The silence inside the vault was physical. It pressed against my eardrums, heavier than the three feet of reinforced titanium-steel alloy sealing us in.
Ten seconds ago, the heart monitor had been screaming the flatline of my daughter's death. Now, there was no sound at all. I had ripped the sensors off her chest because I didn't need a machine to tell me the impossible had happened.
"Mama?"
The voice didn't come from a throat. It felt like it vibrated directly into the bones of my skull.
I looked at Mia. She sat on the edge of the medical gurney, her small legs dangling. But the child I had carried into this room was gone. The girl sitting there was... *dense*. Her skin had lost the translucence of childhood and taken on the matte, heavy texture of unpolished marble.
And her eyes.
Gone was the soft hazel inherited from Damien. In their place were two pools of restless, liquid chrome. No pupil. No iris. Just a swirling, reflective abyss that tracked my movement with predatory precision.
"Mia," I breathed, reaching out. My hand trembled.
"Don't," Damien said.
The word was a guttural snap, low and dangerous. I turned. Damien was pressed against the far wall near the weapon racks, his body rigid. The Alpha aura that usually radiated from him—dominance, heat, control—was gone. In its presence was something I had never smelled on him before: **sour, acrid fear.**
His claws were out, gouging deep furrows into the metal shelving he was gripping.
"That isn't Mia," Damien said, his voice tight. "My wolf... it's refusing to look at her. It's cowering, Aria. An Alpha wolf doesn't cower. What did you put in her body?"
"I gave her the only thing that could save her," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. I looked down at my own hands. The veins under my wrist weren't blue anymore. They were faint, shimmering silver lines. "I gave her the legacy you tried to hide from me."
"The Sinclair Collar," Leo whispered from the corner.
My four-year-old son was sitting on the floor, his back jammed against the server stack. He held his tablet like a shield, but he wasn't looking at the screen. He was staring at his sister with a mix of scientific fascination and primal terror.
"The Geiger counter on my watch is maxed out," Leo said, his voice trembling. "But it's not radiation. It's... magnetic resonance. She's emitting a frequency that's scrambling the hard drives. If she gets louder, she's going to brick the vault's door mechanism."
Mia tilted her head. The liquid silver in her eyes settled. "Daddy is loud," she said. Her voice had a double-tone, like two people speaking in unison—one a child, one an ancient woman. "His blood sounds like drums."
*BOOM.*
The vault shuddered. Dust rained down from the ceiling vents. The heavy steel door groaned, the metal warping inward slightly in the center.
"Thermal lance," Damien diagnosed instantly, the soldier in him overriding the terrified father. He grabbed a heavy assault rifle from the rack, checking the chamber. "They're cutting through. We have maybe two minutes before breach."
"Who is it?" I asked, though I already felt the answer in my teeth. The metal of the door was screaming in pain, and I could *feel* it.
"Volkov," Damien spat. "He didn't wait for the board vote. He's here to liquidate the assets." He looked at me, his golden eyes hard. "And right now, you and that... thing... are the assets."
"Her name is Mia," I snapped.
"Not anymore." Damien moved to the center of the room, positioning himself between the door and us. "Leo, get in the carrier. Now."
Leo didn't argue. He scrambled up, shoving his tablet into his hoodie, and climbed into the reinforced backpack carrier strapped to Damien's broad back. It was designed for hiking, not war, but it was all we had.
"Aria," Damien said, not looking back. "If we get out of this, you're going to tell me exactly what a 'Silver Walker' is. But right now, you stay behind me. If you try to fight, you'll die."
I almost laughed. The arrogance of wolves. They thought claws and fangs were the apex of evolution.
I looked at the door. The center was glowing cherry-red. The metal wasn't just melting; it was being tortured. And because the silver in my blood was now awake, I felt a phantom heat on my own skin.
*Let it in,* a voice whispered in the back of my mind. *Metal yields to the Queen.*
"They're through!" Damien roared.
The door exploded inward.
A shockwave of heat and debris swept the room. Before the smoke cleared, three tactical figures stormed in. They weren't Pack Enforcers. They were *Cleaners*—human mercenaries hired by wolves to do the dirty work, armed with illegal tech.
The first mercenary raised a weapon that looked like a flamethrower.
"Target confirmed. Burn it down."
Damien opened fire. The deafening *crackle-thump* of the assault rifle filled the small space. The first mercenary's chest exploded, the heavy caliber rounds punching through body armor like paper.
But the other two split up. One aimed at Damien; the other swung his muzzle toward Mia.
"No!" I screamed.
I didn't run. I didn't tackle him. I simply... *reached*.
Not with my hands, but with the cold, heavy river that was now flowing through my nervous system. I focused on the mercenary's gun. specifically, the firing pin.
*Jam.*
It was a simple thought, but it cost me. A sharp, blinding headache spiked behind my eyes, and blood gushed from my nose.
The mercenary pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He racked the slide, confused.
"Gun malfunction!" he shouted.
That second of confusion was all Damien needed. He dropped his rifle, closed the distance in a blur of motion, and tore the man's throat out with his bare hand.
The third mercenary panicked. He saw his squad wiped out in seconds and made a fatal mistake: he pulled a fragmentation grenade.
"Frag out!"
He tossed it. It didn't go far—just landing in the center of the room, equidistant between Damien and Mia.
Damien turned, his eyes wide. He couldn't reach it in time. He curled his body around Leo, bracing for the shrapnel that would shred his back.
I couldn't stop the explosion. The chemistry was already reacting.
But I could change the container.
I dropped to my knees, vomit rising in my throat as I pushed my mind into the metal casing of the grenade.
*Hold.*
The grenade detonated.
But the casing didn't fragment. I held the molecules of the steel shell together with nothing but will and desperation. The explosion happened *inside* the metal. The grenade swelled like a balloon, turning glowing orange, misshapen and bloated, but it didn't burst. It contained the blast, muffling the sound to a dull *thud*.
The distorted lump of metal clattered to the floor, smoking.
Silence returned to the room.
I slumped forward, gasping for air. My vision was swimming. Black spots danced in front of my eyes. Using the power felt like running a marathon while holding my breath.
Damien uncurled slowly. He looked at the deformed grenade, then at me. His face was a mask of shock.
"How..."
"We have to move," I choked out, wiping the blood from my upper lip. "That headache... means more are coming. I can feel their gear. It's like a swarm of bees."
Damien didn't argue. He grabbed a fresh magazine for his rifle, hauled me to my feet with rough efficiency, and scooped up Mia with his free arm.
"The service tunnel is collapsed," he said, kicking the door open. "We have to go up. Through the kitchen. To the helipad."
We ran.
The Sinclair estate was a labyrinth of shadows. The power was cut, leaving only the red emergency track lighting. We moved through the servants' corridors, the smell of smoke and cordite growing stronger with every step.
"Leo," I whispered as we jogged. "Eyes."
"Hacked into the local Wi-Fi nodes," Leo murmured into Damien's ear. "Main hall is swarming. Volkov brought a battalion. Mom, they have... they have dogs."
"Wolves," I corrected.
"No," Leo said, his voice pitching up. "Not wolves. *Dogs*. Big ones. Biological constructs. Subject Zeroes."
Damien cursed under his breath. "Abominations. Failed experiments from the clandestine labs."
We burst into the kitchen. It was empty, but the stainless steel appliances hummed in my head, a choir of potential weapons.
"Exit is through the pantry," Damien directed.
We made it to the heavy oak doors leading to the garden. Damien kicked them open, and we spilled out into the cool night air.
The relief lasted exactly one second.
Floodlights blinded us.
"Effective range," a voice boomed over a loudspeaker. "Hold fire."
My eyes adjusted. We were surrounded. Not just by mercenaries, but by the heavy hitters. At least twenty men formed a semi-circle around the garden exit. And in the center, sitting on a folding chair like he was watching a play, was Ivan Volkov.
He looked older than his photos. The Russian Alpha was graying, his face a map of scars, but his power was undeniable. It rolled off him in waves of suffocating heat.
Beside him, straining against thick chains held by three handlers, was a creature from a nightmare. It was hunchbacked, hairless, and covered in weeping sores. It had the snout of a wolf but the hands of a primate.
"Damien Sinclair," Volkov smiled, standing up. He wore a suit that cost more than my life. "And the miraculous Aria. You cost me a very expensive door."
"Let us pass, Ivan," Damien growled. He set Mia down behind him, his body vibrating as the change began to ripple through his muscles. Bones cracked; his shirt tore at the seams. "This is Sinclair territory."
"This is *Dust* territory now," Volkov corrected. "I signed the acquisition papers ten minutes ago. You are trespassing."
He looked at me. His gaze felt like slime.
"The Council is very interested in the rumors, Aria," Volkov said softly. "A Silver Walker? In this century? They want to vivisect you. But I... I am a businessman. I offer a trade."
He pointed a finger at Mia, who stood silently by my leg, her face blank.
"Give me the girl," Volkov said. "I have a buyer in Jakarta who pays a premium for genetic anomalies. Give her to me, and you and Damien can walk away. You can make more children. Normal ones."
Rage, cold and sharp as a scalpel, pierced through my exhaustion.
"She is not a commodity," I said, my voice amplification kicking in without my permission. The silverware on the outdoor dining tables rattled.
"Wrong answer," Volkov sighed. He snapped his fingers. "Release the hound."
The handlers dropped the chains.
The hairless abomination shrieked—a sound of pure madness—and launched itself at us. It covered the thirty feet in a heartbeat.
Damien met it in mid-air.
The collision shook the ground. Damien, fully shifted now into his massive black wolf form, was huge, but the abomination was stronger. It didn't fight like a wolf; it fought like a machine. It ignored pain.
Damien sank his teeth into its shoulder, but the creature didn't even flinch. It slammed a fist into Damien's ribs, the sound of breaking bone sickeningly loud.
"Dad!" Leo screamed.
The mercenaries raised their weapons, aiming at me.
I was drained. The grenade had taken almost everything. I tried to reach for the metal in their guns, but my mind slipped. I was too weak.
"Mama?"
I looked down. Mia was looking up at me. Her silver eyes were glowing in the dark.
"They are hurting Daddy," she said.
"Yes, baby," I sobbed, falling to my knees to hug her. "I can't stop them. I'm empty."
Mia pulled away from me. She looked at the mercenaries. Then she looked at the creature tearing at her father.
"I'm not empty," she stated.
She opened her mouth.
The sound that came out wasn't a scream. It was a **frequency**.
It was high, piercing, and impossible. It sounded like a wet finger rubbing the rim of a crystal glass, amplified a thousand times.
*REEEEEEEEEEEEE.*
The floodlights exploded.
The mercenaries dropped their guns, clapping hands over their bleeding ears. The metal buckles on their vests began to heat up.
But the real target was the creature.
The abomination froze. It let go of Damien. It threw its head back and howled, but the howl turned into a gurgle.
Under its translucent skin, I saw it happen. The iron in its blood was reacting to Mia's song. It was boiling.
The creature seized, convulsing violently as its own veins turned into superheated wires. It collapsed to the grass, twitching, steam rising from its pores, cooked from the inside out.
Volkov wasn't smiling anymore. He looked terrified. He scrambled back, knocking over his chair.
"Kill it!" he screamed at his men. "Kill the witch!"
But his men were incapacitated, writhing on the ground as their weapons grew too hot to touch.
Damien, limping and reverting to human form, naked and bleeding, stumbled toward us. He grabbed my arm.
"Now!" he rasped. "While they're down!"
We sprinted for the tree line. The forest was our only cover.
As we crashed through the underbrush, the branches tearing at our clothes, a new sound cut through the night air. A low, rhythmic thrumming from above.
I looked up through the canopy.
A black drone, silent and sleek, hovered over the Sinclair estate. It fired a single blue beam of light, illuminating the chaos in the garden.
"The Council," Damien wheezed, leaning heavily on me. Leo was crying in the carrier on his back.
"They aren't here to help," I said, realizing the truth. "They saw Mia. They saw what she did."
"Where do we go?" Damien asked. "Volkov has the house. The Council has the sky. We have nothing."
I stopped, chest heaving. I looked at the dark, dense woods stretching out before us—the forbidden zone that bordered the territory.
"We go where metal doesn't matter," I said, gripping Mia's cold little hand. "We go to the Old Pack lands. The feral territory."
"That's a death sentence," Damien said.
"Staying here is an execution," I countered. "In the wild, we are prey. But here? We are heresy."
I pulled him forward into the dark.
"Move, Alpha. Your family is waiting."