Chapter 103: Thunderfangs Are Very Bad Boys

Derek Thunderfang rounded the corner in human form, shirtless, chest heaving. His eyes were wolf-gold at the surface, flickering between man and beast with the stability of a light bulb that had been punched.

His wolf was right there, pressing against the underside of his skin, and the only reason it wasn’t out was because Derek had apparently won the custody battle by a margin so thin it qualified as a coin flip.

He blurred past Maria without stopping.

"Derek." Maria matched his stride, which she should not have been able to do and was doing anyway. "She’s in room 412. Where is that?"

Derek skidded to a halt so hard his boots left marks on the stone. His head snapped left. Then right. Then he reversed direction entirely, cutting past Maria towards a different stairwell at the far end of the corridor.

"Wrong wing," he gritted without breaking stride.

Maria followed. Then she passed him.

Derek blinked. His legs were moving at a speed that belonged to an Alpha and the woman who had just blown past him in slippers was running faster. His brain attempted to process the mechanics of a Beta’s mate outrunning an Alpha-blooded prince and the processing failed because the math was wrong and his eyes were not.

Then he saw the hologram on her wrist.

Miniature Maverick stood on Maria’s forearm looking like a man who had fucked around, found out, and was now just along for the ride.

Derek’s wolf surged at the sight and a growl ripped from under his ribs so loud it rattled a sconce. The growl was involuntary, territorial, and aimed squarely at the six-inch Alpha currently strapped to his Beta’s mate like a wristwatch with opinions.

Maria either didn’t hear him or ignored it because she didn’t have time for that shit.

They hit the stairwell. Up. Two at a time. Three at a time for Derek. The smoke was thicker here, descending through the levels in grey sheets that stung the eyes and coated the throat.

✦✦✦

TWO FLOORS BELOW

Tavian Voltcrest was having the worst cardio session of his life.

His mate was somewhere above him, running at a speed that his pride refused to accept and his lungs could no longer contest. The curtain had been abandoned two corridors ago. He had one boot. His shirt was a memory. His dignity had filed for separation and the paperwork was being processed.

He rounded a corner at full Beta speed just as a flash of electricity cracked through the stairwell ahead. A man emerged from it, shirtless, moving at Alpha velocity, gold eyes burning in the dark.

Landon Thunderfang. Human again. Pants on. Shirt missing. Looking like a man who had just forcibly reclaimed his body from a wolf who had been redecorating the corridor with doorframes.

"Landon. Get outside. Now. There’s a fire," the High Luna ordered.

She stood at the far end of the corridor, crown still on, robe still pristine, looking at her shirtless grandson the way a general looks at a soldier who has gone AWOL and returned without his uniform.

Landon didn’t stop. "Gran, go outside. There’s a fire."

"I just said that, Landon. Dear, you are tired. You’re repeating me. Come on. I’ll get Derek."

"Tavian." Landon called over his shoulder without turning around, already disappearing up the next flight. "Take the High Luna to safety. That’s an order."

The High Luna watched her grandson vanish up the stairwell. Then her eyes moved to Tavian with the slow, deliberate rotation of a gun turret acquiring a new target.

Tavian stood there. Shirtless. One boot. Winded. Looking at a woman whose authority predated his rank, his birth, and possibly his species.

"Touch me and I will have your other boot mounted above the fireplace as a warning to future Betas who forgot their place."

Tavian’s hands went up so fast they broke the sound barrier. Full surrender. Both palms out, fingers spread, the universal signal of a man who had received the message, processed the message, and was currently framing the message for his wall.

"You seem perfectly safe to me, High Luna. I am going to leave you right here. In this exact spot. Where you are. Safe."

"Good man," the High Luna said.

Tavian was already gone, up the stairs, chasing his mate.

The stairwell was a furnace.

✦✦✦

Fire climbed the walls on both sides, eating through the stone-mounted ivy and the wooden railing with the appetite of something that had been hungry for a long time and was making up for lost meals. The heat hit Derek’s face like opening an oven door except the oven was four stories tall and he was standing inside it.

"NOVA!" His voice tore through the roar. Raw. Wrecked. The kind of sound a man makes when the woman his mate is somewhere on the other side of a wall of fire and the wall is winning. "NOVA, ANSWER ME!"

Nothing came back. The fire ate the silence and the silence ate him.

Maria grabbed his arm. "The fire doesn’t burn me, Derek. Let me go first."

He didn’t listen. He was already climbing, forearm over his eyes, boots hitting steps that were radiating heat through the soles. A ceiling beam groaned overhead, the wood bowing inward, glowing orange at the center where the structural integrity was negotiating its resignation.

Maria blew past him up the stairwell, the flames parting around her body like a river around a stone. Red light swirled in her wake, the fire recognizing Emberclaw blood and bending for it the way fire had always bent for her family, because Emberclaws don’t burn and fire knows its masters.

"Derek. Stay."

She said it over her shoulder, already through the archway at the top. The command was delivered with the tone of a woman who understood she was telling an Alpha-blooded prince to sit and the prince was not a dog but the situation called for dog rules.

Derek did not stay. Derek Thunderfang had never once in his life responded to the word "stay" with compliance and tonight was not the night that streak ended.

"BABY, ANSWER ME!" he yelled through the blaze.

He shielded his face with both arms and pushed through the archway. The fire kissed every inch of exposed skin it could find and his wolf absorbed the pain like a tax he was willing to pay. His eyes stung. His lungs burned. The smoke was thick enough to chew and he was chewing it because breathing was no longer a comfort, it was a negotiation.

Through the haze, he could see Maria’s silhouette. The flames bent around her in a halo of red, like she was walking through rain that couldn’t touch her.

Derek could not say the same. Every step cost him something. The heat was pressing against his skin with the insistence of a thing that wanted in and the only thing keeping it out was Alpha healing and stubbornness, and stubbornness was carrying the heavier load.