Page 63 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

They’re faster this time. More coordinated. The first two were scouts—prototypes. These things? They’re made for war.

Sophia lunges into the lead one like lightning incarnate, her body a blur of silver and storm. Her claws dig into its throat, and she drives them both to the ground in a crackle of mist and fury. The creature thrashes beneath her, shrieking, its malformed jaw snapping in wild spasms, but she doesn't hesitate. Her stormlight pours through her fangs and into its chest.

It detonates.

The light doesn’t just burn it—it breaks it apart. The glyphs carved into its hide fracture like shattered bone, pieces turning to dust before they hit the floor.

But the others don’t retreat.

Three more pour through, crawling low and fast, movements twitchy like they haven’t figured out how to exist in this world yet—but they’re adapting.

One darts toward Kylie. She throws a dagger—precision perfect—and it catches the thing in the eye. Or what would’ve been an eye if the face wasn’t some horror of split cartilage and open bone. The blade sticks, but the creature doesn’t fall. It charges harder.

Max barrels into it with a ward charge burning across his palm. Glyphs flare along his forearm—Windrider, Ironclaw and Nightshade runes working together—and when he slams it into the creature’s ribs, the impact sends both of them flying.

Kylie doesn’t waste the opening. She’s on it with her blade before it can right itself, slicing through its throat in three short hacks. The body spasms once… then dies.

The second creature rushes me. I meet it mid-air.

We collide with a force that sends us skidding across the dais, my claws finding its underbelly and tearing through the glyph-lined hide like wet parchment. It shrieks, but I clamp my jaws around its throat and rip it open before it can claw my chest. I taste something wrong—metallic, but old, as if it had brewed in some alchemist’s vat for a century.

The body thrashes, kicking wildly, but I don’t let go until it goes still.

I drop it. Blood smears the surrounding stone. My breath comes hard and fast through clenched fangs, but I don’t stop.

Sophia is still standing. Her form is ringed in flickering light, streaks of violet and silver dancing across her fur like war banners. She turns toward the next one just as it leaps from the dais. This one is bigger—twice the size of the others—it’s spine curved like it broke and reformed on the wrong axis. It moves too fast to track with the naked eye. But she sees it coming.

Her paws brace. The air crackles. Then, she launches upward, twisting midair with a scream that carries every storm she’s ever swallowed.

Her claws rip through its chest. Lightning explodes outward in a spiral that lights up the entire room. The creature freezes in midair, convulses, and drops like a puppet with cut strings. Smoke coils from the gaping hole where its heart should be.

Silence drops. For a second, there’s no movement. Just the sound of dripping blood and scorched stone hissing under pooled heat.

The gate pulses.

Once.

Twice.

Then steadies.

The glyph rings around the dais light up again—not erratically this time, but with purpose. Measured. Controlled. As if something wants this pattern to hold.

Sophia lands hard beside me, panting. Blood mats her fur. Her eyes are wild, but she stands. I pad to her side, our shoulders brushing. I don’t speak. We both hear it.

The voice—it doesn’t come from the gate. It doesn’t echo through the stone or travel through our comms. It’s not even a whisper. It’s inside us.

"Your power is not enough. Feed the gate. Feed the bond."

Sophia’s head jerks. Her ears flatten. She heard it too.

I bare my teeth, hackles rising. They think we’ll do it for them. That the storm between us is something they can use. Not happening.

Behind us, Kylie limps into view, blood smeared down one thigh. Her blade is still slick with gore. “What the hell was that voice?”

Sophia drops her head, shaking with exhaustion. Her form flickers—light sliding off her like water—and a moment later she’s on two legs again, naked and blood-spattered, but defiant.

I shift a second later. Still riding the edge of something primal, but I bring it down with effort, pulling my humanity back one breath at a time.

---