A single beat throbs through my chest in response. Not hostile. Not threatening. Almost… reassuring? But that makes no sense. Nothing about this makes sense except that I’m being kept from Ember while she walks straight into danger. Into the hell I just saved her from.
Why, goddammit?
I stand frozen, mind racing through options. I could go back to the extraction point and wait for her there. I could keep searching, but that means wasting hours on false trails while she’s in danger.
The implications are staggering. She’s been gone for over an hour now. She’s either at the facility or close to it. She’s either been captured already or is successfully infiltrating. Me charging in blind helps no one.
I make my decision: extraction point. That’s where she’d return. I’ll be there, armed and ready. If she doesn’t come back by nightfall, I’ll go in after her. Pray I can get past whatever was stopping me before.
The resignation feels like failure.
Hours pass at the extraction coordinates. I set a perimeter, check weapons for the dozenth time, settle into wait mode—the worst kind of mission. My mind refuses to stop generating scenarios. I see her captured, interrogated, hurt. I picture her execution broadcast as a warning to other hybrids. I envision Vanya’s face when I tell her Ember’s dead because I couldn’t protect her.
I imagine Vanya’s wrath. Righteous, devastating. The clan elders who would look at me with disgust. A career ofimpeccable service destroyed by this failure: letting the daughter of Vanya Arrowvane die on my watch.
But beneath the political fallout lurks something more disturbing. Something I’ve been avoiding examining too closely.
The thought of Ember gone—her fierce eyes, stubborn chin, surprising compassion—creates an emptiness that feels too personal, too raw. Not just mission failure. Not just letting down the clan.
Loss.
I should’ve stayed with her. Should’ve made her understand—
Should’ve what? Tied her down? She’s not property to control.
The light is failing when I hear it: branches snapping, footsteps running. I’m on my feet, weapon raised, every sense straining. A figure bursts from the treeline—
Ember.
Oh, thank God!
Relief hits me like a wave, so violent it nearly drops me where I stand. She’s alive. Whole. Running toward me. Her hair wild around her face, pack still on her shoulders, eyes bright with triumph and fear.
Then the relief morphs into fury, white-hot and immediate.
She spots me, slows, stops twenty feet away. We stare at each other, her breathing hard, body wired. I can’t speak. My voice, when it finally comes, is deadly quiet.
“Do you haveany idea—?”
“I got the intel.” Ember lifts her chin. “Everything Aurora needs. Timing, targets, ritual specifications—”
“I don’t care about the intel!” I close half the gap between us, fury bleeding through every word despite my control. “You walked into a facility full of people who want youdead! For fuck’s sake, Ember! Do you know what they could have done to you?”
“And I walked backout.” Her eyes flash defiance. “I’mfine—”
“You’re not fine!” I’m shouting now, a thing I never do. But I can’t help myself. My nerves are shot to hell. “You’re reckless and stubborn and—”
She shoves my chest. “And what? Too young to make my own choices?”
We stare at each other, both breathing hard. I grip her shoulders, not harsh, but firm.
“You could’ve died.” There’s an edge to my voice that doesn’t feel like rage anymore.
“But I didn’t! I made it! I got what we needed—”
“I don’t give a damn what you got!” My voice cracks. “I thought—” I can’t finish. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Ember goes still under my hands. Something changes in her expression. Like she’s seeing something in me she hasn’t before. The raw fear beneath the anger. The desperation I can no longer hide.
