“He was out of line.”
“He was also twice your size.”
“He stayed down.”
Darius lets out a quiet laugh through his nose, but it fades quick, like everything does these days.
“I don’t need you to be the one holding the line all the time,” he says after a moment. “We’re not what we used to be. We’ve got people now. People who would bleed for us. You don’t have to keep fighting like we’re still alone.”
“I know that,” I say softly. “Doesn’t change the fact that I still feel like I am.”
He doesn't argue. He just gives me that look again—like he’s trying to hold onto something he knows is already halfway out the door. I set my mug down, grab my boots, and head for the exit before he can ask me not to go.
The air outside hits like a knife the second I step through the reinforced door. The wind cuts through the trees in bursts, scattering powder across the frozen ground like tiny ghosts. The sun hasn’t quite broken the horizon, but there’s enough light to make out the path, the rough outlines of ward stones half-buriedunder snow, the familiar bend where the forest curves toward the ridge.
The patrol route takes just under an hour if I move quick. I don’t.
The quiet out here isn’t peaceful. It’s too still. Too muffled. I don’t trust it.
Birds aren’t singing. Nothing moves in the branches. Even the squirrels that usually scurry between roots have gone silent. My wolf is pacing under my skin, not frantic but alert. She’s wary, ears turned to something I can’t quite hear yet.
I stop near the southern watchpoint, kneeling beside a rune stone half-covered in frost. The ward pulses faintly when I touch it, magic tugging at my fingertips like breath held just beneath the surface. It’s functional, but flickering. Like something’s interfering with the current.
I draw my blade, just in case, and press my hand into the dirt beside the stone, feeling for anything beneath the surface. The magic buzzes faintly against my skin—then stutters. And in that split second of disruption, I hear it.
A breath behind me.
I twist on instinct, blade flashing through the air. It strikes something solid—a figure just outside the ward radius, dressed in winter black with a mask tight against his face. He stumbles back, surprised but not down. Fox scent floods the air.
He comes at me fast.
I duck under the first swing, lunge with a kick that sends him reeling into a tree. Snow crashes down from the branches above as I follow, blade arcing toward his shoulder, but he’s faster than he looks. He deflects, counters, grabs my wrist and yanks. I hit the ground hard, shoulder screaming, but roll and slash at his thigh, catching fabric, maybe skin.
His mask shifts as he grunts, and that’s when I see them.
Amber eyes.
I freeze for half a breath too long.
He stuns me.
The charge bites through my ribs like lightning, locking every nerve in my body until I can’t even scream. I feel myself fall. Snow against my cheek. The world going sideways. My limbs won’t move.
He leans close.
His voice is a whisper.
“I’m sorry.”
And then the world goes black.
4
SILAS
The cell smells like damp iron and recycled air, and even though the ventilation hums somewhere above us, the stink of fear clings to the stone walls the way old blood does to steel. The Syndicate calls this section “Detention” in the logs, but that word makes it sound like a bureaucratic inconvenience. It isn’t. It’s a cage built for people like her. People like me. Reinforced concrete embedded with silver mesh under the paint, seams sealed with shifter-proof resin. No way to dig. No way to shift without carving yourself raw. Roman has always been thorough.
She’s on the floor where I left her, lying curled against the wall, dark hair falling over her face like a curtain. The restraints look obscene against her skin, looped around her wrists, belt anchored to a chain sunk into the slab. She’s already awake even though she hasn’t moved yet. I can tell by her breathing—slow but not deep, every exhale measured and deliberate. She’s cataloguing. Assessing. Waiting for her chance.
