In Heat

The world didn’t want wolves anymore. Not the kind that ran in packs and answered to instinct. Not the kind that snapped collars with their teeth or lost their minds when a mate was taken from them. Not the kind that couldn’t be bought, tamed, or reasoned with. So they were purged. All of them. The ranked—alphas, betas, gammas—were hunted outright. Marked too dangerous to contain, too volatile to survive. Their strength made them targets. Their instincts sealed their fate.

The rest—unranked, submissive, young—were spared from extermination, but not from captivity. They were captured, tagged, collared. Not for protection but for containment. Eventually, control of those wolves was handed off to private hands. A facility. A syndicate. A name spoken only behind closed doors: Redveil. No official records exist. No one admits where it is or who funds it. But it was given authority to handle the remaining wolves however it saw fit. And it did.

No one knows how many are held underground. It’s not a sanctuary. It’s not even a prison. It’s a slow, methodical death. A place where wolves are no longer wolves. Where they are used. And no one leaves. The public pretends not to know. Governments look the other way. The only wolves still loose in the world are rogues—feral, fractured, hiding in skins that barely fit. None of them ranked. None of them whole.

The line is broken. Extinct. But still, a whisper remains. A rumor passed between hands in the dark. That one alpha survived. Captured. Not killed. Not broken.

Waiting.

Watching.

Burning.

And if he ever comes into heat…

If he ever finds what was kept away from him—

There won’t be a cage strong enough.