Chapter 8 - The Choice of a KingGideon shouted first.
“Masks!”
The tactical team moved instantly.
Kane pulled Harper’s coat over her mouth while Lucian smashed the nearest exterior window with a metal chair.
It did not break.
Reinforced glass.
The gas thickened.
Evan began screaming inside his cell.
“No! No, no, no!”
Harper’s eyes burned.
“Kane—the cell!”
Kane struck the glass.
Nothing.
Again.
A spiderweb fracture appeared.
Lucian joined him.
Together, they hit it.
Once.
Twice.
On the third strike, the panel collapsed.
Kane reached through and dragged Evan out.
Gideon found a service vent.
“Here!”
The tactical team tore open the grate.
Fresh air entered from somewhere beyond.
Not enough.
Harper’s knees weakened.
Kane caught her.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m trying.”
Lucian coughed violently.
The gas smelled strangely sweet.
Not conventional poison.
Harper remembered the suppressant levels found in the dead attackers.
“Kane.”
His face blurred.
“It’s for wolves.”
“What?”
“The gas.”
Kane’s eyes widened.
Then his body seized.
He fell to one knee.
“Kane!”
Lucian collapsed beside him.
Every wolf in the room reacted within seconds.
Gideon dropped his weapon.
Two guards began shifting uncontrollably.
Bones cracked.
One screamed.
Harper felt dizzy but remained conscious.
Evan crawled toward her.
“They used this before.”
“How do we stop it?”
“Cold.”
“What?”
“They kept us cold after injections.”
Harper looked toward the fire suppression controls mounted near the door.
She forced herself upright.
“Gideon!”
He barely responded.
Harper stumbled to the wall.
The suppression system was industrial.
Emergency foam.
Water.
Chemical neutralizers.
She hit the manual deluge.
Nothing.
Electronic lockout.
Of course.
Harper pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall and smashed the control panel.
Once.
Twice.
The cover broke.
Wires appeared.
She had no idea what she was doing.
“Red pair,” Evan gasped.
She looked at him.
“Cut red.”
Harper found a small emergency axe.
She struck the wires.
For one terrible second, nothing happened.
Then ceiling valves exploded open.
Freezing water slammed down.
Everyone gasped.
Kane collapsed fully onto the floor.
Harper crawled to him.
His skin burned despite the water.
“Kane.”
His eyes opened.
Gold.
No recognition.
Her heart stopped.
Then he whispered her name.
“Harper.”
“Yes.”
His claws dug into the floor.
“Get away.”
“No.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.”
Lucian roared several feet away.
His shift was beginning involuntarily.
Kane’s wolf responded.
Pressure exploded through the laboratory.
Harper was thrown sideways.
Evan covered his head.
The tactical guards began panicking.
Two dominant Alpha forces were reacting to the drug simultaneously.
The room became almost physically impossible to breathe in.
Kane looked at Lucian.
Lucian looked at Kane.
Instinct recognized competition.
Brother.
Rival.
Threat.
Harper understood what Project Apex intended.
Not merely create powerful wolves.
Trigger them.
Study which one dominated.
The same experiment Malcolm had imagined thirty years ago.
“No!”
Her voice vanished beneath the pressure.
Kane moved toward Lucian.
Lucian’s claws struck concrete.
Harper forced herself between them.
Both stopped.
Barely.
Kane snarled.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Harper.”
“You know what this is.”
His pupils were almost gone.
She pointed toward the ceiling speakers.
“This is Malcolm’s experiment.”
Something flickered in his face.
Lucian growled.
“Kane.”
Harper turned toward him.
“You too.”
His claws flexed.
“They want you to fight.”
The pressure surged again.
“You think your father wanted to know which son was stronger?”
Lucian’s lip curled.
“He does not matter.”
“Then prove it.”
Kane’s gaze snapped toward her.
Harper continued.
“Neither of you owes a dead man the ending he planned.”
Silence.
Water poured over them.
Kane trembled violently.
Lucian’s breathing came like an animal’s.
Harper stood between two wolves powerful enough to tear the building apart.
Then Kane stepped backward.
One step.
The room shook.
Lucian stared at him.
Kane’s voice was rough.
“I am not fighting you.”
Lucian’s claws remained extended.
“Why?”
“Because he wanted us to.”
Something passed across Lucian’s face.
Pain.
Rage.
Then choice.
His claws slowly retracted.
The pressure broke.
Not completely.
But enough.
Gideon dragged himself toward the broken vent.
“Move everyone out.”
They escaped through the service corridor eleven minutes later.
Outside, cold morning air hit Harper’s lungs like medicine.
Paramedics from Croft security treated the wolves with oxygen and fluids.
Evan refused to leave Harper’s side until Kane promised nobody would take him back inside.
Harper sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
Kane approached.
He looked exhausted.
Wet hair.
Bare feet because his shoes had been ruined during a partial shift.
His expensive black coat was gone.
Harper had never loved him more.
He stopped in front of her.
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“You stepped between two drugged Alphas.”
“Yes.”
“That was insane.”
“Objectively.”
His jaw tightened.
“You cannot keep doing that.”
Harper looked up at him.
“Doing what?”
“Believing I will stop.”
She became very still.
Kane’s voice broke slightly.
“One day I might not.”
Harper stood.
“You stopped the first night.”
“Barely.”
“You stopped with Vivian.”
“Because of you.”
“You stopped with Celeste.”
“Because of you.”
“You stopped in there.”
His eyes burned.
“Because of you.”
Harper shook her head.
“No.”
Kane looked angry.
“Yes.”
“No, Kane.”
She put both hands against his chest.
“I can call your name. I can remind you. I can stand beside you.”
Her voice softened.
“But you are the one who stops.”
He stared at her.
“You keep giving me credit for choices you make.”
His breathing slowed.
Harper continued.
“That is exactly what your father taught you not to do.”
Something shattered quietly behind his eyes.
Malcolm had trained Kane to believe control came from external force.
Punishment.
Drugs.
Fear.
Restraints.
Harper had never restrained him.
She simply refused to accept the lie that he possessed no agency.
Kane lowered his forehead to hers.
“I don’t know how to believe that yet.”
“I know.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’m an accountant, not a prophet.”
His laugh came out broken.
She wrapped her arms around him.
For several moments, they stood beside the ambulance while emergency crews moved around them.
Then Gideon approached.
“We found a surviving server.”
Harper released Kane.
“Anything useful?”
“Encrypted.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
Kane looked offended.
“You are going to a hospital.”
“I’m not injured.”
“You inhaled unknown experimental gas.”
“So did you.”
“I am also going.”
“Then apparently we can argue while receiving medical attention.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“I miss when both of you were quiet.”
At the hospital, Harper worked from a private treatment room while a physician repeatedly told her to rest.
She ignored him.
Eventually Kane took the laptop away.
“Sleep.”
“I’m close.”
“You have said that for three hours.”
“Because encryption is rude.”
Lucian entered.
He had recovered faster than expected.
Possibly because his exposure had been shorter.
He tossed a flash drive onto Harper’s blanket.
“I broke part of it.”
She blinked.
“You?”
“I’m not decorative.”
Kane leaned against the wall.
“Debatable.”
Lucian looked at him.
There it was again.
Brotherhood beginning in insults because neither man knew what else to do with it.
Harper opened the files.
The first contained test subjects.
Thirty-two names.
Most were wolves from minor packs.
Some disappeared years earlier.
Others were officially dead.
Evan was number twenty-eight.
The next folder contained genetic research.
Harper did not understand much of it.
But she understood the labels.
Croft line.
Vale line.
Combined compatibility.
Candidate stabilization.
Then she found the objective summary.
Her blood went cold.
“What?”
Kane sat beside her.
Harper turned the screen.
Project Apex had failed to reproduce Kane’s raw dominance projection in unrelated wolves.
Every attempt created neurological instability.
Aggression.
Organ failure.
Uncontrolled shifts.
So the researchers changed direction.
They no longer wanted to recreate the trait artificially.
They wanted offspring carrying it naturally.
Lucian read over her shoulder.
His face changed.
“No.”
Harper kept reading.
The project required genetic material from either original Alpha line.
Preferably both.
But there was a problem.
Kane had no children.
Neither did Lucian.
The document included compatibility assessments.
Potential female mates.
Harper scrolled.
Dozens of names.
Then she stopped.
Her own name appeared at the top.
HARPER HAYES.
Kane went absolutely still.
Lucian swore.
Harper opened the profile.
Financial background.
Pack history.
Medical information she had never authorized anyone to access.
Genetic data from blood taken after Kane was shot.
The hospital.
Vivian had access.
At the bottom was a note.
Unusual regulatory effect on Subject K-2. Possible neurological compatibility beyond mate-bond response. Highest-priority reproductive candidate.
Kane crushed the metal rail of the hospital bed.
Harper closed the file.
His power surged.
Not uncontrolled.
Focused rage.
“Who has this?”
Gideon entered.
“We traced the final server connection.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“Kane.”
“Where?”
“Cascade territory.”
Harper stopped breathing.
Her old home.
Her father’s former pack.
The place she had spent five years trying to save.
Gideon’s voice became quieter.
“The signal originates beneath the original Cascade medical center.”
Harper stared.
That facility had been closed for six years.
Richard claimed the pack could no longer afford it.
She remembered helping process the sale.
Except—
Her mind raced.
The building had never actually been sold.
The transaction failed.
Richard told the council it was abandoned because repairs were too expensive.
Harper had never questioned it.
She had been managing six other crises that month.
Kane touched her hand.
“Harper?”
She looked at him.
“My father knew.”
No one spoke.
“I don’t know how much.”
May you like
Her stomach twisted.
“But Cascade has been hiding their laboratory for years.”
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