The ground shook under Kael’s feet as the Void piece smashed into the center of downtown Portland. Glass exploded from every building window. Cars flew through the air like toys.

"Everyone out!" Kael yelled, shifting into his massive black wolf form. His paws hit the cracked street running as screams filled the air around him.

A school bus full of kids was sliding backward down the tilted road, heading straight for the growing black hole where the Void had landed.

Kael jumped, using all his supernatural strength. He caught the back of the bus with his teeth just as it was about to fall into the darkness. His claws scraped against the concrete as he pulled with everything he had.

The bus door opened and children poured out, crying and calling for their parents.

"This way!" Kael shifted back to human form, ignoring the pain in his shoulders. "Follow me!"

But even as he helped the last kid climb to safety, he could see the truth. The Void wasn’t just sitting there. It was growing. Fast.

Black tentacles shot out from the center, wrapping around buildings and pulling them in. Each thing it swallowed made it bigger and hungrier.

Kael’s phone buzzed. A text from Emma through their family bond: "The shadows inside are people who got eaten. They’re still alive but trapped. Don’t let it eat you!"

His heart dropped. All those screaming shadows he’d seen weren’t just monsters. They were victims.

A woman ran past him, sobbing. "My baby! My baby is in there!"

Kael looked where she was pointing. A daycare center was tilting toward the Void, windows cracking as it started to slide. Through the glass, he could see tiny faces pressed against the windows.

"Stay here," he told the woman. "I’ll get them."

"You can’t!" she cried. "It’s too dangerous!"

But Kael was already running.

The building groaned as he kicked down the front door. Inside, three daycare workers were trying to keep twenty babies and toddlers calm.

"We can’t get out!" one teacher yelled. "The floor is tilting too much!"

The building shuddered. Through the back windows, Kael could see the Void getting closer. Black smoke was starting to seep through the cracks in the walls.

"Give me the kids," he said.

"What?"

"I’m stronger than I look. I can carry more than one at a time."

It was true, but barely. Even with his werewolf strength, twenty kids would be pushing it.

The first teacher handed him two crying babies. The second gave him a toddler who clung to his neck. The third put two more babies in his arms.

Five kids. He could do this.

Kael ran for the door, but the floor tilted more. The building was sliding faster now.

He made it outside just as the back wall started to crumble. The crowd cheered when they saw him with the children.

But nineteen kids were still inside.

"Again!" the mother from before yelled. "Please!"

Kael handed the babies to waiting adults and ran back in.

This time was harder. The floor was slanted like a slide. He had to climb upward to reach the remaining children.

Six more kids. Then seven. Then eight.

Each trip took longer. Each time, the building was closer to falling into the Void.

On his sixth trip, carrying the last two babies, the front door frame started to crack.

Kael dove through just as the entire doorway collapsed behind him.

Twenty kids saved. But now he was trapped outside, and the Void was still growing.

"Thank you!" the mother sobbed, hugging her baby. "Thank you so much!"

But Kael wasn’t listening. He was staring at the black hole in horror.

It had eaten half the downtown area already. And worse, he could see shapes moving inside it. Human shapes. All the people who had been swallowed were still conscious in there, trapped in eternal darkness.

His phone buzzed again. This time it was a group message to all his siblings.

Emma: "Shadow Emma has me. Real Emma is gone. Don’t trust anything I say from now on."

Kael’s blood went cold. If Shadow Emma had taken over, that meant the real Emma was either dead or trapped somewhere Shadow Emma could control her.

But before he could even process that, another message came through. This one from Darian:

"The Void piece I’m chasing just split again. Now there are twelve pieces instead of seven. They’re multiplying."

Then Jake: "Mine split too. I count fifteen pieces now heading in different directions."

Lily: "Same here. It’s like they’re reproducing."

Kael looked at the Void in front of him. Sure enough, it was starting to bulge in three different places, like it was about to split into smaller pieces.

If that happened, Portland wouldn’t be the only city in danger. The smaller pieces would spread out, eating everything in their path until the whole world was gone.

He had to stop it here.

But how?

Then he remembered something Emma had told him during one of their family meetings. The Void fed on fear and anger. But it couldn’t digest love.

What if instead of fighting it, he fed it something it couldn’t handle?

Kael looked around at all the people he’d saved. The crying mother holding her baby. The daycare workers hugging their rescued children. The teenagers who had been helping him move people to safety.

All of them were looking at him with trust and gratitude.

For the first time in his life, Kael felt what it really meant to be an Alpha. It wasn’t about being the strongest or the most feared.

It was about being willing to sacrifice everything for your pack.

Even if your pack was a bunch of humans you’d never met before.

Kael pulled out his phone and typed a message to his family:

"I love you all. Tell Emma when you find her that she was right about everything. Being Luna was never about power. It was about caring more about others than yourself."

Then he turned off his phone and walked toward the Void.

"What are you doing?" someone yelled behind him.

"Hey, get back here!"

But Kael kept walking.

The darkness reached for him with hungry tentacles. But instead of running, he opened his arms wide.

"I’m not afraid of you," he said quietly. "And I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for you."

The tentacles hesitated.

"You’re just hungry and alone. I understand that. But these people don’t deserve to suffer because you’re hurt."

The Void pulsed, and Kael could hear whispers inside it. The voices of everyone who had been eaten.

"Take me instead," he said. "I’m an Alpha. I’m probably more filling than a hundred regular humans. But let them go."

The tentacles wrapped around him gently, almost sadly.

As the darkness pulled him in, Kael felt something strange. Instead of the fear and pain he’d expected, he felt... peaceful.

And then he was inside, surrounded by all the people who had been swallowed. They were floating in the black space, conscious but not in pain.

"You came to save us," the daycare teacher said in wonder.

"We all did," Kael replied, looking around at faces filled with hope instead of terror.

But then he heard Shadow Emma’s voice echoing through the darkness.

"Thank you, Kael. You’ve just given me exactly what I needed."

And Kael realized with growing horror that he hadn’t saved anyone.

He had just made Shadow Emma strong enough to take over the real Emma’s body permanently.

The Void began to laugh with Emma’s voice, and Kael understood that his sacrifice hadn’t been heroic at all.

It had been the biggest mistake of his life.