251. I Hope She Kills Them All

Raven

I stir, a fog crawling through my mind like ice water, and my body protests with a scream I can barely control. Shackles bite into my wrists and ankles, cold metal pressing into my skin, anchoring me to this cell like a caged predator. My head spins, the edges of my vision blur, and I realize the drug or poison has started its work. My body wants to sleep, my instincts dulled, but I reach for my wolf senses.

Even muddled, they flare, sharp as knives. I taste the iron tang in the air, the faint rot of damp stone, and the metallic hum of reinforced bars.

My ears twitch.

Footsteps echo against stone corridors: one, two, three… no, four sets moving steadily, careful, deliberate. The low rumble of machinery vibrates through the walls, a generator maybe, or the constant thrum of some life-support system.

A faint hiss, like air venting, and I swear I hear water dripping somewhere nearby, counting its rhythm against the others.

I can hear the soft click of keys, metal scraping against metal—a guard changing shift?

My wolf prowls within me, furiously trying to clear the shit poisoning our system.

Two cameras, maybe three, angled at this cell from high corners.

The hum of electricity and lens motors confirms it.

A pressure on the floor outside the bars—someone pacing, waiting, calculating.

The shackles slow me, but I flex every joint, feeling the power surge beneath the drug’s haze. Even half-drugged, even weakened, I know I can fight, can kill, can escape if I push.

I close my eyes and let the fog lift slightly, counting beats, smells, vibrations. Four voices echo down the hall in low conversation. Two guards at the far end, one near the door. Metal grates somewhere overhead are loose; I can feel their vibration through the floor. My wolf thrums, restless, unbound, whispering that there is always a way in, a weakness to exploit. The poison courses through me, but I know its rhythm now, feel its flow. My senses are sharp again, and I promise myself no cage will hold me. Not for long.

A metal door swings open, and two different sets of footsteps scuff down the damp hallway. The metal cot I am bolted to currently prevents me from killing them as soon as they come into view of my cell. “Hello, Raven.” Eric smiles smugly through the bars.

I tilt my head, eyes glinting with disdain. “Hello, total loser, Eric,” I growl, teeth gritting.

“Charming. I had to run labs on you and prove to Nicholai that you were the same weapon that was stolen from his compound.” Eric gestures toward my arm like I don’t already know I’ve been somewhere prior to this cell, like I didn’t feel the burn in every fiber of me. “Your body,” he continues, voice soft but edged with malice, “reacted exactly as we predicted. Every mutation accounted for. You’re perfect, Raven. A blueprint of what we intended, only… unpredictable.”

“Don’t care,” I answer flatly, letting the words drop like stones between us. My eyes don’t waver, don’t soften. He has nothing to say that I want to hear unless it involves an abnormally short albino she-wolf. who

I hope she remembered everything I taught her.

I hope she gets to kill them all.

“Fine. Nikolai is appeased. Since your owner, Alpha Stevens, doesn’t know that you are here, Nikolai has ordered that you are now his property. You will be coming to the medical ward, where I have full clearance to run studies on you.” I ignore his ‘owner’ jab because even if I died and my ashes were scattered into the wind, I would never find my way back to Stevens.

“You threw the entire pack into chaos over a mentally deranged pup who wouldn’t even accept you as her mate. You are pathetic. Weak. You’re nothing but a coward playing at power. It doesn’t matter where you take me. You won’t hold me.” I flash my fangs at him, gritting my teeth. “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed, Eric,” I hiss, voice low and dangerous.

Eric leans forward, eyes glinting with a mix of curiosity and cruelty. “You’re going to be very useful to us, Raven,” he says, voice smooth but cold. “We’ll start simple with blood samples, tissue scans, and neurological mapping, see exactly how your mutations affect your brain and body. Then we’ll move to controlled stress tests, physical endurance challenges to see how far your wolf can push before it breaks, and how your body reacts to different stimuli. I want to measure your regenerative abilities, test the limits of your reflexes, and map your neural responses when you tap into your… faster powers. Eventually, I’ll want to see how your abilities interact with others’, how they amplify or suppress different traits. You’ll be a living record of what we’ve created, and nothing you do will be wasted.”

“You obviously haven’t spent enough time with me.” Eric’s scenario wouldn’t even happen in his wildest fantasies. I am owned by only one. “You’ve been carrying that little grudge for over a decade, haven’t you, Eric? Still butthurt because some teenage pup had the nerve to reject you? And here you are, all grown-up and pathetic, thinking you’ve got any right to threaten me or anyone else. You can’t let it go, can you? Still stewing in your bitterness. Pathetic. Weak. And absolutely laughable.”

“Right, I was told about your reputation; thankfully, I do not need you conscious to get you there, and you won’t be laughing after I am done with you.” Eric nods his head, and the guard standing next to him pulls out a tranquilizer, firing three rounds. One hits me in my upper arm.

“Even your guard is pathetic. “I would tell you all the things Cyrus will do to you, but that would only be if Thane leaves you for us, and I doubt he will.” I hear two more clicks before pain radiates in my chest, their faces melt into the wall behind them.

“Drag her to the medical unit.” The room tilts and shifts, and my head becomes heavy as a strange vibration begins crawling through my bones, disorienting me. I plead through the mind-link for Cyrus to find us as everything turns black.

Consciousness crawled back in jagged, heavy bursts, fog dragging at the edges of my mind. I tried to move, and my limbs felt like lead, while my wolf was dulled and groggy from the tranquilizer. The world around me shimmered and warped, and I froze, blinking at the smooth, impossibly clear walls I had never seen before. They glinted under sterile lights, trapping me in a prison I didn’t even understand. The antiseptic bite in the air was sharp against my tongue; the hum of unseen machinery vibrated through the floor; distant echoes of footsteps and the soft whir of cameras pricked at my dulled senses.

The storm inside me promised that this strange, idiotic cage would not hold me forever.

Even through the haze clouding my mind, a thread of scent winds its way to me, delicate and familiar. Lavender.

My wolf stirs, sluggish but attentive, recognizing it instantly. It’s Ayla. The fragrance cuts through the chemical fog in my veins.

“Please tell me you know where the bathroom is.” A familiar voice sounds by my head.