Chapter 101: The Great Thunderfang Fire Drill

Tavian Voltcrest was losing a footrace to his mate and the gap was getting embarrassing.

Maria took a left. He took a left. She cut right. He overshot by three feet and shoulder-checked a wall sconce that had done nothing wrong.

"Maria. Honey. There is a literal fire."

She didn’t slow down. She didn’t acknowledge the fire. She didn’t acknowledge him. The woman in slippers was treating the Beta of the largest pack in Helix somewhere between a terms-and-conditions section and furniture assembly instructions.

"Maria. Get back here. Right now."

This approach did not work either.

Tavian lunged. His fingers brushed the collar of her robe. She juked left at that moment, and Tavian’s hand closed on a tapestry instead. The rod came with it. The fabric unfurled around his legs mid-stride like a trap that had been set by interior decorating.

He kicked free. Mostly. A section of curtain stayed attached to his ankle and trailed behind him like the saddest cape in Thunderfang history.

"SWEETHEART. I AM BEGGING."

On Maria’s wrist, miniature Maverick pointed right. Maria went left.

"OTHER LEFT, MARIA."

"I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING, MAVERICK. YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN HERE."

She did not know where she was going. She had been in this keep for six hours and the layout was more complicated than she anticipated. But admitting that to a six-inch hologram of her brother while outrunning her Beta mate was a concession she would sooner die than make.

"Baby. Maria. I am trying to save our lives. I just got you as my mate. We’re not one week in. Please."

He tried one more time. Full extension. Fingertips grazing the back of her robe.

Maria dropped a shoulder. Pure instinct. The kind of move that belonged on a highlight reel and instead lived in a residential corridor at midnight. He grabbed air so clean it should have been bottled.

"You’re going to run out of hallway eventually!" he called after her.

She did not, in fact, run out of hallway.

"Tavian, I’ll meet you outside. Don’t worry," she called behind her.

✦✦✦

THUNDERFANG KEEP — EXTERIOR COURTYARD

The evacuation was going about as well as anyone could expect from a fire alarm that sounded at midnight in a mountain fortress during a snowstorm.

Which is to say, badly.

Wolves poured from every exit in various states of undress and consciousness. A captain stumbled into the courtyard wearing one boot and a blanket, looking like a man who had been dead asleep three minutes ago and was furious about the resurrection. His mate followed in a nightgown so thin the snowflakes were doing more coverage.

An omega ran out holding a pillow. A warrior stood in the snow in nothing but compression shorts, arms crossed, unbothered. The woman next to him was wrapped in four layers and still shivering. Neither of them spoke. The temperature difference between their wardrobes was a conversation they had already had and he had already lost.

Sebastian Stormholt stood at the rally point with Sierra tucked under his arm, both wearing matching cloaks over whatever they had grabbed first. Sebastian was doing a headcount. Sierra was watching the keep’s upper windows flicker orange on the east side, fourth floor.

"That’s real fire," Sierra said.

"That’s very real fire," Sebastian confirmed, mindlinking Tavian, Derek, and Landon.

Hover pods with fire-suppression rigs screamed over the treeline, their sirens cutting through the snowfall. Red and white lights strobed across the courtyard, painting every shivering wolf in alternating panic colors.

Celeste Starborne emerged from the east exit in a silk robe and matching slippers, hair perfect, face perfect, lips lined like she had been expecting photographers. Every strand was in place. Every lash was curled. She scanned the courtyard with the composure of a woman who treated emergencies as networking opportunities.

She was looking for one person. Her eyes swept the crowd with the efficiency of a woman who had already decided where her future mate would be standing and was adjusting her angle accordingly.

He was nowhere.

"Where is the Alpha?" Celeste asked a guard.

The guard looked at her. Looked at the keep. Looked at the sky like it might help. "Inside, Princess."

Celeste’s jaw tightened by one millimeter, which for her was a meltdown.

The High Luna’s escort brought her through the main entrance flanked by four guards who looked like they were handling the most important package in the keep and were aware of it. She was in a fur-lined robe with her crown still on because the High Luna of Thunderfang did not evacuate without her crown the same way the sun did not rise without the sky.

She stopped in the courtyard. Snowflakes landed on her shoulders and immediately regretted the decision.

"Where are my grandsons?"

The question was directed at no one and everyone simultaneously. Four guards exchanged a look that communicated volumes about their current predicament and none of those volumes contained an answer.

"Where. Are. My. Grandsons."

Sebastian stepped forward. "Inside, High Luna. Both of them."

She looked at the keep. Looked at the flickering windows on the east side. Looked at the fire-suppression hover pods circling overhead. Then she looked at the courtyard full of evacuated wolves in pajamas and snow and found exactly one granddaughter-in-law-to-be in a silk robe and zero grandsons.

"Absolutely unacceptable."

The High Luna turned on her heel and marched back towards the main entrance with the determination of a woman who had raised two grandsons who were in big trouble.

"HIGH LUNA, THE BUILDING IS BEING EVACUATED."

"High Luna, please, we need you outside the perimeter."

A fire-suppression captain dropped from his hover pod. "HIGH LUNA, MA’AM, WE HAVE AN ACTIVE FIRE ON THE FOURTH FLOOR. I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO RE-ENTER."

She held up one hand without turning around. Palm flat. Fingers spread. The gesture was small and absolute and carried the authority of a woman who had been holding up that hand for sixty years and it had never once been disobeyed.