I sit with that for a second. Frosthaven — the facility that took David. That Dalton spent nine years trying to get close to. Where his brother went in at eighteen and came out feral. And now Dalton is already there, sent ahead, coordinating the securityarrangements, doing his job. While I was sleeping in the blue pajamas.
"I need to—" I start.
"There isn't time," Gavin says. Gently. That's the most brutal thing he's ever done to me. "The transport is waiting."
***
I don't go quietly.
I want to be honest about that. I don't take it with composure and I don't perform dignity and I don't make it easy for anyone in that corridor. I say things. Loud things. I say Sven's name and the report and what the panel just did with it and I say RJ's name and what it will mean to leave him at his lowest and I say the pack's names one by one and what it means that I built this here and they're taking me away from it.
Gavin walks beside me and doesn't try to silence me.
That's the thing about Gavin. He lets me say it. He doesn't argue, doesn't justify, doesn't tell me I'm wrong. He just walks.
The corridor. The main entrance. The cold air of the Alaska morning hitting my face and the van parked where vans park when they're waiting for people who don't want to get in.
I stop.
"I need a minute," I say.
"Alex—"
"One minute." I look at him. "One."
He nods.
I stand in the cold and breathe.
The bonds are all running — I can feel every one of them, five arcs and the wanting that isn't a bond yet but has been building toward one since the day I arrived. Leo warm and present somewhere in the building, probably still asleep. Gray across the compound, the bond stretched but holding the way it always holds. Jake and Jim, close together, the bonds steady and real.Dalton's — pointing toward Frosthaven, toward a facility he has his own reasons to be afraid of, doing his job, already there.
The wanting is the loudest. RJ in his room. At his lowest. Still here, still in there, still climbing in centimeters toward something I was supposed to be present for.
I turn and face the building.
Red House. Somewhere in that building Leo doesn't know yet. Jake doesn't know. Jim doesn't know. Stone doesn't know.
Cal doesn't know.
Sven doesn't know.
I open my mouth.
The alpha in me doesn't need permission.
The sound that comes out of my throat is not a word. It's not a command. It's just — me. The full register of what I am, sent into the building like a signal, like a flare, likeI'm here and I'm being taken and I need you to know.
The building goes silent.
And then — from somewhere deep inside it, from a room I've never been allowed into, from a man who has barely spoken in months —
A howl.
Long. Ragged. The sound of something that has been holding itself together finally letting go of one thing. Not grief — recognition.I hear you. I know. I know.
The bonds blaze on my wrist.
Gavin puts his hand lightly on my arm.
