Past the jump, a lone streetlight flickered, illuminating a spray-painted sign that warned trespassers they were now on pack territory and would be killed on sight. My shoulders relaxed as the familiar sights and scents of home wrapped around me like a warm blanket. We passed a security camera, and I saluted, knowing that the packmate on duty would alert my father of our return.
We didn’t have a deadly hedge and a magical shield protecting us, but we had technology, weapons, and the might of well-trained soldiers. If Mr. Tall, Hot, and Terrifying showed up to retrieve the artifact, we’d tear him a new asshole.
Navigating my bike around moss-covered shells of buildings, I slowed my speed to avoid blowing a tire on cracks in the uneven pavement and wove around crawling vines bigger around than my ride. The mages who’d erected the barrier that now separated us from the Mondeine had squeezed the magic out of their territory and directed it into ours, feeding our plants and animals the equivalent of arcane Miracle-Gro. In the past twenty-five years, the forest had only grown wilder, giving the land on this side of the fracture an overgrown, dystopian vibe.
I cruised to a stop and parked in the covered lot beside the den entrance. My engine idled as I dropped my kickstand and let my victory sink in.
I’d done it. And both Rust and I had made it home.
Needing to reassure myself of the victory, I killed the engine and unzipped the smallest pocket of my backpack, peering in. My entire body shuddered in relief at the sight of the stone.
Rust parked beside me and gave me a quick once-over before nodding at my bag. “Please tell me you got the damn thing.”
We’d been so busy running that we hadn’t even discussed it.
“Of course I did.” I grinned and flashed him the rock before stashing it again and sliding the pack onto my back.
He let out a whoop loud enough to alert the entire pack to our presence. “I knew you could do it, pup.”
Warmth expanded in my chest at my mentor’s words.
I hadn’t been so sure.
Now, I only hoped leaving the icy hot guy alive wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
MY LIFE IS YOURS
Ziara
My pack lived in a hole in the ground.
Like, literally, a hole in the ground. As pups, we all learned that back in the late eighteen hundreds, an enraged fire sprite destroyed the original Pioneer Square. The Mondeine didn’t know about our kind back then, so they blamed a negligent woodworker and his boiling glue, but that pissed-off sprite took out over twenty-five blocks of businesses.
Since the district had been built on filled-in tidelands that frequently flooded, city officials decided to regrade the streets and raise them to a higher elevation. But that would take some time, and Seattle was experiencing an economic boom that wouldn’t wait. Merchants kept their storefronts right where they were, and the streets were regraded around the buildings, turning first-floor display windows into basements and sidewalks into tunnels. Known as the Underground, the tunnels became home to hookers and shady business dealings until the bubonic plague came along and shut it down for good.
Then, more than a century and a half later, the pack seized the Pioneer district from the Mondeine, who retaliated by droppingballistic missiles bursting with explosives and silver dust on the district. They would have exterminated my people, and I would never have been born had Dad not been away with a team on a supply run. He returned to ruin: dead pack, toppled buildings, toxic silver dust polluting the air. He needed somewhere safe for the survivors to lie low while they grieved, and bombs had left a crater-sized hole where Pier 46 used to be, exposing the entrance to the long-forgotten Underground. The pack made camp in the basement-level tunnels and waited for the silver to settle.
We’ve been here ever since.
Now, strategically placed ruins hid the den’s entrance, and traps kept unwanted visitors out. Rust and I navigated the route we knew by heart with ease, slipping through the real door and scurrying down a wide concrete ramp lit with LED string lights.
It was nearing three a.m., and everyone not on duty should have been in bed, but a surprising number of voices met my ears. As the commons came into view, old-fashioned streetlights rewired for electricity illuminated the crowded space where most of the adults huddled around pool tables, dartboards, card tables, and the bar.
Conversations halted, and all eyes turned to watch us as news of our return rolled over the room like a wave. Whispers of my role in my old babysitter, Jillian’s, death assaulted me like stones thrown but that was nothing new. Almost two decades later, and her specter still haunted me, overshadowing every accomplishment like an eclipse as I fought desperately to earn forgiveness for something I couldn’t even remember.
Before we reached the bottom of the ramp, the door to the administration building—the first building beyond the commons—flew open and Dad emerged. When he spotted us, his expression was stoic as ever, but the added burst of speed to his stride belied his excitement. The pack parted, opening a path for him to meet us halfway.
The reek of Drifter’s homemade hooch threatened to burn my nostrils as I made my way to Dad, hanging behind Rust sincehe was my commanding officer. Dad’s gaze swept over us both before settling on me. He nodded, silently signaling me to approach.
My heart skipped a beat, and I lunged forward, thanking my lucky stars I had escaped with my prize and returned victorious. Tilting my head back and to the side, I bared my throat in submission and repeated the first vow I’d ever made, the words we all lived by, declaring my allegiance in his native tongue.
“Is leatsa mo shaol, Alpha.” My life is yours.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow in a rare show of anxiety as he met my gaze. “Did you succeed?”
In answer, I slid my backpack down my arms and unzipped the correct pocket. Magic tickled my fingers and surged up my arm as I grabbed the rock and offered it to him, bowing my head in deference. The glimpse of pride shining in his eyes made my chest swell as he took the stone from me and thrust it into the air.
Our people howled and cheered, overwhelming me with emotion. I kept my head down, blinking rapidly until I got myself under control. Tears were a weakness—a vulnerability—and I would not shed them here. Not in front of witnesses. Regardless, this was the best moment of my life.
