Tonya POV

I am not sure if I dream or if I'm not. Have I died, and that's why it's so cold and dark around me and silent?

And yet, I'm not alone...

I see Silver lying curled in front of me. There is a strange calmness radiating from her. Does she sleep?

I know someone is calling me, someone is screaming my name, the muffled sounds reach me from different directions; I want to follow them, I want to respond, I want to... but...

I remember the pain, the pain in my chest, and yet now there is nothing. Nothing... and yet I know I shouldn't stay here any longer. I'm not entirely here; there is someone, someone who is half of me, who loves me, who I yearn to be with...

Silver breaths calmly as the voices echoing around, coming from a long distance, refuse to be silent.

Someone needs me... someone misses me... someone will die if we don't leave this place...

I remember this place. Now I realize I saw it when shifting for the first time. But that time, Silver wasn't sleeping like now; she was waiting eagerly to connect with me. Has it happened that way? Do we need to connect again?

I kneel in front of Silver, trying to reach her mind. She has to wake up; none of us can do this alone; we have to do this together if we ever want to leave this place, wherever we are right now.

I look at my wolf, trying to make my blood run faster and force my body to shift, projecting my thoughts to her... I want her to remember, like I remember.

I remember the night I marked my mates, the night I took my oath as an Alpha, the night Kathy woke up from her coma, the night uncle Hank died, the night I killed my first rogue, the night I shifted for the first time...

Silver stirs and whimpers, raising her head and opening her eyes. Two big silver irises stare into me, her eyes weren't that color before... Before we ended in here again... None of the wolf eyes are that color.

Silver growls at me; she seems confused. Does she not know who I am?

I reach my hand towards her, and she bares her teeth...

"It's alright, we are one whole," I say, slowly approaching her, getting on my knees, and bowing my head in submission, unlike the last time. Last time, the first time I shifted, Silver bowed to me.

Still growling, she stands up and starts sniffing me. I don't tremble, although I know that if she launches, we both will die...

Werewolves are two souls in one body, two minds in one being, two individuals who can't be separate from each other...

Silver looks straight in my eyes... never look wolf in the eye...

Silver sees me submitted... never be defenseless in the presence of the wolf...

Silver bows her head, and I raise my hand to touch her chest... never touch the wolf in its chest...

"Welcome back, my old friend," I whisper as the extreme pain takes over me.

Chandler POV

That extreme scream of pain coming from the emergency room makes us all jump from our seats.

Fuck the protocols and werewolf customs; I think as I run inside after Hayden, Kathy, and Rosie. The rest of us behind me.

Mikkeli and Hannah, who entered the room some time ago, are holding their daughter trashing in their grip and screaming. Her body twists unnaturally in different directions, and the screams that leave her mouth are inhumane.

"Rosie, Kathy, help us!" Mikkeli screams

Hayden Blackwood turns around, grabs the werewolf doctor attending to Tonya, and pushes him from the room. It's not that the doctor protests; he seems happy with the possibility of leaving. Only family members stay in the room.

Neither I nor my mother nor Terry dares to move as Kathy and Rosie shift alongside Mikkeli Blackwood. Hannah wraps her arms around Tonya as three wolves crowd them as close as possible. Tonya stops screaming, and instead starts sniffing. Her frantic movements contain as three werewolves' bodies are pressing into hers. And then her bones start moving, shallow whimpers leave her throat, and she slowly starts shifting. Her legs become wolf paws, her skin gets cowered with fur, her face becomes the muzzle, and soon Silver lies in the middle of the room.

The three wolves start scenting her as Hannah keeps her face in her fur, humming something. It takes again time, minutes, almost two hours before Silver shifts again and Tonya is back. I can see the big scar on her chest, the place the bullet entered her body. It looks odd as if it was a burned wound that mutilated the skin and next healed years, not hours ago.

Tonya opens her eyes, and I cringe, because once baby blue eyes are gone, or at least the color from it is gone. Her eyes are silver...

"Tonya, do you know who I am?" Hannah asks, and her daughter looks at her and nods. Hannah starts crying, holding her daughter close.

"It's alright, Mother; everything is alright."

She stands up slowly and looks at me, and I send a faint smile in her direction.

"Where are my mates?"

"They are on the way to Shadow Pack," Hayden responds. "You were shot over 10 hours ago; I checked the security cameras and was able to find the van that took your mates. It left the city, so it will not reach North Carolina yet. Kyle managed to detect the warrior who was among those who attacked Hannah and didn't manage to leave the building on time. We got him, and Rob extracted all necessary information from him when you were unconscious."

"And it was Shane's man," Tonya says. "When he was kidnapped, Noah managed to mindlink me that Shadow Pack warriors had attacked them."

"Everything is prepared," Mikkeli states as he shifts." The Trio and your uncles are waiting for us. Unfortunately, we can't take the plane either, so we must drive there. Jake, Gamma of the third territory, is currently on his way to the Shadow Pack with the two squads of warriors, but it will also take him some more time. We want to be able to attack the total force, but we will at least try."

Tonya nods and steps towards the door, but Terry and my mother block her way.

"You were shot with silver, Tonya, and too many have seen it. If you step outside, the Council will have questions." Terry states, "And Alpha is immune to silver; imagine the rampage it creates. Plus, someone from the Council has helped prepare that ambush. We must convince them that they succeed and you are dead."

Fuck he is right, he is so right. The whole werewolf gathering has seen me carrying a bleeding Tonya. I may not know what happened and how Tonya is still alive, but...

"What the doctor told you?" Terry asks Mikkeli.

"That our daughter should've died the moment she was shot, and she didn't. That he has no idea how the hell she is still alive, and the bullet in her chest seemed to melt into her heart, and he doesn't understand what is going on," Tony's mother answers Terry's question.

"The person who shot me wasn't from Shadow Pack," Tonya says." But he is not important right now, my mates are. I have to go to my mates. Nothing else matters."

Her silver eyes are glowing, and for the first time since I have known her, I actually feel threatened.

And yet, barely a couple hours later, I'm in one of the two cars riding to North Carolina. Mikkeli drives, and Tonya and Kathy are beside me, alongside my mother and Terry. The Trio and their parents are in the next car.

My eyes and brain are working hard as I go through all the information about the Shadow Pack that Black Moon provided me, such as the manpower landscape in which they live. The drive there will be extended so we have time to plan the attack strategy. After all, we don't have time to bring all warriors from the Black Moon pack here. Shadow may not be in the best condition, but they still will protect themselves.

Tonya tells us everything she has heard from her mates about the Shadow defense strategies and the best places to enter their land. Finding her mates shouldn't be a problem; when Tonya is close enough, she can locate them since they are marked.

I glance at her from time to time; she seems alright. Not like someone who was shot, lost so much blood, almost died, and got a silver bullet melted into his heart, and yet the vibes I get from her are far more scarring than before. She is stronger, she is faster, she is more powerful than before.

Suddenly, she hisses and presses her palm to her chest; her eyes are tight shut. Her whole posture is tensed, and there is such an immense sadness on her face when she digs her nails into her thigh and starts trembling a bit.

"Something wrong?" her father asks, worried as Kathy wraps her arms around her.

"It's not my pain," she says, opening her eyes. Her wolf is close; even I can feel it.

"I failed them; I failed to protect them," she whispers as a tear slips from her eye, and the rage alongside the guilt on her face is obvious.

Noah POV

TRIGGER WARNING

I lie on my stomach, numb to the cold titles in the cell; they are grey, without any pattern on them, just like the walls in the cell. The only light source, one bulb on the ceiling, doesn't give too much light.

My body is cold, lifeless, in horrid pain. My throat is sore because of all the screaming, pleading, begging for them to stop, and other things they forced me to do.

My lungs are clenched because my ribs must be broken. It's difficult to breathe not only because of it but also because of the weight on top of me.

The titles under me and around me are red with my blood, which has come from many cuts and bites on my skin and also from between my legs. There is no strength left in me; I'm so empty, so disgusting, and dirty.

I feel the breath on my face coming from the one on top of me as he moves his hips frantically, ramming into my body more and more.

My swollen and battered body swipes up the cold floor under me; my eyes are shot, and one of them is so swollen that I can't open it anyway. He, on top of me, has put his arms on my back, and his whole weight is on me. I can't move, not that I have any strength even to try to move.

He starts swirling his hips, making it much more painful because my inside is torn and bloody. It hurts so much, yet there is no reaction from my body, no resistance. It got used to pain. It accepted it as something eternal.

Linus is deep; the silver they injected in me made him weak, and yet he tried; he tried so much to help me, to ease the pain, to push me deep in our mind so he would be the one feeling it, not me. At least I haven't been alone in all of it.

Our heart is clenched, our senses are numb, we can't feel Charlie and Rufus anymore, we don't know if they are alright.

The one on top of me finishes, for sure, he has cum inside me, but so many have cum inside me in the last hours that I don't feel it anymore.

I think Shane is no longer here on his fucking chair, watching. His eyes didn't change during the whole time. Not when Drew forced his cock in my mouth and started moaning, not when the first warrior entered me from behind, not when the others took their places, not when I started crying and screaming in pain, not when they kicked and punched me, forced me into different positions, pulled my hair, not when my blood got mixed up with their semen, not when I puked for the first time.

Drew was laughing, taunting me that I liked it. Others were laughing, throwing their insults at me, twisting and tainting my body as if I were a piece of meat and nothing more, but Shane was indifferent. And was scaring me the most because if he didn't get any satisfaction from watching my suffering, he would go to get it from Charlie.

The one on top of me stands up, and the next one is taking his place, turning me roughly on my back. I don't try to open my eyes; I don't want to see his face. It doesn't matter who he is. I don't have to be held down anymore. There is nothing when the darkness finally engulfs me and my consciousness.