“Then we plan,” Lucian rasped. “We can’t just leave her there after finding out she’s carrying our pups. Especially in a hunter’s compound that hates lycans.”
“We have to be careful in meeting her. The Order knows all our faces,” I said. “Thiago confirmed it. He’s been monitoring us since Ashvale.” I looked at Percy. “You’re the escaped wolf. Every guard in that compound will know you most.”
“I know the layout better than anyone.”
“From the outside. And that’s where you’re most useful.” I held his gaze. “You and Father run the exterior. Draw their patrols east. I go in from the west while they’re chasing you.”
Percy’s jaw worked. The soldier wrestling the man.
“I move without sound,” I said. “It’s what I do.”
“He’s right.” Lucian’s voice from the cot. “Solomon goes in. Percy runs the diversion. Farmon provides ground support.” A pause. “That’s the plan.”
Percival looked at me. At Lucian then at the cave ceiling. He finally nodded.
The sound of footsteps reached us from the tunnel entrance. Light, precise, the gait of someone tracking by scent through unfamiliar terrain. My hand formed claws before the scent registered.
Giselle stepped through the narrow opening. Her expression said she’d run the hunters in circles for the better part of an hour before doubling back.
“Best tracker Veyndral ever produced.” Father said it with the tone of a man confirming a memory. “I remember you. Dravon’s daughter. Eastern border patrol.”
Giselle assessed him in two seconds. The shelter, the supplies, the hand-drawn schematics. The fact that he was alive when everyone believed him dead.
“Lord Farmon,” she said.
“The king is poisoned.” Father gestured to a sealed jar on the shelf. “Apply it directly to the wound and the vein lines every four hours. It won’t close the wound, but it will pull the compound from his blood.”
Giselle was already at the shelf, examining the jars. “How long until he’s mobile?”
“Depends if the treatment holds.”
She looked at me. The question in her eyes was clear.
“You stay with him,” I said. “Nobody leaves this shelter until Lucian can stand.”
She didn’t argue. She uncapped the jar and went to work on Lucian’s chest.
I stood. My legs held. The counter-agent had burned through the last of the sedative, and my muscles responded. The medicine worked.
“Not now.” Father’s voice caught me before I reached the tunnel. “You go in daylight, you die. Their patrols are tripled after this morning. Give it until dark.”
“That’s hours.”
“Hours your body needs. Even Percival. I need to brief you on every corridor, every blind spot, every rotation gap that compound has.” His silver eyes held mine. “You want to reach her, or you want to make a statement? Because one of those ends with you inside and the other ends with you dead at the perimeter.”
He was right. I hated it with every fiber that pulled toward the south, but he was right.
We used the day.
Father spread his hand-drawn schematics across the workstation.
Lucian slept. Giselle reapplied the treatment every four hours. By late afternoon, the black veining had stopped spreading.
When the sun dropped below the tree line, I geared up. Father watched every movement with an expression I hadn’t seen from him in twenty-four years.
Pride. And terror. At the same time.
“Solomon.”
