn't just show him his future. I showed him every future. Thousands of possibilities cascading through his mind all at once. In every single one, the Collectors betrayed him. Drained him. Left him hollow just like they planned to do to me.
He screamed, collapsing.
The second wolf hesitated. I grabbed his wrist.
Same thing. Thousands of futures. All ending in betrayal. All ending in death.
He went down convulsing.
"Interesting," Elena said. "You learned faster than I expected. But you're still not strong enough."
She was right. Two wolves down. Dozens more surrounding us. And already I could feel the strain. Pushing visions took energy. Power. I wouldn't last long.
The massive Collector stepped forward. "Enough games. Take her. Now."
They moved as one.
Kade shifted fully, a massive black wolf that crashed into the first wave. His pack poured through the broken windows. Declan. Others I didn't recognize. All fighting.
Chaos erupted.
Claws. Teeth. Blood. The house shook with violence.
I backed toward the wall, trying to help. Touching wolves as they passed. Showing them futures. Watching them collapse.
But there were too many.
A wolf tackled me from the side. We hit the ground hard. His jaws snapped toward my throat.
I grabbed his face with both hands.
The vision was different this time. Not futures. Past. His past. I saw everything. His family. The Collectors coming. The choice: join or die. The decades of hunting others like him. The guilt. The self-hatred.
And underneath it all, buried deep, a spark of who he used to be.
I pushed that spark. Reminded him. Showed him he could still choose differently.
His jaws stopped inches from my throat. His eyes cleared from amber to brown. Human brown.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Then he turned and attacked the nearest Collector operative.
The silver-haired woman's expression shifted from amused to annoyed. "She's turning them. Stop her!"
More wolves came. I touched as many as I could. Some I broke with futures. Some I freed by showing them their pasts. Each one took energy I didn't have.
My vision blurred. Blood trickled from my nose. Too much. Using the gift too much.
Through the bond, I felt Kade's panic. He was across the room, fighting three wolves at once, unable to reach me.
Elena appeared in front of me. "Enough."
She grabbed my wrist.
The vision that slammed into me was agony.
Not a future. A present. Right now. She was in my head, rifling through my thoughts like files in a cabinet. Looking for something. Searching.
"There," she breathed. "The bond. That's your anchor. That's what makes you strong."
She smiled. "Break the bond, break the Seer."
Before I could react, she pulled a knife and drove it into Kade's shoulder from across the room.
Not physically. Through our connection. Through the bond.
Kade roared in pain, collapsing.
I felt it too. Agony ripping through my shoulder. Through the bond. Like she'd stabbed us both.
"Stop!" I screamed.
"Make me." Elena twisted the metaphysical knife. "Every second you resist, he suffers. Give me your gift willingly, and I'll let him live."
Through the bond, I felt Kade fighting to stay conscious. Felt his message, desperate and clear: "Don't. Don't give up. Fight."
I looked at Elena. At the woman who'd pretended to help me. Who'd killed my mother. Who'd trained me just enough to make me useful but not enough to be dangerous.
She'd made one mistake.
She'd taught me how the bond worked. How Kade could anchor me. Pull me back from visions.
But she'd never considered that it might work both ways.
I grabbed Elena's wrist. Didn't pull back. Didn't shield. Instead, I opened myself completely. Let the bond flare to full strength.
And I pulled Kade into the vision with me.
Suddenly we were both in Elena's head. Both seeing what she saw. Both feeling what she felt.
Her past. Decades of hunting Seers. Draining them. Taking their power. Building the Collectors into what they were.
Her present. The knife in the bond, trying to sever our connection.
And her future. The one she hadn't seen coming.
Kade understood instantly. Through the bond, we moved as one. While she was focused on me, he attacked from the inside. Tearing through her thoughts. Her memories. Her control.
She screamed, trying to pull back.
I held on. "You taught me to weaponize visions. Let me show you what I learned."
Together, Kade and I showed her every possible future. Thousands of them. Millions. All cascading at once. We didn't just break her mind with possibilities.
We trapped her in them.
Elena's eyes went blank. Her body collapsed, still breathing but empty. Lost in an infinite loop of futures she'd never escape.
The knife in our bond shattered.
I gasped, releasing her wrist. Kade shifted back to human, blood streaming from his shoulder but alive.
The silver-haired woman stared at Elena's body. "What did you do?"
"Exactly what you wanted." My voice came out stronger than I felt. "I weaponized my gift. With my mate as my anchor, I'm unstoppable. Every Seer you've ever drained was alone. Vulnerable. I'm not."
I looked at the remaining Collectors. At the massive man. At the silver-haired woman.
"You want my gift? Come and take it. But you'll have to go through both of us. And I promise you won't survive."
The massive Collector looked at his companion. Some silent communication passed between them.
Then they smiled.
"Not today," the woman said. "But soon. The blood moon isn't over yet, little Seer. And next time, we'll be ready for your tricks."
They vanished. Simply disappeared like they'd never been there.
The remaining operative wolves, seeing their leaders abandon them, broke and ran.
Silence fell.
The house was destroyed. Blood everywhere. Bodies of wolves who hadn't survived.
But we were alive.
Kade pulled me into his arms, and I collapsed against him. Every muscle screaming. Every nerve on fire.
"You did it," he murmured. "You actually did it."
"We did it." I looked up at him. "The bond. It works both ways. You're my anchor, but I'm yours too."
"I know." He kissed my forehead. "I felt it. Felt you pull me into the vision. Felt us move together."
Declan limped over, covered in blood but grinning. "That was the most insane thing I've ever seen. You took down a Collector."
"Just one." I looked at Elena's body. Still breathing. Still trapped. "The other two got away."
"They'll be back," Kade said grimly. "They won't stop until they have you."
"Then we'd better be ready."
Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone had called the cops. Probably Morris, hearing the chaos.
"We need to go," Declan said. "Get you somewhere safe before the humans arrive."
Kade nodded. "The safe house. North territory. They won't find it."
He scooped me up despite my protests. I was too exhausted to fight.
As we left his destroyed house, I looked back one last time.
Elena's body lay there, eyes open but unseeing. Trapped forever in futures she'd never escape.
It should have felt like victory.
In
stead, it felt like the beginning of something much worse.
Because the Collectors were still out there. And now they knew exactly how powerful I could be.
The blood moon was only half over.
And the real war was just beginning.