POV: Ryker Ironwolf
The pain hit like lightning.
I was standing in the hallway when it came through the bond. Not gradual. Not something I could prepare for. It was sudden and violent and it made me stagger backward hard enough to hit the wall.
Kael was hurt.
Bad.
I could feel it through the connection. Could feel the claws opening his side. Could feel the moment the rogue caught him off guard because his attention had split between the battle and Sera.
Then I felt her panic.
It was worse than Kael's pain. It was terror so complete it was like drowning.
I was moving before I could think. Down the stairs. Through the corridors. Toward the isolation chambers where Sera had been trapped for three days.
The guards did not try to stop me. They knew better than to stand in the way of an Alpha when the bond was screaming.
I slammed the chamber door open.
She was on the ground.
Blood was streaming from her nose. Her eyes were rolled back and her body was convulsing like something was tearing her apart from the inside. The bond was a physical thing now, burning bright gold in the air around her.
Kael was dying. And she was feeling it happen to him.
I scooped her up and ran.
The council chambers were three levels up. I carried Sera like she weighed nothing and took the stairs two at a time. Her blood was on my hands. Her terror was in my chest. The bond was screaming at all of us to do something before it was too late.
The healers' chamber door was open. I burst through without stopping.
"Help her," I said. It was not a request.
The healers looked up from their work. One of them, an older female with kind eyes, stood immediately. She knew what was happening. She could feel the bond distress like everyone in the compound could feel it.
Then Theron appeared.
He moved into the doorway like a wall made of authority. His ancient face was set and his eyes were flat and empty of anything that resembled mercy.
"Step back, Eastern Stone Alpha," he said quietly.
I did not step back.
"She is injured. Your healers can fix this."
"No one is fixing anything." Theron's voice did not change tone but something shifted in the air. Something that made even my wolf want to submit. "All four of you are too dangerous to live. The bonds cannot be broken. Therefore, all of you must be eliminated."
The words did not make sense at first.
Then they did.
"What?" I said.
"Execution," Theron said like he was discussing the weather. "At dawn. The omega will die first so the Alphas understand what defying the sacred law costs. Then you will all undergo fatal severance. The magic will be forced to tear the bonds from your souls. It will kill you. That is acceptable."
Behind him, council members were nodding. Actually nodding like sentencing four people to death made perfect sense.
"You cannot do this," I said.
"I can and I am." Theron stepped fully into the chamber and the kind eyed healer backed away immediately. "The council has voted. The verdict is final. Guards will escort the omega back to isolation. She will be held until dawn."
Guards appeared behind him. Four of them in full armor. Ready to take Sera from my arms.
I looked at the old healer. She looked back at me with eyes that said everything. I'm sorry. I cannot help. The council has authority over us all.
I had to let her go.
Sera was still convulsing. Still bleeding. Still connected to a male who was probably bleeding out on a battlefield somewhere and would never reach her before the execution.
The guards took her from my hands.
I stood in the healer's chamber and watched them drag her away and felt the moment the bond stretched to breaking as they increased the distance between us.
All the strategic calculations I had ever made meant nothing right now.
The council had just declared war. They wanted us dead. All of us. And they had given us until dawn to figure out a solution.
Twelve hours.
Twelve hours to break Sera out of the most secure facility in the alliance. Twelve hours to coordinate with Kael and Darius. Twelve hours to get four people out of the compound and into safe territory and past the guards and past the council's reach.
Twelve hours was not enough time.
But it was all we had.
I ran to find Darius first. He was pacing in his cell. The moment he saw me, he knew something had changed. He could read it on my face.
"They are executing us at dawn," I said. No point in softening it. "All four of us. Sera first. Then fatal severance for the three of us."
Darius went perfectly still. Then the wall shattered.
He lunged at the magical barrier holding him in place. It shocked him backward but he barely seemed to feel it. His wolf was fully in control now. All instinct. All need.
"We need Kael," I said. "He is at the border but he will come back when he feels what is about to happen. We need him here in the compound by midnight or Sera dies before we can move."
"How?" Darius gasped. "How do we get out of here? The council has magic. They have guards. They have authority."
"We become the threat they think we are," I said. The plan was forming in my head piece by piece. It was insane but insane was the only option left. "We stop running and we fight. But first we run."
I laid it out for him. The timing. The paths. The guards that would be where. It was a rough plan. A desperate plan. But it was a plan.
Darius listened and then he nodded once.
"Kael will agree," he said. "He will burn the world for her."
"We all will," I said.
Then I waited.
For Kael to feel what was happening. For him to realize the execution order through the bond. For him to make the choice between his pack and his mate.
I already knew what he would choose.
Midnight came and went.
One in the morning.
Two.
I was in the isolation chamber with Sera by then. The guards had not stopped me. They probably thought it was mercy, letting her spend her final hours with one of her mates.
She was sleeping. Fitfully. Her body still weak from the failed rituals.
The bond was a constant ache now. Three Alphas separated. One omega trapped. All of us counting down to dawn.
Then I felt it.
A shift. A change. Kael was moving through the compound.
He was hurt. I could feel it through the bond. The claw marks on his side. The blood loss. The exhaustion that came from fighting for hours while barely able to stand.
But he was coming anyway.
The chamber door swung open without warning.
Kael stood in the doorway. His shirt was torn and bloody. His hair was matted with sweat and dirt. His ice blue eyes were burning with something that went past rage into pure devastation.
He looked at Sera sleeping on the stone floor of her cell. He looked at me.
Then he said one word.
"Run."