The Wolfsbane-Synth still burned in my veins, a lingering, chemical ache that kept the beast locked away. The gurney was a slab of ice against my spine. My skin crawled, trying to pull away from the metal. Thick leather straps bit into my wrists, my ankles, my chest. At least the straps match my jacket, I thought, though the joke tasted like battery acid. The buckles dug into my collarbone with every breath. Bleach and ozone burned. Behind it, the faint, metallic rot of old blood.

  Harsh fluorescent lights stabbed my retinas, leaving floating purple spots. The floor rumbled. An engine hummed a low, teeth-rattling frequency that vibrated through the metal table and deep into my marrow. Hover transport. A heavy-duty model, judging by the raw power shaking the floor plates.

  A man in a starched white lab coat stood to my left. He held a datapad, his pale finger tapping the glass with a stylus. He ignored my face, watching a scrolling line of green data. My heart rate. Two armored guards flanked the rear doors. Black tactical gear. Ceramic plating. Pulse rifles slung across their broad chests. Mirrored visors reflected the sterile cabin.

  My stomach twisted.

  Danny.

  His lopsided grin flashed in my mind. The smell of his cedarwood soap still lingered on my skin, fighting a losing battle against the chemical stench of the Wolfsbane he’d injected into my shoulder. It hadn’t been a rescue mission. It was a trap. He’d worn that sleek, black exoskeleton suit like a second skin, pinning me down and ripping the wolf out of me. Two months playing the lovestruck boyfriend, all to bag a stray wolf for his father.

  My jaw tightened. My teeth ground together until my temples ached. My blood coated my tongue where I had bitten my cheek during the ambush. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip that suit open like a tin can.

  The engine whine dropped pitch. A howl shifted to a deep, bass groan. The transport shuddered. Dropping hard. Fast. Gravity abandoned me. My stomach lurched. We were heading deep underground. We hit solid ground with a hydraulic thud that rattled my teeth. The shock absorbers groaned. The rumble stopped.

  The rear doors hissed open. Cool, damp air rushed inside, smelling of mildew, old concrete, and the sharp tang of copper. More black-suited guards waited on the landing pad, cutting through the fog of the hangar. Four of them stepped into the transport. They grabbed the metal edges of my gurney.

  Wheels clattered like machine-gun fire against the ridged metal ramp. They pushed me out into a cavernous tunnel. Yellow hazard lights lined the curved ceiling. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. The guards marched. Heavy combat boots smacking the wet pavement.

  Footsteps approached from behind. Not heavy boots. Dress shoes clicking a sharp, expensive rhythm.

  The guards slowed their pace. Their shoulders stiffened. A tall figure walked into the sickly yellow glow of the hazard lights.

  White suit. A blood-red silk tie. Pale skin like polished marble. Red eyes that absorbed the light. He moved with a cold, corporate stillness—the kind of quiet found in things that don’t need to breathe.

  Moldark Treznor. He stood there in a suit that probably cost more than the hospital I was born in.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He stepped next to my gurney, pacing our speed effortlessly. He didn’t look at the guards. He looked at me, clinical and dark.

  “Precisely five minutes late, Jake. The docking fees are mounting,” he said, his voice a smooth, cold shard of glass as he tapped a silver earpiece.

  I pulled against the leather straps. The thick hide groaned. Friction burned my wrists. “Where are we going? Where’s Danny?”

  Moldark adjusted his cuffs, pulling them a fraction of an inch past his suit sleeves. “The medical wing. Our surgeons are already prepping the theater. We have a very tight window for the initialization.”

  “Surgery?” Panic flared, hot. On the doctor’s datapad, the green line began to chirp—a frantic, rhythmic staccato. “I’m fine. I don’t need surgery.”

  “We’re correcting a defect, Nikki.” He leaned in, and I caught the scent of woodsmoke and something ancient. “Like a computer, you’re a masterpiece. The wolf matrix is perfectly integrated. But the software…” He tapped his temple. “…it’s riddled with bugs. Sentimental attachments. Rage. These things make you a liability.”

  “You’re going to lobotomize me.” My voice sounded small. I hated it.

  “We’re going to trim the noise, Nikki. You’re too loud. Too… felt,” he corrected. “By morning, Nikki Nova will be a tragic accident—a hover bike crash with no survivors. You’ll wake up as something much more useful. A weapon that doesn’t second-guess its orders.”

  I thrashed. The leather groaned under the strain. “My family… they’ll find you. They’ll tear this place apart.”

  “They’ll mourn a girl who was too reckless for her own good,” Moldark said, turning away as the gurney reached a set of massive steel blast doors. “And then they’ll move on.”

  The guards pushed the gurney past the blast doors. The heavy metal ground shut behind us, sealing away the damp tunnel. The air in the medical wing was even colder. Pristine white tiles. Shadowless LED panels. It looked less like a hospital and more like a high-end showroom for things that weren’t allowed to die.

  “You think cutting into my brain is going to fix me?” I spat, straining my neck against the collar. “You’re just going to make the wolf madder. When I get out of these straps, your expensive suit is going to be a chew toy.”

  Moldark kept walking, his face a blank, aristocratic mask. He raised a single finger. The guards halted the gurney. The wheels squeaked in protest.

  “Control her,” Moldark sighed, as if I were a leaking pen.

  My heart hammered a frantic, war-drum beat. I thrashed against the bindings. The thick leather cut into my skin, drawing blood. I threw my weight left, then right. The heavy metal table screamed.

  A low, guttural growl tore out of my throat, vibrating in my chest cavity. The skin on my knuckles stretched tight, turning bone-white. A familiar, agonizing itch crawled under my fingernails. My jaw ached. My bones screamed, begging to snap, lengthen, and reform.

  “Get off me!” I roared. The sound wasn’t human anymore. It was a vicious, jagged snarl that vibrated in my teeth. I thrashed harder. The steel buckle on my right wrist bent. The leather strap frayed with a sharp tearing sound.

  The doctor moved fast. He pulled a thick, metal-barreled syringe from his pocket. Neon green fluid sloshed inside the tube.

  I kicked my legs, pulling against the thick leather with every ounce of rising wolf strength. The guards stepped in. Heavy, armored hands pressed down on my shoulders, pinning me flat.

  A cold, chemical swab hit my neck. Then the needle.

  He plunged the syringe.

  A freezing rush flooded my jugular, racing straight to my heart. My muscles turned to lead, betraying me. The ceiling lights blurred into long, blinding streaks of white. The snarl in my throat died into a wet, pathetic whimper.

  The gurney wheels squeaked as they jolted forward again. The white hallway stretched out, impossibly long. I tried to command my fingers to form claws, but they just lay there—limp, heavy, and useless.

  Fight it. Nikki, fight it.

  But the wolf was already fading, dragged kicking and screaming back into the dark. It felt like an eviction.

  My vision narrowed to a pinpoint. The double doors to Operating Theater One hissed open. Frigid, heavily filtered air washed over my face, and then there was nothing but black.