Chapter 173

Aria

I couldn’t breathe. The white fog permeated everything—my clothes, my skin, my lungs. It burned with each inhale, making my wolf howl inside of me. The tincture couldn’t have prepared us for this. Not entirely.

But most terrifying of all was the absence of Darren by my side.

“Darren!” I shouted, whirling around in search of him.

It was no use. People pushed past me in all directions, desperate to escape the gas. Some werewolves were already half-transformed, and the police were advancing on us. Somewhere I heard a woman scream, “Get away from me!”

I changed direction, pushing against the flow of retreating protesters, heading toward where we’d last seen the line of officers. Each step was a battle against both the crowd and my instincts, which screamed at me to run the other way. The gas was thicker here, and I pulled my jacket up over my nose and mouth, although it did little to filter the chemicals.

Just then, a sudden commotion ahead caught my attention—shouting, the clatter of equipment, and beneath it all, a low growl. I’d recognize that deep timbre anywhere.

I broke into a run, shouldering past the last few people between me and the sound. As I burst through the thinning crowd, the scene before me materialized through breaks in the white fog.

Darren. But not the Darren I’d been holding hands with moments ago.

He’d fully shifted into his massive wolf form, his mismatched eyes blazing through the haze. His fur was bristled along his spine, his teeth bared in a snarl as he faced down a semicircle of police officers. They’d backed him against the wall of a building, and they all wore gas masks, protecting them from the chemical agent they’d unleashed.

One of the officers held what looked like a gun—no, a tranquilizer rifle—aimed at Darren’s heaving flank. Another was unfurling some kind of large net.

“Stop!” I screamed, lunging forward before I could think better of it. “Don’t hurt him!”

The officer with the tranquilizer glanced my way, momentarily distracted. Darren used that moment to lunge sideways, trying to break through their line, but another officer swung his baton, catching him across the shoulder. The fucking baton turned out to be a tazer, and an arc of electricity shot out of it. Darren’s wolf howled in pain, dropping to the ground for a moment.

“He’s not dangerous!” I pleaded, moving closer. My old wolf bristled angrily inside of me, clawing to get out. It took everything in me to hold her back. “The gas is making him react this way. Please, just let me help him!”

“Stay back!” one of the officers ordered, his voice muffled behind his mask. “This animal is dangerous and will be contained!”

“He’s not an animal!” I shouted. “He’s a person!”

But the officers weren’t listening. The net flew through the air, landing heavily over Darren’s wolf form. He thrashed and snapped at it, becoming more tangled with each movement. The officer with the tranquilizer gun raised it again, taking aim.

“No!” I surged forward, placing myself between the gun and Darren. “Please, I can calm him down. Just give me a chance!”

Something in my voice—perhaps the raw desperation—made the officer hesitate for just a moment.

I then whirled to face Darren, my hands open. Darren’s wolf watched me with wild, furious eyes. There was little recognition there, just fear and the chemical-induced aggression.

“Darren,” I said, keeping my voice low and gentle. “It’s me. It’s Aria.”

His ear twitched at the sound of my name, but he continued to strain against the net, teeth snapping at the air.

I took a careful step toward him, then another. Around us, the fog was beginning to thin, carried away by a merciful breeze. The officers stayed put, their weapons still raised, but they were watching now.

“Remember when we first met?” I continued. “You were just a scared little pup, weren’t you? Lost and alone and hurt on the side of the road.”

As I spoke, I felt something unfamiliar moving inside of me. My wolf began to calm, her voice mingling with my own like a whisper on a breeze.

“You trusted me then,” I murmured, and my voice almost seemed to be both mine and hers—high and low, sun and earth, sea and sky. “Trust me now, Darren. Come back to me.”

The wolf stilled. His mismatched eyes locked onto mine, and this time, I saw a flicker of recognition there.

I knelt beside him, heedless of the warning shouts from the officers. With gentle hands, I began to work at the net, loosening its hold on him.

“That’s it,” I soothed. “You’re safe now. I’m here.”

As I spoke, I became aware of a strange silence falling over the scene. Not just Darren, but everyone seemed affected by my words. The officers had lowered their weapons slightly. The crowd had gone still, quiet… calm.

My voice seemed to carry farther than it should, resonating with a power that felt both foreign and deeply familiar. I knew this feeling, I realized; I’d felt it a thousand times before, whenever a scared dog skittered away, whenever a child needed comforting. I’d used it once, more than a decade ago, when I’d first found Darren’s pup form on the side of the road.

Except now it was amplified, flowing through me and out into the world.

Beneath my hands, Darren’s wolf form shuddered. His eyes blinked once, twice, then closed completely, as if drifting off to sleep. A moment later, Darren knelt before me once more, his face buried in his hands. He lifted his head, and his eyes, no longer glowing, met mine with relief and wonder.

“Aria,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “How did you—”

But before he could finish, a clatter of metal on pavement made us both start. I jolted, turning, expecting another one of those gas canisters. But it wasn’t.

The officer who had been holding the tranquilizer gun had dropped it. One by one, the other officers lowered their weapons too. Darren and I stared in awe at them, then at each other.

One of them—a sergeant by the insignia on his uniform—removed his gas mask. His face was flushed.

“I—” he began, then stopped, seeming unsure of what he wanted to say. Finally, he cleared his throat. “We were told you were dangerous. That you would attack civilians.”

“We’re here peacefully,” I said, helping Darren to his feet. “We’ve always been here peacefully.”

The sergeant looked from me to Darren, then to the crowd of protesters behind us, which had grown considerably. I realized with a start that even some of the counter-protesters from earlier were there, watching in silence.

“I think,” the sergeant said slowly, “that there has been a misunderstanding.”

What happened next was something I never could have predicted. The sergeant unhooked his badge from his uniform and dropped it on the ground. Then he stepped forward, joining the ranks of our march.

One by one, the other officers did the same.

“What just happened?” Darren murmured in my ear as we reformed our march, our numbers now swelled not just by the officers but by dozens of onlookers who had witnessed the entire scene.

“I think,” I said, still feeling the strange power humming beneath my skin, “that they finally heard us.”

He glanced at me. “No, Aria. I think they heard you. How did you…”

His voice trailed off, and I just shook my head. I didn’t know how, or why. I just knew that something had happened, and it was important, and now we could keep going.

Darren’s hand found mine, and we continued forward, leading a procession that was twice the size it had been when we started. Word of what had happened spread quickly, drawing more people from side streets and buildings. Alfira was still streaming everything.

As we turned onto the main street that would lead to the police precinct, I tensed, expecting another barricade of anti-werewolf protesters. Sure enough, a crowd had gathered ahead, spilling across the road.

“Stay calm,” Darren called to our followers. “Keep moving forward.”

But as we approached, something unexpected happened. The crowd parted, not to attack, but to join us. People who had been watching the livestream, who had seen what happened with the gas and the officers, were flooding out to walk with us.

All along the route, more people emerged from shops and apartments. Many looked uncertain, even afraid, but they joined nonetheless, swelling our crowd until we stretched for blocks.

Not everyone was supportive, of course. As we passed the city hall, a group of officials emerged, shouting threats about permits and illegal gatherings. But their voices were lost in the sea of our own. Even their own security personnel seemed reluctant to intervene, watching us pass with expressions ranging from curiosity to sympathy.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky by the time we approached the police precinct—our final destination for the day’s march. Darren now walked tall beside me, in complete control. No, more than that. He was… calm. Collected. Peaceful.

But as the building came into view, my steps faltered.

The precinct was surrounded by a wall of officers in full riot gear—far more than had confronted us earlier. They stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall between us and the steps of the building. Only unlike the others, they didn’t have electrified batons.

They had guns.