Page 56 of The Wolf

I wish I could see the conflict in his eyes, the confusion, any apprehension. But there’s none of that. And when his human handler shouts, “Take him down!” I see the switch flip in the hybrid’s mind. They have him conditioned. Trained.

He’s too far gone.Edwin’s voice rings in my ears.You’re wasting time.

He’s right. I know what I have to do. There’s no mercy left to give.

Without another second of hesitation, my grip tightens, the pressure against his throat increasing as my claws pierce deeper. The hybrid’s struggles intensify, but they’re futile. In one swift, savage motion, I twist his head to the side. There’s a loud crack, and I feel the resistance snap under my grip. His body jerks, limp and lifeless, as the life drains from him.

For a heartbeat, I hold him there, my claws still embedded in his throat, just feeling the finality of it. Then, with a sharp motion, I rip his head clean off, the flesh tearing with an unpleasant wet sound. What’s left of his body slumps to the ground, the severed head dangling from my hand—the eyes are completely empty, gone, but perhaps, he is running free at last.

I drop it with a thud and turn toward the soldiers with a snarl, blood dripping from my claws.

They open fire and the chaos erupts as the whole space lights up with muzzle flashes and deafening bursts of gunfire. It’s just regular bullets—won’t do anything to us. But they try—I give it to them.

Meanwhile, Maddox—of course—leaps ahead and crashes into the line of soldiers, claws flashing through the air. The first man drops, throat torn open before he can even scream. Tristan follows right after his younger brother.Blood paints the walls in a visceral mural of violence as they work in tandem. The soldiers fall one by one, their attempts to retaliate in vain against the speed and brutality of my nephews.

Then, I smell a group of vampires nearing in—not our friends.

Now we’re talking.

“Hold the line!” I shout, bracing for the impact.

A split second later, the hallway explodes into a maelstrom as they pour out from the tunnels deeper underground like shadows, together with a couple more white wolves.

The fight is brutal and fast. There’s double of them than us, but they aren’t quite a match for my kind. The hybrids, however, are much more vicious, better skilled than the one I just killed.

Edwin strikes first, moving so fast that the vampire soldiers barely register his claws before they’re torn apart. The rest of my team joins him momentarily, slaughtering the formation and overpowering one of the wolves. The other one is left for me.

I charge forward and leap at the hybrid, landing on his chest. His ribcage collapses under the force with a satisfying crunch, a gurgled scream dying in his throat as my claws rake across his muzzle. Pain flares as his claws sink deep into my sides, drawing blood, but I manage to roll free, wrestling out of his grasp. With a powerful kick of my back paws, I hurl him into the reinforced glass of one of the cells, which shatters on impact.

And there, I see a creature—similar to me… yet not. Part man, part tiger, who seems forever stuck in that form. He growls low, stirring around the cell, as his eyes meet mine.

“Go ahead. You’re free,” I say, trying to keep my voice non-threatening.

He hesitates, sniffing the air, his long whiskers working with the pink nose. Then he stumbles out, muscles rippling under his black-striped, orange fur, tail curling behind. But his movements are sluggish, almost uncoordinated, as though they’re carrying a weight I can’t see.

Then I notice the collar—thick, metallic, and glowing faintly red with some sort of built-in suppressor. I catch a whiff of magic and tech fused together in a way that makes my fur bristle.

I move to the next cell and find a towering reptilian figure. His emerald scales shimmer under the light, and a forked tongue flicks out nervously every few seconds. My eyes drop to his wide neck, and sure enough—he’s wearing the same kind of collar.

These poor things aren’t just prisoners. They’ve been muzzled too. Whatever powers they have are locked down.

From the other side, more soldiers arrive, blocking our way back out. These men are much better armed—riot shields, grenade launchers, flamethrowers. And silver rounds. Always the damned silver.

“Penny, status!” I growl, knowing she can easily catch that from the distance.

“The jets are in the air, and they’ve got reinforcements moving in fast. You have to get out of there now.”

“We’ve got complications. I need Farah in here!”

She appears on top of the stairs behind the formation in barely a moment, her eyes glowing with a deadly intensity. With a flick of her wrist, a wave of dark energy blasts through the hallway, hurling soldiers into the walls like chess pawns, making a way for her. She then pulls out her hand flat in front, and with a blast of energy, all the door locks open with a loud click. The mutants stumble out of their cells like babies, blinking against the harsh lights.

Once Farah is by my side, I gesture to the collars. “Can you deal with those?”

She kneels beside one of the lab-created mutants, a reptilian creature hunched low, his blue eyes darting between us and the chaos still raging in the hallway. Her hands hover over the collar, and her expression darkens.

“This isn’t just technology,” she mutters. “It’s blood-bound magic. Woven into their very essence. Undoing it will take time.”

“We don’thavetime,” I rumble, glancing over my shoulder.

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