Back in the main hall, the lights went out all at once. The beautiful chandeliers died, plunging the entire banquet into complete darkness.

Derek stiffened in his seat. The sudden darkness swallowed the room whole. Soft gasps and worried murmurs rose around him as people began to whisper to one another. Glasses clinked nervously. Chairs scraped against the floor.

Voices grew louder around him. "What happened to the lights?" "Is it a power cut?" "Stay calm, everyone."

His beast howled inside his head, an urgent warning that something was very wrong. This was no ordinary power failure.

Kira.

She had gone to that bathroom alone. The timing was too perfect—too convenient. His enemies had waited until his wife was vulnerable, away from the protection of his side, to strike.

He shoved to his feet so fast that the chair behind him toppled over with a loud crash. The sound startled the people around the table. Heads turned toward him in the dark.

With his sharp Lycan vision cutting through the blackness, Derek moved through the crowd, shoving people out of his way without a word of apology. Some stumbled, others cried out in surprise, but he didn’t stop. Some gammas were already running in every direction, trying to restore the lights.

When he reached the restroom corridor, he called out her name. "Kira!"

Silence answered him. Only darkness and the faint sound of his own breathing.

The bathroom hallway felt too quiet. Derek’s heart pounded harder. He began to kick open the doors of the toilets one after the other, the wood splintered under his boots, the loud bangs echoing off the tiled walls.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

He bellowed her name again, louder this time. "Kira! Answer me!"

Nothing.

He stormed back out into the main hall, his chest tight with fury and rising fear. This wasn’t happening right now. He didn’t look for the cause of the blackout; he looked for the man responsible for the house. He spotted Alpha Lucas near the head of the table and launched himself at the man. He grabbed the man by the collar, almost lifting him clean off the floor.

"WHERE IS MY WIFE?!" he roared.

Startled gasps swept out through the room and the hall broke into nervous whispers.

"The queen?

"Is she missing?"

"Oh, goddess. How is that even possible?"

Derek’s pheromones began to push out in heavy waves, thick and powerful. Even the strongest alphas in the room whimpered and lowered their heads, their inner beasts bowing to the sheer power of the Lycan King’s dominance. The air grew heavy with the scent of submission and fear.

Alpha Lucas’ hands came up in surrender. "Your Grace... please! "I do not know! I swear... I do not know what is happen—"

A sudden blood-curdling shriek ripped through the air. At that exact moment, the lights came back to life, flickering into a bright, blinding glare.

Derek’s eyes adjusted instantly, and what he saw made his blood turn to ice. Several of the gammas standing at the edges of the room were beginning to shift. But they weren’t shifting into the tall, muscular forms of Lycans he expected. Instead, they grew into large, dark wolves with glowing red eyes.

The temperature in the room dropped.

"Umbras," he growled, releasing Alpha Lucas, who fell to his knees, gasping for air.

"Umbras! Umbras!" the guests screamed. Panic, real and raw, flooded the room.

"Attack!" Derek yelled.

Chaos erupted in an instant. Tables overturned. Glasses shattered on the floor. Lycans shifted all around him, their clothes tearing as massive forms burst free. Warrior Lunas shifted with fierce snarls, joining the fight. Luna Cassie quickly gathered the less experienced ladies and led them toward a side door at the end of the room, her voice urgent as she tried to keep them safe.

Derek’s own hands began to shift, claws lengthening, muscles rippling under his skin.

Then everything slowed.

A wave of memory crashed over him without warning. He was no longer in the banquet hall. He was back in that childhood nightmare — the night of the massacre. It was a banquet dinner.

Silver blades flashed. Screams filled the air. Blood soaked the floor. His father’s head on the floor. His mother’s body being assulted by those men. Lycans being killed.

Derek staggered. The noise in the room became muffled, distant. His ears rang. The fight moved in slow motion around him. He watched, frozen, as one of the large Umbras lunged straight at him, jaws wide.

But instead of attacking, his brain showed him the silver blade from years ago, thrusting toward his chest. Just as Jasper had thrown himself in front of that blade back then, a Lycan now crashed into the beast in the present before it reached Derek. The two beasts hit the floor in a tangle of fur and claws. With a swift snap, the Lycan crushed the Shadow Wolf’s throat, ending it instantly.

The Lycan shifted backinto his human form, naked and breathing hard. It was Alpha Braxton.

"Your Grace?" Braxton called, voice urgent. "Your Grace! Look at me!"

To Derek, the words sounded like they were coming from underwater. Everything felt far away.

Braxton grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the corner of the room, behind large pillars that hid most of their bodies from the fight. "It’s not happening right now," he said firmly, shaking Derek’s shoulder.

Derek looked at Braxton, but his eyes were still seeing the ghosts of his past.

"You’re safe. Your people need you to fight. The Queen needs you to fight."

At the mention of "the queen," something shifted in his mind. Derek blinked hard. The fog in his mind cleared. The ringing in his ears died down, replaced by the sounds of the ongoing battle—the snarls, the crashes, and the scent of death.

"Kira," Derek whispered, his voice raspy.

Braxton gave him one last steady look. "Go find her. We’ll hold them here."

He shifted back into his powerful Lycan form and threw himself back into the fight with a roar.

Derek stood still for one heartbeat, chest heaving. Then he forced himself to move.

"I need to find Kira," he muttered under his breath. "I need to find Kira."

He repeated the words like a mantra, using them to keep himself grounded in reality as he pushed through the chaos toward the restroom corridor.

The Umbras were deadly. Their bites carried poison that killed quickly and turned the victim into one of them. They could take the shape of anyone they had killed. And because they could look like anyone, you never knew if the person standing next to you was a friend or a monster.

Just as he neared the hallway, another Umbra leaped at him from the side. Derek caught the beast mid-air with his shifted hands and ripped it cleanly in two with a savage snarl.

"I need to find Kira," he growled again, the words steadying him as he burst back into the restroom area.