Chapter 50

ELENA

The hallway roared around me—screams and the thunder of boots echoing off polished stone as Logan yanked me after him, his grip vice-tight around my wrist. My high heels slid and stuttered over the rubble that had spilled out of the restaurant, and the air around us smelled like smoke.

And blood.

“Come on!” he barked, not looking back.

We tore through the halls of the summit venue, the restaurant explosion already distant behind us. Dust clung to the air, thick and acrid. My ears rang from the blast. Somewhere behind us, someone was crying.

“Where are we going?” I shouted.

“To the hotel wing. You’re going to your room, locking the door, and staying there.”

My feet stumbled as I pulled back. “Logan—”

There were people hurt and I could be back there helping them.

Logan didn’t even slow. He knew what I was thinking. “Absolutely not,” he said, pulling on me once more. “You are not a fighter, Elena.”

That stopped me.

I yanked my hand free. “Excuse me?”

His jaw flexed as he turned to face me. “I meant—you’re not trained for this. You shouldn’t be on the front lines.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped. “You’ve seen me shift.”

“And that means what? That you can tear through trained rogue soldiers? That you’re invincible? No, it means you’re a target. And if something happens to you—”

“I can handle myself.” I could. Like any werewolf child born into pack, I’d gotten trained to fight young. I held my own as a child with any number of weapons. I had the archery medals back home to prove it.

I may not remember all the lessons due to my amnesia, but my instincts were rock solid.

“Elena, I’m serious.” His voice dropped, soft but sharp. “Go. Please. I need to know you’re safe if I’m going to fight.”

That landed somewhere deep and bitter in my chest.

I nodded stiffly.

He kissed my forehead—brief, warm, infuriating. Then he was gone, sprinting down the hallway toward chaos, peeling off his jacket as he ran.

I stood alone.

The hotel wing was to the left. My room, secure. A hiding place, just like Logan ordered.

I turned right.

My legs were already moving before my brain caught up. I was running toward the fire, toward the smoke curling down the corridor like it had teeth. I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop at all.

I burst into the open-air corridor connecting the restaurant wing back to the summit ballroom. Glass crunched beneath my shoes. The windows had blown out from the blast. Smoke poured from the left side of the building, a dull orange glow lighting the edge of the sky.

Rogues were here.

I hit the restaurant door at a run and wrenched it open.

Hell greeted me.

The elegant dining room was wreckage now—tables overturned, silver cutlery embedded in the walls, broken glass glittering like ice across the floor. A chair was on fire. Someone screamed from behind the bar.

Alphas—those who had changed already—were fighting. Wolves tangled with rogues, fur and claws and blood blurring together in a frenzy of violence. It was chaos.

I dodged behind a broken column and surveyed the room.

A warrior from the Briarcliff Pack was pinned beneath a fallen beam. I darted forward and hauled it off with a grunt. “You good?”

He nodded, dazed. “Th-thank you, Princess.”

“Don’t thank me. Get out.”

I moved on, weaving between snarling bodies and bursts of flame. The smoke stung my eyes.

Someone screamed again—this time closer.

I rounded the remains of the dessert station and froze.

A rogue was dragging a bleeding Luna toward the hallway. The woman kicked weakly. “Help…” she whispered.

I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed a jagged silver serving platter and slammed it across the rogue’s head.

He went down. The woman scrambled away.

I stood there, panting, chest heaving.

“Elena!”

I turned.

A copper-furred wolf with slitted eyes was snarling in my direction. For one insane moment, I thought it was Nox.

Then I saw him.

A monstrous black wolf tore through the wreckage like a storm given flesh, his coat so dark it drank in the light, save for the stark white streak slicing over his right ear like a battle scar carved by the gods.

He was fast—so fast it took my breath away—and impossibly large. When he hit the rogue, it was like watching a wall collapse on top of a twig.

Bones snapped. Blood sprayed. And then the body was airborne, discarded like trash.

Erebus.

My heart stuttered.

Derek.

I should’ve looked away. Should’ve turned and found someone else to help. But I couldn’t.

I watched him.

Watched the way he moved with terrifying purpose—no hesitation, no mercy. Feral and focused, like violence had always lived just beneath his skin, waiting for permission to surface.

He was a monster. A weapon. A guardian. All wrapped into one form I knew too well.

The battlefield seemed to bend around him, like gravity itself was leaning in. Even the rogues hesitated when he turned his head toward them, when those glowing eyes locked on their movement. They knew. They could sense it, same as I could.

That if they got too close, they’d be torn to shreds.

He wasn’t just fighting.

He was protecting.

And some primal part of me—my wolf, maybe—recognized him not as the man I hated but as the Alpha I’d once trusted to protect me. The bond may have frayed, but something of it remained. A ghost. A whisper.

My heart kicked hard against my ribs.

And then, just like that, he was gone again. A blur of black tearing toward the next threat before I could breathe his name.

Something twisted in my chest. A knot of fear, relief, and something else I didn’t want to name.

I didn’t have time to examine it.

A cough, hoarse and dry, cut through the chaos.

My head snapped toward the sound.

An older woman—her dress scorched, her hair streaked with soot—was huddled against a half-toppled wall near the coat check. A Luna, from the looks of her.

Maybe Ridgewood. Maybe Aspenrun. Her left arm hung at an unnatural angle, and blood trickled down the side of her face, bright against the silver of her hair.

I didn’t hesitate.

I sprinted through the debris, ducking falling sparks and a toppled lighting fixture. The air was thick with smoke and wolf scent and the iron tang of blood.

I dropped to my knees beside her. “It’s okay,” I said, voice low and steady. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

Her eyes met mine—wide, wet, and terrified. She gave the barest nod.

I slid my arm around her, careful of the injury, trying to haul her upright. “Just lean on me. I’ve got you.”

She whimpered but obeyed, her fingers clutching weakly at my shoulder. I shifted to brace more of her weight, trying to get her up—

And then something snatched me from behind.

I cried out, arms flailing as I was yanked backward. My shoulder slammed into a column. Pain exploded down my side.

A hand clamped over my mouth.

Hot breath hit my neck.

A voice rasped, low and familiar. “You’re harder to kill than we thought.”

I struggled, heart slamming against my ribs. My feet kicked. My wolf surged in my chest, screaming to be let out.

“Shh,” he whispered. “Don’t make me gut you here, princess. That would be such a waste.”

He dragged me backward toward the hallway, away from the light, away from help.

And I knew, with cold certainty, that if he got me around that corner—I wasn’t coming back.