The reprieve is short-lived. 

Even with our false measures in place to claim control of the situation, it would seem they would not be enough to hold back the government's incoming forces. Verando had committed a crime, even if under the power of a celestial being; the laws put in place to protect the citizens of this new world had been broken.

Lycans were illegal, and the citizens of New York had just borne witness to one in particular, blood-stained and on the attack. As the crowd gathered on the outskirts of the police ring, agents rushed in to fill gaps in the police barricades and surround us. 

Ron curses, adjusting his suit as he straightens. "We gotta get you all outta here and over to France until this whole thing blows over. The government can't afford to look weak right now. There's definitely gonna be backlash. And the paperwork... seriously, it's gonna be a nightmare."

Helen lays her ears back. "Why do I feel like these men weren't even supposed to be handed over to us? Is any of this legal?"

Ron offers her a sympathetic look, and my warlord lays his ears flat back against his skull with a pointed glare. "I never said it was fair, Miss Helen, or even right, the way we're handling this. If it hadn'ta happened in public, that'd be different. But Mr. Mercer does look... kinda suspiciously gory." 

In a swift motion, I strip the blood from his coat and dash it to the ground, then mix it with the snow, kicking through it to disperse it into the slushy muck and hope it ruins any DNA that might come with it. I'm just relieved to see he's back to his less-than-pleasant self instead of his previous persona of pissed off and volatile. 

"We can't leave yet," I tell them firmly. "We have to get to Tonic. Tonic is the only one who knows about Gabriel. We have to interrogate him." The sirens almost drown out my voice, and the dull roar of civilians causes me to hunker closer to the gray fur. "We need an hour." I plead. "Ron, he's our family."

Tired eyes stare into the distance as Ron tries to fathom how on earth he will manage my request. Screams and snarls bring us full circle, and I remember we just left a mountain of destruction in our wake. 

"One hour, I can hardly promise that, but I'll try." Ron exhales, his face changing to one of extreme happiness. He holds out his hands in welcome as he greets the incoming agents. 

Heading as quickly as we can manage for the building, I use the wind to slam the mangled doors firmly behind us. "Helen, are you ok?" I run my palms over her body, only to step back as her posture changes to one of discomfort. 

Verando rumbles a threat low in his throat, coat bristling, but I silence him with my palm over his muzzle. "It's ok, you don't like other people touching you either, you know. It's not Helen, it's Malka. I'm not her person, she can be offended as long as she doesn't bite--" 

The female barks at the injured male, who looks thoroughly offended by her tone. I can only sigh as I push him back behind me, unwilling to let them kill each other. "Do you think you can wrangle these lycans?" I address the pair, earning a look of horror from Tonic and more excitement than I care to acknowledge from Helen, whose tail wags without her permission.

Verando's reluctance twinges in the back of my mind, but I ignore it. We can't allow the lycans to bond with him; we can't let them think of anyone but Helen as their leader. In the end-- we would not be here to help them. 

"Of course!" Helen nods, and Tyler rests his hand on her shoulder. In a pointed move, Helen steps aside from Tyler; his hand closes, and he accepts the distance with a grimace, his eyes tracking toward the ground. "Go help Tonic, then get the hell out of here. It's time to go to France, trust that we will take care of this." 

It wasn't what I wanted; there was so much left to do, but Ron was right. 

With two quick steps, Helen nuzzles her forehead against Verando's chest. The resemblance between the two wolves was startling; aside from their coat color, they were surprisingly similar in their appearance. Verando has always described them as built for speed and long-distance rather than brute strength. I found him to be one of the most outwardly beautiful wolves I'd seen.

Lycans ranged from boxy and brutish to wiry and skittish. The gray wolf resembled something out of a novella, with his soft, plush fur and thick undercoat crowning the scruff of his neck, his tight, erect ears, and large, rounded eyes. While he wasn't the broadest or the tallest, each piece melted together in a streamlined design of endurance and power. I knew now why Verando compared the modern wolves to coyotes; they looked lanky compared to these beasts before me.

"I'm going to miss you." Helen manages. "I know it's not the proper thing. But it's true, and if something happened, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't say that."

Verando rests his head on her back, with as much affection as he can spare. "You'll realize it's freeing not to have an advisor around. But, if you get stuck, you can always call me." 

This seemed to bring her comfort, and she nodded. 

"In fact, I expect you to call me." He adds, and she can't help but giggle as she does her best to keep her composure.

"The power to create-"

 He stops her with a sigh. "When the time is right, you will know. Do what you must —but remember, you can't take it back. This is not a gift, Helen. It's a curse, a burden no man should have to carry. Don't allow yourself to become blinded by the lust for companionship, as it is in our nature to reproduce ourselves. We are dangerous." 

Light eyes drift in unison to this world's form of justice just beyond those doors, waiting to condemn them. "Ask Ron for the keys to my car and the house; you're welcome to both while we are away. Take care of Xavier; try to find the bounty hunters. If the news gets wind of that, it doesn't matter what we achieve."

Helen leaves him to bump me with her nose. I hug her neck and quickly release her.

"Take care of each other and don't separate. The wolf is your greatest ally." I hug Tyler and motion to Verando as we start down the hallway. As we run through the halls, leaving the windows' light and entering the underground tunnels' dark depths, I note that the brightness doesn't leave his coat. Once sooty gray, almost a dull hue, was now turning to a bright, vibrant silver.

Much like Helen's almost translucent white coat, he was developing individual strands of the same. 

Once, he had told me that a wolf's decision for good or evil decided their coat color; gray coats were undecided. The darker the intention, the darker the coat, yet the new fledglings all seemed a sooty brown or black.

As we near our last stopping point, I check my watch. We only have forty more minutes, and once more, I'm on a countdown for my life. Only this time, my lifeline is sitting right beside me.  "Why are we slowing? Change your mind?"

"You said you knew how to help Tonic; I want to hear it."

Uncertainty crosses his face all at once. I'm thankful for those telling ears, as he can't hide from me in this form, as they slant backward. "That was before I knew we only had an hour. It's not possible-"

"Try me." I encourage. 

His coat bristles just thinking about it. "While I was in Whitewind's head-" He shakes his head at the thought of it, lowering his hindquarters into a sitting position. "He had been controlling me for some time, in the back of my mind, since he heard about this plan. I thought it was Alpha's influence, but it was like being in a fog. I knew what was happening, but I couldn't get over the edge and take hold. He had thought about Tonic, that I could somehow purify him, as he is one of my people, and I descend from the original." 

I mull this over, it would take much too long for him to learn how to do such a thing if it were even possible. It wasn't as if he was the most open person to the magical realm; he'd have to submit to it totally, and that wasn't in his nature. 

My shoulders sag, but he continues, "My thought was, what if you did it? Wolves are the same as dragons in many aspects of their servitude; a rider can use their dragon's abilities by commanding them. If I could access the celestial side of myself, could you not tap into the ability and do it? Like healing with more purpose?"

The suggestion takes me by surprise, and the screaming from upstairs rips me out of my quiet place of contemplation. I blink away the startle and part my lips, yet nothing comes out. My warlord doesn't flinch; he was numb to it. It was something he'd gone through before. Yet, I hadn't witnessed the change since I was a teenager. 

Men begging for their lives and wishing for death as the wolf ripped out of their bodies was something he was well-versed in.

Would it even be possible, or would it waste what little time we have left? "If it doesn't work, we've wasted our time." 

With a look of acceptance, his expression softens. "Is that not why we are going to France? Every creature deserves to be free, at least that's what someone told me. Helping Tonic is more important than gaining knowledge." 

I hate it when he uses my own words against me, but the thought brings a small smile to the corner of my mouth as I stroke the soft velvet fur of his muzzle, kissing his nose. 

"Leaving him to rot in this place is not an option if we can help it. If we can free him, then we will take him with us." Verando reassures me. 

"Well, first, we need to get away from all this noise. I was a monk at one point; enlightenment and inner peace are somewhat a given." 

My time at the Solomonari school might have been horrendous, but there was also good that came along amid the torment and the survival; there was a profound spiritual truth that emerged from the very origins of the monks who founded the schools, before it became about power. 

"Before the dragons took over, the school was much more about enlightenment," I tell him as we walk further down the hall, till the only lighting was the gentle glow of the floor lights, guiding the path into the depths. "Monks used to live on the streets, traveling off the good and prosperity of the local farmers, and in exchange, they'd bring the rain and nurture the land for good growth."

 Rekindling my origin helped me get into the mental space of what I was about to attempt. I needed to remember what a Solomonari was made for—healing, prosperity, and not a weapon of destruction.

Verando doesn't look very convinced; he seems to have second thoughts about this plan, but my version of this man had returned and was attempting to pull himself out of the depths of despair. "I always thought Romania had beautiful farmland." He attempts.

"I find it hard to imagine you admiring the landscape while you were conquering half of it." 

He shrugs, not denying or confirming my claims. "I lived in those woods for almost a decade, if you recall correctly. I used to serve the Elf Kingdom; farming was the majority of what a male lycan was used for." 

I can't stop the pain from contorting my expression at this truth; we'd never talked about his time as a slave. I knew that his father had taken on Taryek's wife as his mistress, but I liked to pretend that his hatred of Haryek and elves didn't stem from his mistreatment by them. 

"I don't like to picture you serving anyone," I whisper, fidgeting with my fingers as I stare at the floor lights. "Gods.. how do you even stomach me?"

"It wasn't my favorite time in my life." Verando allows, stepping that much closer, "You aren't your father's mistakes, just as I fought back against mine. "That hardship brought me here; I would do it again if it meant the same outcome." 

We stop, and I ground myself, preparing for what we must do to access his celestial being. The stress of the day had been weighing on me, coupled with the anxiety of knowing we'd be leaving the little boy on this side of the earth. There would be no world to come back to if we failed; that little boy would cease to exist.

"When this is over, when we find Fergus, and we end this destruction-" I watch the light orbs looking back at me in the dim light, unnaturally clear, much like ice in their paleness. "You are retired. My work might never be over, but you will never have to do anything like this again. Take command of me if you must, remind me that I hold no power over you, and tell me that you won't do my bidding."

Verando's tail wags once. "Explain to me how this works?"

 He knows that it's a promise I can't keep; we are tethered together in a continuous spiral. The world needed me too desperately to allow me to slip off into retirement with him. Until my job was done, he would need to be at my side, and I needed him; he would be there.

Taking a step back, I square my shoulders and lower myself into a sitting position, cross my legs, and rest my palms on my knees. 

"It's much like asking the wolf to come forward. If you can get an image of what you saw in Whitewind's mind, I might be able to figure it out. The goal is not to allow him to come out completely; you need to touch on the memory, and Alpha should help me with the rest." 

I make it sound so simple, and yet we both watch each other with an air of uncertainty. With a time crunch and his refusal to accept his spiritual side, it seemed unlikely I could even catch a glimpse of the memory. I'd never tried to go into his mind before; it seemed like such an invasion of privacy, yet my father came into mine all the time. 

"Like the dreams we share, then?"

I blink, considering this. "Yes. Just like the dream." Only this time, he'd be awake. "Close your eyes and clear your mind; there is plenty here to stress me out; I should be able to do just as I did then. Think of the memory, the space between this plain and purgatory." I shut my eyes, exhaling deep in my chest to let my mind fade. 

Speaking to my father should have brought me farther into this realm, yet it had never seemed like a possibility to me. I reach out with my mind's eye, feeling around in the dark for any source of clarity that would indicate I'd reached my destination. 

The flash of light gives me hope, only to hear the near-rabid barking that chases me out and back into my body. We're both panting, as far away from each other as we can stand in the small space. 

"I don't think Alpha likes to share." Verando manages, blinking away the discomfort. "The last time someone did that, it was Mother, and he wasn't much of a fan of it then either."

Glancing at my watch, the time seems to be ticking away faster than we could fathom. We were down to a measly twenty minutes, and we were no closer to our goal. Reaching out to him, I invite him to come to me in a last-ditch effort. "Come here. Let me try one more thing."

"What if I bite you?" It wouldn't be the first time.

"I will heal." I soothe him, inviting him to lie beside me and rest his large head in my lap. "I love you dearly, but you are not ready for this. We can work on this later, but now is not the time; I need Alpha." 

As much as I like to believe that his wolf kept me out, I was not foolish enough to deceive myself. There was too much static to go through to the celestial being through Verando's tortured subconscious when he so clearly did not believe in the path we were on. Sorting through that much torment would take hours; the wolf was a simpler creature and more obedient to our cause. 

Wordlessly, the eyes change, and the pupils enlarge as the wolf takes hold. "I need to see what Whitewind showed you," I tell the creature. "I need to help Tonic." 

I close my eyes as the bright eyes disappear behind his lids and place my hand carefully on his forehead. The world around me disappears, and I stand in the black void with the gray creature, only here; he is much smaller, the size of a normal wolf. With a glance at me, he takes off into the void, and I have to run after him. 

I feel weightless, my body unable to fathom itself in the vastness of the subconscious. 

We race through memories, seen through different eyes, a life replayed in fast forward, only I'm not allowed a glance. I must not get distracted; I must not stop. I hear the smooth inner monologue as each memory passes, so much self-doubt and resentment clouding brief glimmers of happiness. 

No wonder I couldn't get through; I could not blame him for chasing me out.

As the path ends, the expanse begins to glow under our feet, the wolf becoming more reluctant as we leave the space that was his vessel and enter uncharted territory. Beacons of light flash below our footsteps; this realm seems unstable, almost hostile in the texture of its essence.

 "Clever." The voice that answers us is not Verando's. "But you are not my vessel."

I shrug. "I'm the best we've got," I note, but he doesn't speak English; instead, it's some bastardized version of Romanian.

Whitewind appears before us as a man, and I hold back the look of surprise at just how much he looks like my warlord. His white hair flows down to his lower back, yet his face is nearly identical. He's dressed in furs, bleached by time, the entirety of his body, save for his face, neck, and hands, covered in some form. 

The tangle of hair bears the remnants of dreads in some of the long locks. "I grow tired of lies."

I bow my head in respect, allowing Alpha to stand beside me. "I'm on a deadline. I need to see what you showed Verando."

"That was for him to perform, not you. Your kind has taken enough from ours."

I swallow, keeping my cool, my face composed. His voice is commanding, echoing off the trembling space. 

"You are as aware as I am that your vessel is incapable of peace. I will help him, but until that happens, I am the only connection between your power and our world. We can not allow you to resurface as you did; it nearly caused our demise."

"Then stop lying!" He commands sharply. "I gave you life. You have the nerve to ask for anything from me!" The sharp growl resonates in my chest, its mighty presence enough to give me pause, only to realize that Alpha is growling back. He stands before me, ready to protect me from himself. 

This seems to bring Whitewind to a calmer place as he raises his eyebrows. "In that same breath, I like to forget that you are the one who tamed this spirit. The gray wolf is indecisive; there is no path, which makes it confused and angry; such is the nature of a white spirit gone astray. Ultimate power surely does corrupt--"

Alpha's eyes never leave the man, fangs bared. I carefully place my hand on his back in quiet reassurance as I lower my gaze in respect, calming myself with a slow breath; I must play this game correctly. "I'm asking for your help for your great-grandson; I wish to free him from the bonds of dark magic. Nothing more."

"Son of the man who brought me back to life, out of the depths of hell, from that beast form we were cursed with. Thousands of years I sat in purgatory, watching those hellhounds destroy themselves with the phases of the moon. Much as I find your kind abhorrent... You freed me. That is why I helped you, not because of my vessel's silly request. You are useful to me."

Considering this, he begins to walk towards us. With Alpha standing before me, I feel strangely at peace. I want to steal a glance at my watch, but time ceases to matter in such a place. The world around us begins to rumble, shimmering in and out of focus. Finally, I feel a hand on my shoulder and glance up to see the pale eyes watching me. 

"You continue to surprise me with what you're willing to do, coming into the lion's den with no weapon and no hope. I could leave your body an empty husk and consume you right here and now, yet you look as if you're speaking to an old friend. Do you have that much faith in your guard dog?" The man muses, glancing at Alpha, who barks in threat, making him chuckle. 

"I know you are good; I'm not afraid," I tell him firmly. 

Flashing me my favorite look, I can't help but smirk. "I'm afraid that 'good' is in the definition of those who behold the deeds. You have seen what infinite power can do. Use it wisely, just as you have access to me, I have access to you. I request that you take this knowledge in exchange for repairing the bond between me and my vessel. You are running out of time."

When I open my eyes, I see Verando watching me, sitting upright with a look of concern. "Nic?" He asks, his voice frantic. "Are you alright?" 

I shake my head, distorting the haze. "I know what to do."