Irina’s POV

That wolf.

I knew that wolf.

Even from up here — even through the smoke and the noise and the bodies crashing against each other like waves — I knew exactly who it was. The way it moved. That deliberate, unhurried quality to every step, like it owned whatever ground it stood on. Like the chaos around it was beneath its attention.

Alexei.

My chest locked up.

Roman was bleeding.

I could see it from here — a dark slash across his flank, slowing him down, making each movement cost something extra. He was still fighting, still massive and terrifying in his grey wolf form, but he was fighting alone now against three of them, and the three were pushing him back inch by inch.

Andrei was worse.

Andrei had gone down on one knee. He was back up again almost immediately — stubborn, always stubborn — but his left foreleg wasn’t holding weight right, and every lunge he made pulled short. He was protecting two of our soldiers who couldn’t shift, putting his body between them and the wolves circling the perimeter. Buying them time he didn’t have to spend.

My knuckles had gone white on the railing.

*Do something.* The thought was a shout. *Do something, do something, do something —*

I looked around.

The guard who’d been stationed on the walkway with me was still there — pressed flat against the wall, watching the chaos below with wide eyes, one hand frozen over the gun at his hip.

I moved before I finished deciding to.

My hand shot out and closed around the grip of his weapon. He startled — spun toward me, half a protest forming on his lips — and I yanked it free from the holster before he could react.

Silver bullet rounds. It had to be. This was a wolf compound. Every weapon here was loaded for wolves.

The gun was heavier than I expected.

I’d never held one before. Not really. I’d been around them my whole life — guns and knives and every other instrument my father’s people kept close — but nobody had ever put one in my hands and shown me what to do with it. I was an omega. I was furniture. Nobody taught furniture how to shoot.

My hands were shaking.

I gripped the gun tighter, willing them to stop, and they didn’t stop.

Below me, one of the Iron Stone wolves lunged at Roman from the side — caught him across the shoulder, sent him skidding three feet across the stone floor. Roman scrambled back up, snarling, and the sound of it tore through me like a wire pulled tight.

*Focus.*

I raised the gun.

The barrel swam in front of me. My whole arm was trembling, not from the weight but from something deeper — the kind of shaking that comes from the inside out, from fear that’s been stored in muscle and bone for so long it comes loose at the worst possible moment.

I found Alexei in my sights.

He was moving.

I couldn’t get the angle. Too many bodies between us. If I fired now I’d hit one of ours.

Roman went down again — harder this time — and didn’t get up immediately.

My throat closed.

*No.*

I tracked Alexei across the floor. He’d moved to the center now, more exposed, and for half a second I had him clear. I squeezed the grip, lined up the shot —

A wolf cut across my sightline. Gone.

My breath was coming too fast. I could hear it — shallow and ragged, the kind of breathing that makes everything worse, that makes your hands shake harder and your vision narrow and your thoughts turn to static. I pressed my back against the railing and forced myself to stop. One breath. Just one long, slow breath that I had to physically drag in and hold.

The training ground roared beneath me.

Andrei made a sound — something low and pained — and the two wolves circling him closed in tighter.

I raised the gun again.

Alexei was moving toward Roman’s downed form, slow and deliberate, head low. Like he was going to finish it. Like this was already decided and he was just walking to the ending.

Something went very quiet inside me.

I lowered the gun.

I filled my lungs.

Every muscle in my body was braced. My pulse was hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth, in the backs of my hands, in the tight column of my throat. The noise below was deafening and enormous and I needed to be louder than all of it, louder than the wolves and the crashing and the dying, louder than everything —

"**ALEXEI!**"

It came out raw. Ragged at the edges. Not the composed call of a luna who knows what she’s doing, but something more stripped-down and desperate and real — a voice that had learned to survive by going small and quiet suddenly throwing everything it had into one single moment.

The effect was immediate.

He stopped.

Alexei’s wolf froze mid-step like a switch had been thrown. It was reflex.

He looked at the walkway.

Those eyes — even in wolf form, I knew them, had spent years learning to read them for warning signs — found me almost instantly.

For one second, we just looked at each other.

One second was all I needed.

I pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked back hard and my wrist snapped with the recoil — I hadn’t been ready for that, hadn’t known to brace for it — and for one terrible heartbeat I thought I’d missed. I thought the shot had gone wide and it was over and I’d wasted the only chance I was going to get.

The silver round had hit. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Right through the shoulder. Clean, deep, exactly where I’d aimed.

Alexei let out a howl.