This is presence.
Focused. Deliberate. Close.
I inhale carefully through my nose, filtering scents past diesel and recycled air.
There.
Faint. Wild. Something within the snow that’s neither human nor animal. Yet both.
Wolf.
Logical explanation: Aurora runs wolf operatives. One could be scouting ahead, ensuring the route stays clear.
Except the heat doesn’t fade.
It spreads—fast and unfamiliar, flooding down my spine and into my chest. My dragonfire flares hotter, pushing against skin like it wants out. Like it’s responding to something my conscious mind hasn’t processed.
I force it down. Lock it behind discipline and decades of control.
My hands shake.
That doesn’t happen. I don’t shake. I don’t react.
“Commander Allon?” Matthew leans forward slightly. “You need us to stop?”
“No.” I grip my knees, willing stillness into trembling muscles. “I’m fine.”
It’s a lie.
The convoy rounds another switchback, and I close my eyes, trying to center myself with meditation techniques that have never failed before.
They fail now.
My mind won’t settle. Thoughts scatter and reform around a single certainty I don’t want to acknowledge: this isn’t danger.
This is something else entirely.
The sensation digs deeper. Not pain—something closer to recognition, except that’s impossible. I don’t know anyone in these mountains. Don’t have connections left to trigger this kind of response.
Command rooms. Code names scrolling across screens. Too many orders that led to broken families and unmarked graves. I remember faces sometimes—not the targets, but the ones left behind. Collateral damage.
Children who became orphans because I signed deployment orders.
Partners who lost mates because I authorized tactical strikes.
Parents who buried sons and daughters because efficiency mattered more than mercy.
Regret sits in my chest like rot.
Aurora will likely kill me. The odds favor a quiet execution once they extract everything I know. But the intelligence I carry could save lives. Could end protocols that treat hybrids like contamination to be sterilized.
Time bought with usefulness.
It’s all I have. All I deserve.
The light shifts as snow thins. I open my eyes and look toward the tree line—habit more than intent.
Something moves.
