# Chapter 3: The Armory Door
The yard is worse than Alicia imagined.
Bodies sprawl between overturned vehicles and shattered concrete planters_ome still, some twitching as the rising sun pulls them back toward animation. The sweet-rot smell makes her gag with every breath. Elder Finn's weight drags on her shoulders, his good leg barely touching ground as they half-walk, half-stumble toward the armory.
Fifteen yards. A Feral's head snaps up from where it crouches over a corpse. Blood drips from its mouth.
Alicia freezes. The mate bond thrums faintly in her chest, pulling her toward the armory's steel door like a fishhook in her sternum. The Feral's white eyes lock onto her.
"Don't stop," Finn hisses. "They track movement."
She forces her legs to move. The Feral rises to a crouch but doesn't charge_et. Behind them, more groans echo from the omega quarters. The sun climbs higher. Minutes, maybe seconds before the yard becomes a killing field.
Thirty yards. An overturned supply truck provides cover. Alicia ducks behind it, lungs burning. Through the truck's shattered windows she sees the armory's side entrance_einforced steel with a security speaker mounted beside it.
And shadows moving behind the lit windows above.
"Jax is there," she whispers. The bond confirms it, that damned invisible tether that's bound them since her first heat three years ago. He's alive. Safe. While she carries his elderly packmate through a graveyard.
"Can you make it?" Finn's voice is weakening. Blood soaks through the sheet wrapped around his crushed leg.
Alicia adjusts her grip on the rope sling. "We both make it, or neither of us does."
She steps from behind the truck.
The Feral charges.
Alicia runs. Finn's weight threatens to drag her down with every step. The armory door looms forty yards away, then thirty, then twenty. Behind her the Feral's footsteps pound concrete with inhuman speed.
Ten yards.
She pounds on the steel with her fist. "JAX! OPEN THE DOOR!"
The security speaker crackles. "Identify yourself." His voice. Cold. Efficient.
"It's Alicia!" She slams her palm against the door again. "Jax, please"
The Feral is five yards behind her. She can hear its rattling breath.
"Alicia?" Surprise in his tone. Not relief. Just surprise. "How are you"
"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!"
Locks disengage with metallic clicks. The door swings inward.
Alicia stumbles through, dragging Finn with her. She spins to slam the door shut
And sees Jax standing in the armory's loading bay, his hand still on the lock release. Mara beside him, her fingers possessive on his shoulder. Six other survivors cluster behind them near two reinforced vehicles already packed with supplies.
Jax stares at Alicia like she's a ghost he'd hoped would stay buried.
"You're alive," he says. Flat. No warmth.
The Feral slams into the door from outside. The steel shudders but holds.
Alicia lowers Finn to the concrete floor. The old Omega is pale, barely conscious. She straightens and meets her mate's eyes. "We need_inn needs medical attention. And we need to get out of here before"
"We're leaving in five minutes." Jax cuts her off. "Already waited too long."
Hope flickers in Alicia's chest. "Then we'll be ready. If you have bandages, I can"
"No." Mara's voice is sharp. She steps closer to Jax, her scent marking him in a way that makes Alicia's Omega instincts recoil. "He said we're leaving. The vehicles only hold eight."
Alicia looks at the two trucks. Counts the survivors. Jax. Mara. Six others. Eight total.
She looks at Finn bleeding on the floor. At herself, still wearing a kitchen servant's stained uniform.
"You're my mate," she says quietly. The bond thrums between them, impossible to deny. "You can't just"
"Can't I?" Jax's expression hardens. "You're a liability, Alicia. You've always been a liability. Weak. Useless. The only reason you're even pack-adjacent is because the Goddess cursed me with you as a mate."
The words hit like physical blows. Mara smirks. Behind them, the other survivors look away, uncomfortable but silent.
"I can help," Alicia whispers. "I know this compound. I know where supplies are hidden, where"
"We already raided the supplies." Jax gestures at the loaded vehicles. "We don't need servants anymore, Alicia. We need fighters. We need people who won't slow us down when the real shit hits."
Outside, something massive roars. The compound's inner wall_he last defensive perimeter_rashes down with a sound like thunder. Inhuman shrieks multiply. Dozens of them.
A Feral horde.
Jax's eyes widen. "Everyone in the trucks! NOW!"
The survivors scramble. Engines roar to life. Alicia moves toward the nearest vehicle
Jax blocks her path. His hand closes around her throat. Not squeezing. Just holding.
"You were always dead weight," he says. His eyes are flat. Empty. "At least now you can be useful."
He shoves.
Alicia flies backward. Her shoulders hit the steel door. It bursts open under her weight and she tumbles into the yard.
The door slams shut behind her.
Locks engage.
"NO!" She scrambles to her feet, pounding on the steel. Through the small window she sees Jax dragging Finn toward the trucks. The old Omega struggles weakly but can't break free.
Mara appears at the window. She blows Alicia a kiss.
"You were always going to die alone, little Omega."
The trucks' engines rev. The armory's vehicle bay door opens on the opposite side_he side facing the secure perimeter exit, not the yard full of Ferals.
Behind Alicia, the shrieks grow closer.
She turns. The horde pours through the broken inner wall like a tidal wave of rotting flesh and snapping teeth. Thirty of them. Fifty. Too many to count.
They see her.
They charge.
Alicia's legs won't move. The mate bond in her chest_hat cursed connection_ulls taut as Jax's truck accelerates away. The bond screams in protest at his abandonment. At his betrayal.
And then it snaps.
The pain drops her to her knees. Something tears inside her chest, something spiritual and fundamental. The bond that's been part of her for three years simply... breaks.
The Ferals are twenty yards away.
New pain explodes in her lower abdomen. Searing. Wrong. She gasps and clutches her stomach
A holographic blue interface erupts into existence before her eyes.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING]
[HEIR DETECTED]
[GENETIC SCAN COMPLETE: LYCAN BLOODLINE ALPHA-CLASS]
[SAFEGUARDS ACTIVATING]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ENGAGED]
The words scroll too fast to process. The Ferals are ten yards away. Five.
[SPATIAL RELOCATION AUTHORIZED]
[PROTECTING UNBORN HEIR]
The world turns white.
The last thing Alicia sees before the light consumes her is Jax's face through the armory door's window_ot regretful, not guilty, just relieved that she's someone else's problem now.
Then the white light takes her, and the Ferals' claws close on empty air.
**