Chapter 19 · The Silver Inferno

The blast door folded like an empty beer can.

My hand was flat against the cold steel, counting beats, and then the whole bunker flared dead white. A silver penetrator tore clean through eight hundred pounds of reinforced plate. The air detonated in a cloud of powdered metal that tasted like burnt copper and acid.

Silver. Every wolf in the room knew the reek instantly.

"Down—"

Julian hit me before I could finish the word.

He slammed me to the concrete floor, his massive frame pinning me under him as something hot and whistling sliced the space where my neck had been half a second earlier.

Maya screamed. Not a frightened kid whimper. A raw, guttural animal shriek that tore straight out of her small chest.

My son was already on his feet. Six years old, standing in his faded pajamas between the smoking breach and his sister, fists clenched, his pupils blazing molten gold.

"Baby, down!" I scrambled under Julian's bulk. "Get down!"

"Don't touch her," the boy snarled at the smoke.

Julian was on his feet faster than four hundred pounds of muscle had any right to move.