KADE POV
"Get the children to the safe room!" I roared as Elena's rogues poured through the shattered windows.
My wolf was going insane. Two impossible things had just happened—Sera was alive, and those children were mine. But Elena was here for them, which meant I had exactly zero seconds to process any of it.
I shifted mid-leap, my wolf form exploding outward. I hit the first rogue attacker so hard his neck snapped. Around me, my warriors shifted and engaged, but Elena's forces were everywhere.
Through the chaos, I tracked Sera. She'd grabbed both children and was moving toward the back exit, but three rogues cut her off.
She shifted.
My wolf stumbled mid-fight, shock rolling through me.
Sera's wolf was magnificent—midnight black with silver-tipped ears, larger than any omega should be, radiating power that made my Alpha instincts stand at attention. This wasn't the wolf I remembered. This was something else entirely.
She tore through the rogues like they were paper.
MINE, my wolf howled. MATE. PROTECT.
But Sera didn't need my protection. She was a weapon, and she was terrifying.
"Kade!" Finn's voice cut through my shock. "Elena's heading for the east wing!"
I forced myself to focus. Elena wasn't here for a random attack—she had a plan, and it involved my children. Children I'd only discovered existed thirty seconds ago.
I shifted back to human form long enough to bark orders. "Finn, get every available warrior to the infirmary! Lyra—" I spotted the rogue female who'd come with Sera. "Get Sera and those kids to the safe room, now!"
"I don't take orders from you," Lyra snarled, but she was already moving toward Sera.
More rogues crashed through the doors. This wasn't a raid—it was a full assault.
And Elena was targeting my family.
Ten minutes of brutal fighting later, we'd pushed Elena's forces back. My wolves had the upper hand, but Elena herself had vanished—slipped away like smoke.
Coward.
I shifted back to human, breathing hard, covered in blood that wasn't all mine. My Beta tossed me clothes, and I dressed quickly, my mind racing.
Sera's alive.
Those children are mine.
Elena knows.
Five years of hell, and everything had just exploded in my face.
"The safe room," I said to Finn. "Where did they take them?"
"Alpha—"
"Where?"
Finn's expression was careful. "She didn't go. Sera insisted on staying in the infirmary with the wounded. Said healers don't hide."
Of course she did. Stubborn, impossible woman.
I ran.
The infirmary was controlled chaos. Wounded warriors everywhere, Sera moving between them with glowing hands, healing injuries with a power that made my skin prickle. The twins sat in the corner with Lyra standing guard, both children's eyes huge.
Sera looked up as I entered. Our eyes met.
The mate bond hit me like a freight train.
Five years of blocking it, five years of feeling nothing but echoes and shadows, and suddenly it was there—fully, devastatingly alive. Pain slammed through my chest. Longing so intense I couldn't breathe. And underneath it all, her emotions bleeding through: rage, fear, and something else I couldn't name.
Sera gasped, her hand flying to her chest. I watched her walls crack, watched her face go pale.
"No," she whispered. "No, I blocked it, I—"
"Sera—" I took a step forward.
"Don't." She held up a hand, and I stopped. "Don't come closer. I can't—the bond—"
"I feel it too," I managed. My wolf was howling, demanding I go to her, claim her, never let her go. "God, Sera, I feel everything."
Her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall. "I spent five years learning to block this. Five years building walls. You don't get to just—"
"Mama?" The little boy's voice cut through the tension. Asher—Thea had whispered his name during the fight. "You're hurting."
Sera's face softened instantly as she looked at her son. "I'm okay, baby."
"You're not." Asher walked toward me, fearless despite my size. "He's hurting you. The bond thing. I can feel it."
I dropped to my knees, bringing myself to his level. Up close, there was no denying it—he had my eyes, my bone structure, even the way he tilted his head when he was thinking.
My son.
"I'm not trying to hurt your mama," I said softly. "The bond is... complicated."
"Are you our daddy?" The question was direct, innocent, devastating.
My throat closed up. "Yes."
The little girl—Aria—appeared beside her brother, her expression fierce and suspicious. "Did you make Mama cry?"
The question shattered me. "Yes. And I'll regret it every day for the rest of my life."
Aria studied me like she was judging my soul. "Mama says people who hurt us don't get second chances."
"Your mama is smart and right to protect herself." I looked past them to Sera, my voice cracking. "But I need you to know something. I was lied to. About your mama. People I trusted told me she did terrible things, and I believed them instead of trusting her. I was wrong. So wrong. And three weeks after I sent her away, I learned the truth. I've been searching for her ever since."
"You searched for five years?" Asher asked, his empathy already working. I could see him trying to understand the enormity of that.
"Every day. Every night. I thought she died. I felt the bond go cold and thought I'd killed her."
Sera made a choked sound. I looked up and saw tears finally spilling down her cheeks.
"I didn't die," she said, her voice hard. "I survived. Alone. Pregnant. Bleeding in the Wastelands while rogues hunted me for sport. I gave birth to them in a cave during a blizzard with no help, no pack, no mate. So don't you dare stand there and act like searching makes up for what you did."
"It doesn't," I agreed, my own tears hot on my face. "Nothing makes up for it. But I'm begging you—let me try. Let me protect them. Protect you. Elena knows about them now. She'll never stop hunting them."
"I've protected them fine without you."
"I know you have. You're incredible. You built an empire from nothing. But you don't have to do it alone anymore."
"I'm not alone. I have my Coalition. My people."
"You have a mate who never stopped loving you," I said desperately. "A mate who feels you every second through this bond and knows you're terrified and furious and exhausted. Let me help."
Before Sera could respond, Finn burst through the door, his face grim.
"We caught one of Elena's rogues. He talked." Finn's eyes cut to the twins, then back to me. "It's worse than we thought."
"How worse?"
"Elena's working with Marcus Redclaw. They know about the prophecy."
My blood went cold. "What prophecy?"
Elder Thea appeared behind Finn, her expression grave. "The one I didn't tell you about yet. The one that says twins born of Alpha blood under a shattered bond carry the power to unite all packs. The one that makes your children targets for every enemy you have."
Sera grabbed both twins, pulling them close. "What?"
"There's more," Finn said quietly. "The rogue said Marcus is offering a bounty. Dead or alive. Half a million for each child."
Aria looked up at her mother with huge, frightened eyes. "Mama?"
Sera's face went pale, then hardened to stone. "We're leaving. Tonight. I'll take them somewhere no one can find them."
"They'll hunt you across every territory," I said. "You can't run from this."
"Watch me."
"Sera, please—"
A howl split the night—close, too close. Then another. And another.
Marcus Redclaw's attack call.
Finn's radio crackled. "Alpha! Eastern border—fifty wolves, maybe more! They're not stopping at the border—they're coming straight for the packhouse!"
I looked at Sera, at our children, at the future I'd just discovered I had.
"They're already here," I said. "And they're coming for them."
Asher started crying. Aria wrapped her arms around him. And Sera looked at me with eyes full of terror and rage.
"If anything happens to them because of you—"
"Nothing will happen to them," I swore. "I'll die first."
The windows exploded inward for the second time tonight.
But this time, it wasn't Elena's rogues.
It was Marcus Redclaw himself—massive, scarred, his eyes glowing red—and he was looking right at my children.
"Hello, Alpha Thorne," Marcus rumbled. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."