​💥 Chapter Ten: The Mating Ritual and the Redirection.Â
​　The front door burst open. Kael stood there, his face set in grim determination, his gun drawn, though he clearly preferred his claws.
​　"Ember, now! We don't have time! The Shadow Cult is here for you!"
​　He saw the dress down around my waist, the blood on my finger, and the frantic desperation in my eyes.
​　"What did you do?" he roared, grabbing my arm.
​　"I activated the mechanism!" I gasped, pulling the velvet dress back up, hiding the rune. "I didn't want to kill Elias! We have to complete the bond, Kael. Now! But you have to channel the kill-energy to the external threat!"
​　"Channel? I don't know how to channel a magical weapon I didn't know existed!"
​　"The rune!" I cried, pointing at my back. "The Thorn is active! Focus your Alpha command into the rune, not the bond! Use the kill-energy against the Cult! Do it, Kael!"
​　He stared at me, his silver eyes blazing with rage and disbelief, but his Alpha instinct must have registered the sheer, crystalline power now radiating from my back. He believed I had found a way to weaponize the Shard.
​　"Lyra! Gamma! Hold the perimeter! Roric, get Elias inside the deepest safe bunker!" Kael yelled, throwing off his coat. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward a makeshift altar set up by the fire—the ceremonial site for the Claiming.
​　The lodge was shaking as the Shadow Cult Warriors began slamming into the walls.
​　"I am not going to kiss you," Kael stated, his breath hot against my ear. "There is no time for romance, Ember. This is a battle command. Brace yourself."
​　He didn't need the Mating Steps. He simply hauled me into his arms, lifting me onto the small altar. The weight of his body pressed against mine, the raw male scent of him mixing with the metallic tang of the activated Shard's energy.
​　The magical bond began instantly. It wasn't the slow burn of attraction; it was a violent, psychic invasion. I felt Kael's will—hard, demanding, and utterly dominant—slamming into my consciousness, searching for the key to complete the fusion.
​　This was the moment of ultimate danger. If I didn't resist, I was his puppet. If I resisted too much, the Thorn would kill him.
​　I focused on the journal, on the blood on the page, on my True Will: Protect Elias. Defeat the enemy.
​　Kael lowered his mouth to mine. His lips were harsh and possessive. The kiss wasn't sweet; it was a violent act of dominance, a pure expression of his Alpha command.
​　I kept my physical resistance minimal, but my Internal Resistance—my will—was absolute. I refused to surrender my soul.
​　The Thorn activated. I felt the familiar icy spike ram into my spine, and Kael gasped, his body seizing above mine. The kill-energy was flowing into him, ready to pierce his heart.
​　"The rune, Kael! Command the rune!" I screamed, pushing my consciousness through the kiss, past his dominance, right to the Anchor's core.
​　Kael, fighting the sudden, paralyzing assault of the magical kill-energy, didn't understand the incantation, but he understood command. He shifted his focus, pouring his entire Alpha will—his power, his life-force—not into claiming me, but into the glowing rune on my back.
​　"Anchor, redirect!" Kael roared, his voice cracking with agony. "I command you! Redirect to the external magical threat! Shadow Cult! Die!"
​　The redirection was instantaneous and terrifying.
​　The pure, lethal power of the Silver Thorn, meant to pierce Kael's heart, suddenly wrenched itself free and exploded outwards from the rune on my back.
​　A focused, white-hot, crystalline beam of silver energy erupted from the cabin, slicing through the darkness. I heard three simultaneous, sickening screams outside, followed by the smell of burnt flesh and ozone.
​　Kael collapsed onto me, panting, sweating, his body limp with exhaustion. The kiss was broken. The bond was interrupted, not completed.
​　"It worked," I gasped, tears streaming down my face. "I redirected the kill-energy. You are not dead."
​　Kael slowly pushed himself up, his eyes dazed. He looked at me, not as a mate, but as a magical weapon he had narrowly survived activating.
​　"The bond is incomplete," he noted, his voice strained. "The Anchor is unstable, but the Shadow Cult knows exactly where we are. We must move. Now."
​Kael rolled off me, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He landed heavily on the worn bearskin rug next to the altar, dragging a sleeve across his sweat-damp forehead. His silver eyes, usually so sharp and predatory, were unfocused, staring into the flickering firelight as if witnessing some terrible, private vision.
​The surge of redirected kill-energy had drained him, not physically, but psychically. It was the deepest form of exhaustion—the kind that comes from diverting the inevitable. He had stared death in the face, not a death by claw or bullet, but a magical execution designed to be inescapable. He hadn't just survived the Silver Thorn; he had wielded it.
​I scrambled off the small altar, pulling the velvet dress back up over my shoulders, keenly aware of the burning sensation radiating from the rune on my spine. The Thorn was active, awake, and hungry. It was a magical weapon of mass destruction, and I was its casing.
​"Kael, are you wounded?" I asked, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder.
​He flinched away, not in hostility, but in sheer, raw fear. "Don't," he muttered, his voice a low, guttural rasp. "The energy… it's still singing on you. You smell of death, Ember. And something else. Something… Alpha."
​My hand dropped. He was right. The failed, violent Claiming had left a residue. Our auras—his dominant command and my True Will—had clashed at the moment of redirection, mingling the metallic scent of the Shard with the sharp, clean musk of his Alpha male essence. The Thorn had absorbed Kael's command and imprinted it onto the raw magical energy, making it an extension of his will, but the bond itself remained a broken circuit.
​"The bond is shattered, not incomplete," I corrected him, pulling myself together. The adrenaline was receding, leaving a shaky clarity. "The Kiss of Claiming failed. The Thorn's power surged, but the connection was broken before the fusion could finalize. I am still myself. You are still you. But you are now magically connected to the Thorn's activation mechanism. You are its conductor."
​Kael finally pushed himself to a sitting position, leaning his broad back against the altar, his face a mask of grim realization. "The conductor," he repeated, the word heavy with dread. "So, to protect Elias, you turned yourself into a magical bomb, and me into the detonator."
​"It was the only way," I insisted, my voice hardening. "The Shadow Cult is here, Kael! That was three screaming warriors, but they will send more. They have come to take the Shard. Elias is the Shard's vessel, and I am the Anchor. They want both. We have a few minutes, maybe less, before they regroup and breach the reinforced perimeter."
​A muffled, distant BOOM rattled the windows. The reinforced perimeter, Lyra and Gamma, were already being tested.
​Kael's eyes immediately regained their focus. The personal shock was instantly replaced by the Alpha's instinct for survival and command. He was a general, not a victim.
​"The bunker," Kael said, scrambling to his feet, grabbing his discarded rifle. "The lodge is compromised. Lyra and Gamma can only hold them for so long. We need to get to the tunnels."
​He didn't look at me for confirmation, only barking orders into his comms. "Lyra, Gamma! Fall back to the secondary checkpoint! Activate the Lodge Trap! Roric, status on the bunker!"
​A tight, stressed female voice crackled back: "Roric has Elias secured! Lodge Trap ready! But Kael, there's a problem! They have a powerful Channeler. They're neutralizing the anti-magic field faster than we can raise it! We're pinned down!"