Chapter 6

The boiler room was a subterranean cathedral of rust and steam. Pipes the size of tree trunks crisscrossed the ceiling, hissing like vipers. The heat was suffocating.

Vance was waiting on the catwalk, holding Elara by the throat over the railing. Below them was a twenty-foot drop onto concrete.

Four mercenaries stood between Kade and the catwalk.

Kade landed in a crouch. He was covered in blood, glass, and grease. He looked like a demon dredged up from the underworld.

"Let her go," Kade said. His voice echoed, distorted by his partial shift. Claws tipped his fingers. His jaw was distended.

"Kill him," Vance ordered the mercs.

The four wolves charged.

The fight was brutal. It wasn't the clean sparring of the gym. It was a street fight in a closet.

Kade didn't fight fair. He grabbed a steam valve and wrenched it open, blasting the first mercenary in the face with scalding vapor. As the wolf blinded, Kade swept his legs and kicked him into the open furnace pit.

The second merc tackled him. Kade bit down on the man’s shoulder, tasting copper, and drove the glass shard into his thigh.

He used the environment. He swung from pipes. He threw wrenches. He was a mechanic, and this was his machine. He dismantled them piece by piece.

Up on the catwalk, Elara wasn't waiting to be saved.

While Vance watched the fight, distracted by Kade’s brutality, Elara reached into her pocket. She pulled out a lighter.

She jammed the lighter into the sprinkler sensor above Vance’s head.

*CLICK. WHOOSH.*

The fire suppression system triggered. Not water—chemical foam.

It blasted Vance in the face, blinding him.

Elara stomp-kicked his knee, shattering the joint. Vance roared, dropping her.

She didn't fall. She grabbed the railing and swung herself up, landing on the catwalk.

"Kade!" she yelled. "Clear!"

Kade finished the last mercenary—a brutal headbutt that cracked skulls—and looked up.

Vance was wiping the foam from his eyes, shifting fully now. A massive, red-furred werewolf towered over Elara.

Kade scrambled up the ladder. He vaulted over the railing just as Vance lunged.

Kade tackled the Alpha mid-air.

They crashed into the control panel. Sparks flew. The boiler pressure alarms began to scream.

Vance was stronger. He pinned Kade, his jaws snapping inches from Kade’s throat.

"Die, boy!" Vance roared.

Elara grabbed a heavy pipe wrench from the wall. She didn't hesitate. She swung it like a baseball bat.

*CRACK.*

She hit Vance in the back of the head.

The Alpha slumped, stunned.

Kade threw him off. He stood over the Principal, panting, bleeding, alive.

He raised his claws to finish it.

"Wait!" Elara grabbed his arm. "Don't kill him."

"He deserves it," Kade snarled.

"We need his keys," Elara said, breathless. "And his clearance code to open the perimeter gate. If he's dead, the lockdown stays."

Kade looked at Vance. He looked at Elara.

He lowered his hand. He reached into Vance’s pocket and took the keys to the sleek black sedan parked out front. He grabbed Vance’s hand and pressed the unconscious Alpha’s thumb against the biometric scanner on his phone.

*Access Granted.*

"Let's go," Kade said.

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