1
FOUR MONTHS AGO
Chaos filledthe human trafficking facility. Creatures roared; gunshots rattled. Something huge crashed into the building, shaking it to its foundations.
Killian held onto the three babies in his arms, shielding them with his own body. They were all crying.
He wanted to cry, too.
Concrete dust rained down from the ceiling and got into his eyes. He squinted through his sudden tears and hurried down the dim hallways, his heart pounding.
We’re all going to die.His instincts screamed at him to flee.
“Keep it up! Keep on going! You’re doing great!” At the exit, an alpha waved them through, pointing away from the building. “We’ve cleared the back. Wait there for backup.”
Killian followed his friends to the back of the compound, where there was less shouting and fewer explosions. His sensitive ears hurt.
Walren, Nat, and Ivo were all there with more babies than just their own, all of them covered in dust.
“You alright?” Ivo asked, looking Killian over with his good eye.
Killian shrugged shakily. “Still alive.”
“Alive is good,” Nat said grimly. He scrubbed his face with his hand that was missing two fingers.
They huddled together and watched as the rescuers beat down their kidnappers.
Killian couldn’t relax, though. No matter how hard he made himself hold still, his hands kept shaking.
For the past few weeks, they had been living off stale bread and bottles of water, stuck in a concrete cell with too many babies. It reminded him of... Before.
Even though it had been years, Killian liked to pretend that those terrible times did not exist.
“I hope we’ll get to have good food after this,” Walren whispered next to him.
“You mean flowers,” Killian said tonelessly.
Walren peered at him in concern, but Killian looked away.
He couldn’t pretend to be okay right now. Not when everything was so close to the surface, memories of terror stinging the back of his throat.
Killian remembered the prickle of an alpha’s attention, the chilling dread of a sniper’s scope locking onto him.
All for ‘practice’. To make him ‘stronger’.
That’s not real,he told himself.No one’s coming after me. They’re all dead.
They had to be. He hadmade surethey were dead.
He lost time anyway.
When he blinked again, he was seated on the ground, only Naddie left in his arms. Someone had taken away the babies he had helped to rescue. Ivo and Nat were nowhere to be found.
Something moved in the corner of his vision. To Killian’s surprise, he realized it was Walren hobbling toward a large black dragon, climbing onto the dragon’s hind leg.
The dragon lowered his head, peering at Walren with blazing red eyes. Walren stared back.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. They were lost in a bubble of their own—alpha and omega, a matched pair.
