The final threat isn’t a monster you can name. It’s a swirling vortex of dark energy, a rift torn by something ancient and wrong. It pulses in the clearing, a wound in the world, and from it pours a wave of pure, corrosive fear.

The wolf in you howls to run, to tackle him, but the distance is impossible. There is only one other thing you are, the thing you have buried and locked away since you joined the pack. The secret you swore to keep.

Your hand comes up, not in a clawed swipe, but with fingers splayed. A word you haven’t spoken aloud in years tears from your throat, not a shout, but a command. The air between you and Stiles shimmers, a translucent, golden shield snapping into existence a hair’s breadth from his chest.

The black lightning strikes it with a sound like shattering glass. The shield holds for a single, straining second—long enough to deflect the lethal energy into the ground where it scorches the earth—before it explodes in a burst of blinding light and concussive force.

The blast throws you backward into the trunk of a pine. The world goes muffled, ringing. As your vision clears, the rift is collapsing in on itself with a final, vacuumous pop, leaving behind silence and the steady drum of rain.

The pack is getting to their feet, shaken but whole. Stiles is staring at the scorched mark at his feet, then his head snaps up, his wide eyes searching the treeline until they land on you, still slumped against the tree.