I’m alive. The Council granted sanctuary, albeit conditional.
This should be enough.
My dragon pushes against the boundaries of my control. Not the suppression field—that’s gone. Just… pulling in ways I don’t recognize. Straining toward something I can’t identify.
Toward her.
Somewhere in this facility. Unreachable because of Viktor’s order.
The pull is irrational, makes no sense. I barely know her. Spent three days in survival mode, most of it trying not to get killed. But the encounters that we had… My body won’t stop remembering—her weight on me, her mouth, the sounds she made, how close we came before—
I cut the thought. Focus.
But my dragon doesn’t care about focus. Doesn’t care about any of it. He just wants—
Her.
The certainty of it disturbs me more than the Council meeting did. More than detention. More than facing possible execution.
I’ve built my entire existence on control. Precision. Emotional discipline. The ability to make hard decisions without hesitation or doubt.
This isn’t that.
This is my body responding without permission. My fire flaring when I think about her. My hands remembering the shape of her. The taste of her.
I don’t know what this is.
But my dragon seems certain.
Mate.
I shake my head to clear the thought. I’ve never let my dragon lead. I’m not starting now.
I turn away from the window. Sit on the bed. It’s soft after three days of concrete, but I barely notice.
Focus on what matters: I have twenty-four hours to retrieve the documentation that’s stored in the cloud. Have to preparefor debriefing. Have to prove my intelligence is worth Aurora’s risk. Have to survive probation.
That’s tactical. That’s controllable. That’s within my capacity to manage.
Nadia is none of those things.
I don’t know what she feels. Don’t know if her wolf is pulling at her the way my dragon pulls at me. Don’t know if she’s thinking about that motel room or if she’s relieved Viktor ordered separation.
Don’t know if she regrets what almost happened or wishes it had.
I have no data. No intelligence. No way to assess the situation because Viktor won’t let me near her.
So I do what I’ve always done: compartmentalize. Lock away what I can’t control. Focus on mission objectives.
But my dragon won’t settle. The discipline that carried me through my time at the Syndicate service feels insufficient against whatever this is.
And that—more than the Council, more than probation, more than the risk of execution if my intel proves false—that unsettles me.
I don’t lose control.
Yet, I’m losing control.
I sink back onto the bed. Stare at ceiling. Try to breathe through the pull that won’t quit, the heat that won’t fade, the certainty my dragon has that my mind refuses to accept.
