Kieran's POV
The new attack comes at nightfall, and this time there's no subtlety. No probing, no reconnaissance.
The eastern perimeter alarm screams at 9 PM while the triplets are still awake. A flashbang rocks the main gate—designed to blind wolves whose enhanced senses make them vulnerable. The second and third blasts follow: suppressive distraction to cover an insertion team.
"Get the kids!" Thalia's voice from downstairs. "Kieran, get them to the safe room NOW!"
I'm already moving. Human-speed, human-slow, every step a reminder of the wolf that would have covered this hallway in two bounds. Phoenix's door is closest.
"Dad?" She appears in the doorway, wide-eyed. "What's happening? Why is everything shaking?"
"Get your brother and sister. Move to Orion's room, lock the door, push the dresser against it."
"But you said the safe room—"
"Orion's room is closer. Go, baby. Right now."
She runs. I hear her pounding on Luna's door, and hear Orion's calm voice directing his sisters. The radio on my hip crackles with intercepted hunter communications.
"Primary objective is the children's wing. Target designation Phoenix. Command wants her eliminated before she manifests fully."
My blood turns to ice.
"Confirm—we're authorized for lethal force on a minor?"
"Authorized and directed. Phoenix Fenris represents the single greatest threat to long-term operational success. Uncontrolled Alpha-level strength in a pre-adolescent female. The compound she's developing could make her uncontrollable within months."
"What about the other two?"
"Secondary targets. The empath and the strategist are containment-level threats, not elimination-level. Phoenix is the priority. Remove her, and the next generation of Silvermoon leadership collapses."
They're here to murder my daughter!
"Confirm weapons loadout for the primary."
"Experimental blade, Mark IV. Same base compound as the Alpha dart, concentrated for lethal effect on pre-adolescent physiology. One strike should be sufficient."
The Mark IV. The chemical that killed my wolf, weaponized into a blade designed to kill a child. A nine-year-old's body can't survive what the compound did to me.
"Kieran, where are you?" Thalia screams through the radio. "Three hostiles broke through—"
"Children's hallway. They're coming up the stairs."
"Get out! You can't fight them like this—"
"Like what, Thalia? Human? I'm aware of my limitations."
"That's not what I—Lysander is two minutes out, just hold the door and wait—"
"It is long enough for them to reach Phoenix. I'm not leaving this hallway."
"Kieran, I am begging you—"
I turn the radio off. My wife's terror follows me into the silence, and I'm sorry for that. But the math is simple: my children are behind me, and armed men are climbing toward them. Everything else is noise.
The first hunter crests the staircase with a tactical rifle. Behind him, the second carries a dart gun. And behind both, moving with deliberate calm, the lead operative carries the blade.
Its coating gleams with oily iridescence—the same chemical shimmer I remember from the dart that stole my wolf, but darker, more concentrated. Longer blade, designed for penetration, to deliver a lethal dose into a child's bloodstream.
"Stand aside," the lead operative's voice is professional. "You're human now, Mr. Fenris. This doesn't need to involve you."
"You're walking toward my daughter's bedroom. Tell me how this doesn't involve me."
"The girl is a threat. Uncontrolled supernatural strength in a child—it's a matter of time before she kills someone. We're preventing future casualties."
"She's a kid."
"She threw a desk across a classroom when she was seven. Imagine what she'll do at fifteen," he takes a step forward. "We're not monsters but pragmatists. Your pack can't control her development."
"If you take one more step, I will kill you with my bare hands."
"You're welcome to try." He nods to his team: "Remove him."
The cover man advances, but I'm still with twenty years of combat training before the dart stripped my edge.
I grab his wrist, twist his arm behind his back, and drive him into the wall. The dart gunner raises his weapon and I use the first operative as a shield—his body absorbs the dart.
He slumps. The dart gunner tries to reload and I'm on him—knee to solar plexus, elbow to jaw. He goes down hard.
The lead operative watches with something like admiration. "Still fighting. Your wolf is gone but the instinct remains."
"The instinct to protect my children doesn't require a wolf."
He shifts the blade to a throwing grip. "But it won't be enough. You can't stop me and protect that door simultaneously. The moment you commit to an attack, I go around you."
He's right, the hallway is too wide. Without my wolf's speed, I can't close the gap fast enough to prevent him from reaching Phoenix.
Behind me, her voice—small, trembling, pressed against Orion's locked door. "Daddy? Are you okay? Luna says there are bad people who want to hurt us."
"Stay in that room, Phoenix. Do not open the door."
"But Daddy—"
"Promise me. Whatever you hear, do not open that door."
"I promise, but... I'm so scared—"
"I know, baby. I'm going to keep you safe. That's what dads do."
The lead operative makes his move. Feints left, cuts right—exactly as I predicted. The blade arcs toward the hallway past my position, toward the door where my children huddle.
I don't think. No calculation, no strategy, only the absolute certainty that this blade will not reach my daughter.
I step into its path.
The blade enters my chest three inches below my collarbone—a cold, sliding invasion that doesn't register as pain immediately, the nerve endings too shocked to process the damage.
Then the chemical compound hits my bloodstream like liquid fire, spreading outward from the wound in burning tendrils that I recognize from the dart but magnified tenfold, concentrated, designed to overwhelm a system already stripped of every supernatural defense.
The operative's eyes widen. He didn't plan for a father who'd choose a blade to the chest over a centimeter of ground.
"DADDY!"
Phoenix's scream splits the hallway. The door bursts open—Orion couldn't hold her. She's there, small hands reaching for me as my knees buckle, pressing against the wound with strength that would crush a normal man's ribs.
The operative retreats. His mission failed—the blade meant for my daughter is buried in my chest, its payload wasted on a man who's already lost everything supernatural.
I hit the floor. The cold hardwood presses against my cheek, and Phoenix's face hovers above me, tears streaming, her small hands slippery with my blood.
"Stay with me, Daddy. Please stay with me, please don't go—"
"Told you... I'd keep you safe..." The words slur as the compound spreads. The hallway dims. Phoenix's voice fractures into echoes that chase me downward.
"MOMMY! HELP! DADDY'S NOT MOVING!"
The last thing I hear before the darkness swallows me is my daughter's screams and the thunder of wolves finally reaching the hallway—too late, always too late, but maybe just in time to save the children I bought those seconds for.
My children are safe. That's enough. That's everything.