Chapter 10
The city dimmed itself without being told.
Streetlights flickered into low-power mode. Transit lanes rerouted. Civilian districts sealed their windows and locked their doors as if instinct itself had learned to fear the dark.
Extraction Night had begun.
Kai moved through Crescent territory like a ghost, cloak masking his scent, Alpha presence folded inward so tightly it hurt. Every step toward the Enigma's quarters felt like treason carved into bone.
Inside the compound, alarms were silent.
That was worse.
Too quiet meant internal authorization.
The Enigma sensed it the moment Kai entered.
"They've decided," they said calmly.
"Yes."
"How much time?"
"Minutes."
They stood without hesitation, already braced. No panic. No denial.
"You're choosing war," they said softly.
"I'm choosing you."
The words were barely out before the walls shuddered.
Delta breach teams struck with surgical precision—phase-shifting through sealed corridors, disabling guards without lethal force. Crescent soldiers fell unconscious before they even realized they were under attack.
Kai watched it happen with a strategist's eye.
Clean. Controlled.
Terrifying.
The Enigma's suppressive cuffs flared violently, responding to the intrusion. Pain ripped through their expression as they staggered.
Kai caught them. "Hold on."
"I am," they gasped. "Barely."
A Delta operative appeared beside them, eyes sharp. "We're out of time."
The floor split open.
A dimensional fold—not Enigma-made, but Delta-engineered—yawned beneath them, humming with unstable energy.
Kai froze.
"This isn't a sanctuary," he snapped. "This is forced displacement."
"It's survival," the Delta replied. "Move."
Before Kai could answer, the corridor behind them exploded.
Crescent enforcers surged forward—Alphas, Deltas, even a Beta suppression unit. At their center stood Elder Rael.
"Stand down, Kai," Rael commanded. "You are endangering the pack."
Kai stepped in front of the Enigma, dominance flaring openly now, raw and undeniable. "You authorized their death."
"They are too dangerous to exist," Rael replied. "And you are too compromised to lead."
The Enigma laughed softly.
Everyone turned.
"So this is how it ends," they said. "Not with fear—but convenience."
Their cuffs cracked.
The sound was sharp, final.
"No," Kai whispered. "Don't—"
Reality screamed.
Time slowed to a crawl as the Enigma's power surged unchecked for the first time. The air folded inward. Gravity reversed. The attacking Crescent forces were lifted off their feet, frozen mid-motion like insects trapped in amber.
The Delta operatives backed away in awe.
"This is why," Rael shouted, struggling against the distortion. "This is exactly why!"
The Enigma turned to Kai, eyes glowing with fractured light.
"I can end this," they said. "All of it."
Kai saw it then—the brink. One step further and there would be no return. No hierarchy. No world as it was.
He reached for them.
"Stay with me," he said. "Please."
The Enigma trembled.
Then the power receded—violently, painfully—slamming back into containment that no longer existed.
They collapsed.
Kai caught them as the distortion snapped away, bodies crashing back to the floor. Alarms finally screamed. Reinforcements flooded in.
"Go!" the Delta operative shouted.
Kai didn't think.
He stepped into the fold with the Enigma in his arms.
The world tore itself apart.
They emerged into cold.
Stone beneath them. Open sky above—stars wrong, constellations unfamiliar. The air tasted clean, sharp, untouched by pack law.
A sanctuary.
But not safety.
The Enigma stirred weakly, blood at the corner of their mouth.
"Kai… did we break it?"
"No," he said hoarsely. "We survived it."
Around them, Delta guards secured the perimeter.
Behind them, the fold sealed.
Crescent territory was gone.
So was Kai's former life.
Somewhere far away, pack councils would be convening. Laws rewritten. Warrants issued.
The Omega-born Alpha had defected.
The Enigma had been unleashed.
And the world would never forgive either of them.