Isolde POV:
The smell of death cannot be faked.
As the blood continued to pool, thickening in the extreme cold, it permeated the seals of the glass cage. It drifted out into the ballroom. It was copper, salt, and the sweet, rotting scent of a bond snapping.
Austen smelled it.
His denial shattered. His nose twitched, his pupils dilated. He knew. That was his son's blood. That was his legacy washing away into the drains.
"Open it," Austen whispered. Then he screamed. "OPEN THE DOOR!"
He scrambled off the stage, rushing to the side of the glass cage where the control panel was. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped the magnetic key card.
"Give it to me!" Debra snatched the card from the floor.
I watched through the haze of my fading consciousness. My vision was tunneling, black vignette creeping in from the edges.
Debra jammed the card into the slot. But she didn't swipe it smoothly. I saw her wrist twist. A sharp, deliberate snap.
"Oh no!" Debra cried out, her eyes wide with fake terror. "The card! It snapped inside the reader!"
"What?" Austen shoved her aside, clawing at the slot. The piece of plastic was wedged deep inside.
"The manual override!" Austen yelled at the warriors. "Use the key!"
A warrior fumbled for a physical key on his belt and jammed it into the lock. He turned it.
Click.
Nothing happened.
"The mechanism is frozen!" the warrior shouted, panic rising in his voice. "The temperature is too low! The seals have fused shut!"
"Break the glass!" Austen roared, pounding his fists against the wall. "Break it!"
Three warriors rushed forward. They shifted into their partial forms, claws extending, muscles bulging. They slammed their bodies against the glass.
Thud. Thud.
The glass didn't crack. It was reinforced polycarbonate, designed to hold a raging Alpha. It was designed to be unbreakable.
"It won't break!" Marcus yelled. "We need the blowtorches! Get the maintenance crew!"
"She's dying!" Austen pressed his face against the glass. His eyes were wild, tears finally streaming down his face. "Izzy! Izzy, wake up! Don't you dare die on me! Open the door from the inside! There's a latch!"
I heard him. He sounded like he was underwater.
Open the latch...
I moved my head slightly. I saw the emergency latch on the floor. It was encased in a block of red ice-my frozen blood.
I dragged my hand across the floor. My fingers were stiff, blue claws. I dug my nails into the ice surrounding the latch, scratching, tearing. I poured every ounce of my remaining will into that movement.
But my strength was gone. The Wolfsbane had done its work. My hand slipped from the latch.
"She's doing this on purpose!" Debra screamed, pointing at my motionless body. "She locked it from the inside! She wants to frame us! She wants to die just to make you look bad, Austen!"
"Shut up!" Austen backhanded Debra, sending her sprawling. But then he turned back to me, his face twisting into that familiar, pathetic mix of blame and fear.
"Izzy, stop this!" he shouted, banging on the glass. "You're weak! You've always been weak! Get up and open the door!"
I looked at him one last time.
I summoned the last spark of energy in my dying brain. I pushed it through the Mind-Link, bypassing his walls because death clears all barriers.
My father... I projected the words into his skull, cold and heavy as a tombstone. ...will peel the skin from your bones.
Austen flinched as if I had slapped him.
The crowd behind him was in chaos. Some were fleeing, realizing the gravity of what had happened. Others, the sycophants, were shouting at me.
"Stop faking it!"
"Open the door, bitch!"
The darkness finally took the rest of my vision. The cold stopped hurting. It just became... nothing.
My heart gave one slow, sluggish beat.
Thump.
And then... silence.
The last thing I heard was the sound of the heavy ballroom doors exploding inward with the force of a bomb. And then, a roar. Not a man's roar.
A monster's roar.
Daddy.
