Chapter 1
Merric
The highway south stretches flat and gray through country that doesn’t want us. Eastern Oregon, sagebrush and nothing, the kind of land that makes wolves restless because there’s nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. My wolf hates it. I’m not wild about it myself.
Cameron sits in the passenger seat with his forehead against the window and his eyes closed. He hasn’t spoken in two hours. Before that, it was three words:“Water, please, Alpha.”Kid talks like he’s rationing syllables the way his body’s been rationing calories.
I pass him a bottle without comment. He drinks in small, careful sips. Learned behavior. Someone taught him that food and water can be taken away, so you make every drop count.
Six months in a Syndicate lab taught him that.
My hands tighten on the wheel.
Behind us, Rook drives the second truck with Dane riding shotgun. Sienna and Briar follow in the third. Three vehicles, six wolves, one broken kid, and about eight hours of road between here and Frostbourne territory. That’s if the roads stay clear and nobody comes looking for the cargo.
The cargo being a seventeen-year-old who carries magic the Syndicate would burn countries to reclaim.
Motherfuckers.
I check the mirrors. Clear. Check again. Still clear. Doesn’t stop the itch between my shoulder blades.
Cameron shifts against the door. The movement pulls his shirt collar, and I catch a glimpse of the scar tissue on his throat. Thick, surgical, deliberate. They didn’t just hurt him. They took their time. Methodical. Scientific.
My wolf snarls low in my chest. The sound doesn’t make it past my lips, but my grip on the steering wheel could bend metal.
Easy now. He’s out. He’s safe. We’re taking him home.
Home. Wherever the hell that is now.
The kid opens his eyes. Copper-gold, catching the late afternoon light… and my lungs forget how to work because those are her eyes. Exact shade. Brenna’s eyes in her son’s face.
I shut that down fast. Can’t afford it. Not driving. Not with the boy right there.
“Hungry?” I ask.
He considers it like the question has deeper implications. “I could eat.”
“Cooler’s behind your seat. Sienna packed sandwiches. Enough to feed a platoon, knowing her.”
He reaches back, careful with his movements. Everything about this kid is careful. Controlled. He holds himself the way animals do after they’ve been caged too long: alert to every sound, every shift in the air, every potential threat.
He eats the sandwich in measured bites. Doesn’t rush. Doesn’t waste.
I let the silence sit. Wolves understand silence better than most. Sometimes it’s the kindest thing you can offer someone who’s spent six months listening to their own screams bounce off concrete.
The sagebrush gives way to scrubby pines as we gain elevation. Better country. My wolf settles slightly. We’re heading through the Cascades’ southern foothills, and the terrain is starting to feel right. Trees. Ridgelines. Places where a wolf can disappear.
“You served with Aurora,” Cameron says it flat. It’s an observation, not a question.
“Helped them with a situation. Wouldn’t call it serving.” I shrug.
“That dragon. The big one. Jericho. He your friend?”
Interesting question from a kid who’s been inside a Syndicate research facility. Dragons would be monsters in his world. The things that held the cages.
“He earned my respect,” I say. “That’s different from friendship. But it’s worth more.”
Cameron turns that over. Nods once.
