Dimitri’s fang peeked out as he smirked. “I love yours.”
“You okay?” Koa’s warm hand rested on my shoulder as he sent blue flames all over me to make sure I wasn’t hurt.
“I’m okay,” I promised, biting my lip to contain the moan that tried to pry its way out from my throat. Pleasure rippled down the bond from his magic against my skin.
“Fuck, Rune.” Zuko jogged toward us and kissed my forehead gently. “I know you’re going to torture us like this again in the future, but remember, aftercare is important.”
I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Noted, toxin.”
“Let’s get all the supernaturals out of here, starting with the teenagers,” Ivy ordered.
Solon, Ivy, Dimitri, Zuko, Koa, and I freed and led the injured out. Slater and Katie guided us through the comms.
By the time we hit the outer fence, with all forty-three supernaturals, including myself, accounted for, human guards were panicked, alarms blared, and the power flickered on and off. Yet through it all, not one human had died.
As annoying as it was, we kept our word on not murdering anyone. The only reason we had kept our word was that we had found no dead supernaturals.
At the edge of the facility’s land, the rest of our squad waited for us.
Eleanor was already on a call with the Human Council rep again when we came up. “Your facility is past the point of violating the peace treaty,” she said calmly, and I assumed they had been arguing with her. “We entered with permission, neutralized your personnel non-lethally, and extracted forty-three supernaturals.”
“What about the personnel who were working?” the human asked. “How did you neutralize them?”
“Does it matter? They’re all alive,” she told them.
“You had conditional permission to enter our territory,” they snapped. “If you used your powers to knock our citizens out?—”
“What exactly will you do about it?” Eleanor’s voice turned sharp. “We saved our people from inhumane experimentation. Perhaps you should worry more about the consequences of you breaking the treaty and law.”
The rep stayed silent for a moment. “Let’s not escalate the situation…”
“You’ll hear from the council directly. Make sure the human guards at the border let us through,” she cut in and hung up.
We ushered the rescued supernaturals back across the border without incident.
Once we were back in Fate Hollow, the scenery shimmered.
“Well done,” Jarvins's voice boomed with finality.
The border vanished.
We were back in the simulator’s chamber.
Jarvins chewed on his twig, looking proud. “The entire squad did a great job.” His gaze swept over us. “Rune, letting yourself be taken was a calculated risk. It was also the right call to make. You found the facility, confirmed there were far more captives than reported, and kept your head while in a familiar trauma scenario.”
I swallowed. My wrists rolled once, trying to rid the phantom sensation of the Tourmalyke restraints. “Thanks.”
“Ivy and Solon,” Jarvins went on, nodding at the enforcers. “You both had excellent breach work and squad protection during the extraction. You kept focus on the objective and team safety.”
Jarvins's gaze snapped to my sister-by-mating.
“Sylver, creating the thin spot in the ward convinced them to strike. Katie,” he said, moving his attention to her. “Your intel and research were solid. You tracked patterns and kept everyone updated mid-mission. That is exactly what an intelligence analyst is supposed to do.”
Katie flushed, eyes bright behind her glasses. “Thanks.”
“Slater,” Jarvins continued. “Getting the footage from their broken drone, looping their surveillance, and providing navigation gave your team an edge. Very nice work.”
Slater grinned, fist-bumping the air.
