Chapter 7 7

Owen POV

The initial bullet struck the pavement three inches to my foot. I did not stop and attempt to compute the happenings. I simply turned into my wolf-shape and ran. My human mind was screaming to me how bad that was, but my wolf knew how to fight. My wolf knew how to survive.

Zane was already on the move beside me, with his hybrid form that gave him the appearance of a man and a beast. He did not flee away from the guards. He dashed at them, right in the danger as though he had been created to do so. His scratched face was serene, as though death and violence were everyday items on his agenda.

Lyra crashed through a side door which I had not even previously seen, and moved with a kind of speed which should not have been possible. Neither was she fleeing the guards. She was combating them, disarming them without killing them, and was intelligent and mercifully moving despite their desire to have her dead. It was such a treat to see somebody dancing to tunes she could not hear.

"Inside!" Dane called through the door. The security system goes offline for half a minute. Move now!"

We had perhaps a minute to pass the out defence and get into the building. Then we would be locked down and there we would be. I transformed back and ran as quickly as my human legs could run. Ethan stood close beside me and his face was dark with anger and determination.

And with Owen, I thought to myself; and we ran through the door. "Help me navigate. You have been with Council systems before.

I had dealt with them, though not in this way. I had been working with them as a person who was trusted, as an inside person. That knowledge was now helping me to break in and attack, and the irony of it was not lost on me. I was out to guard Lyra, and now I cared to give my life to her.

Iris will be in the command center, I said, and my head was racing through the structure of the whole place. "It's on the top floor. The simplest process is via the elevator, which is the main one, and is locked with several locks.

Then we go through the stairs, Zane said. And we ruin everything on our path.

We passed rapidly along the corridors. It was not a good thing because the building was not as full as I expected it to be. Had Iris known we were in the offing, why were there not more guards? Why was not this place absolutely locked up?

That was when I understood.

It is a trap, I said abruptly. "She let us in. She wanted us to come here."

Lyra didn't stop moving. "Then we move faster. We will find her and finish this."

We went to the staircase and began to climb. My heart was a-thumping and my wolf was struggling to escape, wanting to save Lyra, wanting to be useful in this struggle. But I forced her down. I had to think. I must have recollected all I remembered about the building and about Iris.

Iris had a fifteen-year term of Council. She had backed all the decisions which were detrimental to the outer packs. She had voted on resource cuts. She had also suggested imposers such as Lyra to be considered as a means rather than a human being. She had smiled at me during meetings and secretly delivered people to kill the parents of Lyra.

And I had not the least idea.

We flew up the door into the executive floor, and the first sight I encountered was Marcus. He stood in the hall-way, and he looked old and weary and melancholy.

Stop, you have to stop, Marcus said, with his hands up. You are not even aware of what you are doing.

Your niece dishonored you, said Lyra, with her wolf eyes. "You know about it, don't you? You know about Iris."

"Yes," Marcus said quietly. And that is why I must make you come to a halt.

He was quicker than I had imagined an old gentleman to be. He changed into his wolfish appearance and hurled himself at Lyra. But Lyra was quicker, more powerful, and wittier. She avoided his attack and struck him in sufficient ways to cause him to crash against the wall. He didn't get up.

I did not wish to hurt him, Lyra said; it was not as though I were hesitant. She was no longer concerned with saving those who saved Iris.

We kept moving. The door of the command center was ahead. I was able to look inside through the glass walls and saw Iris standing at one of the consoles, staring at screens that displayed security feeds of all the areas within the building. At the same moment she saw us she saw us seeing her.

And she smiled.

Welcome, said Iris, as we broke through the door. She spoke in a quiet tone, as though it was what she had been anticipating. You have been waiting in my presence.

My parents were killed by you, said Lyra, shaking with anger.

"I did," Iris admitted. She did not attempt to deny it and excuse herself. She simply confessed like it was something that she had already accepted. Your mother had been going to tell it all. She was to ruin the plans of the Council. I had no choice."

Always you had a choice, Lyra said.

"Did I?" Iris asked. She flicked a button on her console and as if by magic, the screens became illuminated all round us. They showed images of people. Hundreds of people. Thousands of people. You are aware of what that bloodline of your mother can do unless it is regulated? What sort of power would she have made of herself had she accepted it on a full diet?

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Iris was gazing at me as though I were a child who had not understood something obvious. Your Luna does not simply possess the ability to hook up with more than one mate. She is capable of manipulating minds. She can make new werewolves. She can transform the structure of our world. Your mother discovered this. She would destroy the Council with it and establish a new world order.

Lyra moved aside as though struck. "That's not true."

"Isn't it?" Iris asked. Why, then, was she having all these people? How did she manage to have the werewolves of all the different packs coming together in undisclosed places? Why did she even make arrangements of overthrowing not only the Council, but all the Alphas in the world?

You are lying, it's not true, Lyra said but I could tell she was doubtful.

"Come," Iris said. She went to a file on her desk and opened it. Photographs and documents inside were all of Lyra, the mother. They exhibited meetings with werewolves in other packs. They showed plans for war. They revealed a map of a world in which the mother was the ruler of Lyra as opposed to the Council.

Your mother was not victimized, Iris said. "She was a revolutionary. And I would have to put a stop to her with the killing of thousands of people in a war that would have ruined all we had created.

Since I had known Lyra, I had never seen her hesitate. I saw doubt cross her face. And during this hesitation Iris did something that I had not anticipated.

She pushed another button and the floor below us began to move. We were on to a sort of platform, and it was stooping into the ground. I was able to see what was below through the glass floor.

It was a holding cell. And there were no less than a hundred werewolves in the cell, all in human shape, all in reinforced glass. They were feeble and ill, as though they had long been put to prison.

Those are the followers of your mother, Iris said. The ones that were itching to engage in a war. I have kept them here in the lock-up, so that they cannot harm anyone. And I have been saving the world the confusion your mother was out to make.

Lyra's face was white. "What have you done?"

"What I had to do," Iris said. "Now, you have a choice. You may accompany me and I will show you all. I would demonstrate the truth to you concerning your mother, and you would finally come to realize that what I did was required. Or you may fight me and I will set all these prisoners at once. They will pour into the world and thousands of innocent individuals will perish in the anarchy that ensues.

Dane reached for Lyra's hand. "Don't listen to her. This is a trick."

But Lyra was looking down upon the prisoners, and all her emotions were visible in her face. Rage, betrayal, confusion, and something. Something that resembled the necessity to know the truth, at whatever price.

To which Lyra replied slowly, "You will leave them to it should I come with you?

I will keep them here, where they are safe, Iris said. And we will see how to manage your power in such a manner that it does not destroy the world.

It is not what she said, you growl, Zane, said. "She said she'd release them."

"Does it matter?" Iris asked. She was about to touch the other button with her hand. "Either way, you lose. Either will your Luna with me, or I shall destroy you all and bear her with me in my unconsciousness.

I knew at this point that Iris had made this all work out. She had known we would come. She had let us in. She had even made us think that we had a chance. Yet she had been playing us along all the time to this particular point.

And now, when it was a matter of a hundred lives, Lyra needed to make a decision which will determine everything.