Madoxx~
Kade's eyes had already shifted gold, canines extending past his lips. Rowan's claws erupted from his fingertips. They were seconds from ripping each other apart.
"I can't fucking believe you two," I snarled, wedging myself between them before they could shift. "We have a crisis, and you're trying to kill each other?"
When I arrived at the dungeon entrance, the gamma had intercepted me, his face pale. "Alpha Madoxx, your brothers are... they've gone to have a discussion in the orchard Alone."
The way he said "alone" told me everything I needed to know.
I could hear their raised voices before I even got to the orchard.
I rounded the corner and found them chest to chest, faces inches apart.
Kade's eyes had already shifted to gold, his canines extending past his lips. Rowan's hands were trembling, claws erupting from his fingertips. The air around them shimmered with heat, their wolves were surfacing, pushing against their human skin, demanding to be released. They were seconds from shifting, seconds from tearing into each other in a dominance battle that could leave one of them permanently scarred.
Or worse.
"I can't fucking believe you two." My voice came out rougher than I intended. I needed to be forceful to snap them out of whatever territorial pissing match they'd gotten themselves into. "We have a critical situation, and the only thing you can think about is ripping each other's throats out?"
Kade stepped back first, his jaw working as he fought to regain control. Rowan followed a moment later, turning away and pressing his palms against the cold stone wall. Their chests heaved in unison, breath coming in harsh pants.
"Wren was the intruder," Rowan said finally, his voice strained. "The prisoner. She said
"I don't give a damn what she said," I cut him off.
"Alpha" A guard suddenly appeared from behind the orchard section of the dungeon, where we kept the more dangerous prisoners. His steps were quick, almost running, a breach of protocol that immediately set my teeth on edge. He skidded to a stop in front of us, dropping to one knee with his head bowed in submission.
"Alpha, we have a situation." His voice was trembling. "The captive, she's gone. Escaped. And she left... she left something behind."
Kade's head snapped up. "What do you mean, gone?"
"Show us." I didn't wait for the guard to respond. "Now."
We marched after him in tense silence, our footsteps echoing in perfect, angry synchronization. The guard led us into the dungeon, past rows of empty cells and down a corridor .
We reached the maximum security cell at the end of the hall, the one with silver-reinforced bars and protective wards carved into every surface. The one that was supposed to be inescapable.
The cell door stood open.
The cell was empty.
But on the jagged stone wall, written in red—blood, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut, was a single word: ZUGZWANG.
The letters were bold and deliberate, each stroke carefully formed despite the primitive medium. The lines dripped downward like crimson tears, some still wet and glistening in the torchlight. Whoever had written it had taken their time, had wanted to make sure we understood.
This wasn't a desperate act. This was a message.
"She used her own blood," Rowan muttered, stepping closer to examine the writing. I could smell it now, the metallic tang of fresh blood.
I reached out, my fingers hovering inches from the wall. The blood was still tacky, not quite dry. She couldn't have been gone more than an hour.
"How did she escape?" Kade's voice was dangerously quiet, the kind of quiet that preceded violence. The kind of quiet that made seasoned warriors flinch.
"How?" Kade demanded.
The gamma flinched. "She asked to use the facilities. Broke the porcelain tank, used the shards to cut through the silver netting over the window."
"A two-foot opening?" Rowan's voice went deadly quiet. "Twenty feet up
"She sang, Alpha Rowan. Some kind of lullaby. He said... he said it made him drowsy. By the time he realized something was wrong, she was gone."
A lullaby. Magic, then. Or some form of compulsion.
This was getting worse by the second.
"When did she escape?" Kade's voice had gone dangerously quiet.
"We discovered it ten minutes ago. She could have been gone for up to an hour."
An hour. In an hour, she could be anywhere. Could have done anything.
"Triple the patrols," I ordered. "Lock down the territory. No one in or out without direct Alpha approval. And someone tell me what Wren was after, because..."
"Zugzwang," I said, mostly to myself. The word felt foreign on my tongue, angular and harsh. "What the hell is zugzwang?"
Rowan's expression darkened, a shadow passing over his features. Of course he would know, Rowan had always been the strategic one, the one who thought five moves ahead while the rest of us were still planning our first.
"It's a chess term," he said quietly. "German. It describes a position where any move you make worsens your situation. You're forced to move, the rules of the game demand it, but every option leads to defeat. You can see the checkmate coming, but you're powerless to stop it."
The words settled over us like a shroud.
"So she's saying she's already checkmated us?" My voice came out flat, disbelieving. "That we've already lost?"
"She's saying the game is rigged," Kade corrected, his eyes still fixed on the bloody word. "That no matter what we do next, we're playing right into her hands."
Rowan pushed away from the wall, his jaw set. "This is bigger than one escaped prisoner. This was planned. Every detail, from getting captured to the escape route to this" He gestured at the wall. "This is a declaration. She wanted us to know."
"Know what?" I asked, though part of me didn't want to hear the answer.
"That we're not the hunters anymore."
Silence fell like a stone dropped into still water, the ripples of implication spreading outward.
Kade's gaze hardened but this time it wasn't from anger at Rowan. "Summon Nessa. Now and order the guards to search every nook and cranny for the fugitive.
"Yes, Alpha!" The gamma practically sprinted away, his footsteps fading rapidly up the corridor.
I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to ease the pounding headache that had been building since this morning.
My body ached from exhaustion, I'd been up all night tracking the rogue signature that had been circling our territory. My muscles were tight with tension, my mind reeling from confusion and lack of sleep.
Could Nessa actually be a curse? Some kind of harbinger of misfortune planted in our pack.
The thought rose unbidden, unwelcome, but impossible to ignore.
And now this. An escaped prisoner who seemed to know exactly how to manipulate our security, our guards, our very protocols.
But I couldn't be sure. Not anymore. My wolf had been antagonizing me lately, pushing me toward her even when logic screamed to pull away.
The gamma we'd sent burst back into view , his face pale, eyes wide with panic.
"Enforcer's chambers"- he could barely get the words out, gasping for breath. " Vanessa -she's gone. The room is- there's blood and a message on the wall.
My heart stopped.