Rebirth of the Broken Luna A Second Chance at Luna's Heart novel Chapter 521

Chapter 521

THORNE

Nightwalkers poured from the shadows-not from inside the warehouse, but from the surrounding buildings we’d thought were clear. They’d been

waiting, watching us breach the empty structure, timing their assault for maximum effectiveness.

Contact! I shouted, opening fire. “Multiple hostiles, ambush pattern!”

My team responded instantly, forming defensive positions and returning fire. But we were caught in the open, halfway between the compromised

warehouse and actual cover, exactly where any competent tactical planner would want their enemies.

Jerome was proving to be a very competent tactical planner.

“Alpha Command, Delta Team under heavy assault!” I reported between bursts of gunfire. Ambush force, estimated twenty plus combatants, requesting

immediate support!”

All teams reporting similar attacks, Xenois responded, his voice tight. “This is a coordinated counteroffensive. We walked into a trap. All teams fall

back to rally points, regroup and-”

Static cut off his transmission.

Alpha Command, do you copy?’ I tried. “Xenois? Anyone?”

Nothing but empty static. They’d jammed our communications somehow. Cut us off from each other and from command coordination.

We were on our own.

‘Defensive formation!” I commanded my team. “Fighting retreat toward the extraction point! Move!”

We fought our way through nightwalkers and fae and creatures I didn’t have time to identify, all of them seemingly coordinated by some central intelligence. Every time we cleared one group, another appeared to block our path.

This wasn’t random chaos. This was organized resistance designed to prevent our escape.

“They’re herding us, Marcus realized. “Pushing us away from extraction points toward-I don’t know. Something.”

He was right. The attacks were concentrated in specific directions, leaving other paths conspicuously open. They wanted us to flee a certain way.

Which meant going that way was definitely a bad idea,

“Alternative route,” I decided, “Northeast, through that industrial complex. It’s not the direct path to extraction but

‘But it’s not where they want us to go, Klaus finished. “Good call.

We altered course, fighting through lighter resistance as we moved away from the path Jerome’s furces were trying to funnel us down Whatever trap they’d prepared, we weren’t walking into it.

My radio crackled suddenly-brief, broken transmission that cut through the jamming for just a moment.

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Chapter 521

-under heavy-need backup-coordinates- Riley’s voice, high and young and terrified in a way that made my blood run cold.

Riley. Five-year-old Riley who was supposed to be safe at the pack house with his brothers, not anywhere near this operation.

“Riley?” I tried. “Riley, where are you? What’s happening?”

Only static answered.

0481

“Fuck, I breathed. Because if Riley was in danger, if somehow Jerome had gotten to the children while we were scattered across multiple territories fighting his decoy forces-

“Thorne.” Marcus’s voice, sharp with urgency. “You need to see this.

He was pointing at something in the distance, visible through the industrial complex’s broken windows. A plume of smoke rising from the direction of our park house.

Our home territory. Where we’d left the children under guard while we executed these operations.

“No, I whispered. ‘He didn’t. He wouldn’t-

But of course he would. What better way to counter our offensive than to attack what we’d left vulnerable? What better target than the children who d

humiliated his forces during the school invasion?

“New objective, I announced, already running. “We’re going home. Now. Everyone who can move, follow me. Everyone who can’t-find safe extraction

and report to secondary rally points.”

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