Chapter 28
Sera
They didn’t take me through the main corridors.
No one on the mess decks or in the comms pit saw me dragged past. Instead, the guards marched me down a side passage, narrow and steep, the air growing cooler the farther we went.
My boots slipped on the damp floor as the stone gave way to reinforced concrete.
The hum of the base faded behind us until all I could hear was the clacking of their swinging rifles and the scuff of our steps against the rock beneath our feet.
We stopped at a heavy blast door with no markings. One guard keyed in a code, the other scanned his badge, and the thing groaned open with the sluggish weight of something that hadn’t moved in years.
Inside was a different world. Just bare stone walls and the smell of mildew and bleach. This wasn’t part of the Watch’s operational hub. This was off the books.
They stripped me down to skin with the cold detachment of people handling a weapon, not a person. Every pocket turned inside out, every stitch checked for contraband. I kept my eyes forward, refusing to give them the satisfaction of even the tiniest bit of shame.
When they were done, they dragged me into another room where an upright steel X-frame waited in the center, bolted into the floor. They secured my wrists and ankles wide, the cuffs biting in just enough to make struggling a stupid option. The metal was cold against my spine.
The door clanged shut behind the guards, and a few moments later, Dane walked in. No escort of guards. No silly theatrics. Just him.
I didn’t waste breath on pretending. “So, this is how the Watch handles people who bring them intel.”
He stopped a few feet from me, his pale eyes as flat as the sea before a storm as they scanned my naked body. “This isn’t personal, Captain. It’s about wiping out my enemies before they wipe us out.”
“You think I’m one of them.”
“I think you’ve been compromised,” he said. “You’ve been mated. Bred. Claimed. You can argue the semantics all you like, but it changes what you are. Changes what you’re capable of resisting.”
I lifted my chin. “You really believe that?”
“I don’t need to believe it. I’ve seen it.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small injector with amber fluid inside it. “That’s why this stays between us.”
I yanked against the cuffs. “What is that?”
His tone didn’t change. “A serum. Designed to put you into heat. Make you easy for them to find and impossible for them to ignore. Your wolves will come for you now without a doubt. I’ll make sure of it.”
My pulse spiked. “You’re insane.”
“But it’s not just your mates coming for you, is it?” he said, almost conversationally.
I swallowed hard and kept my eyes locked on his. “What?”
His head tilted slightly, studying me like he was reading a file only he had clearance for. “No… it’s not, is it? The Elder Lycan is coming after the whole lot of you too. You escaped him once. He’ll smell this across the water. You’ve seen what he can do. You know how he hunts.”
My pulse thudded in my ears. “He’s not coming for me.” I said, even though I knew it was a lie.
“Oh, he is,” Dane said, his quiet voice filled with self-assurance.
“You’re the perfect lure. Your mates will come because they can’t help themselves.
The Elder Lycan will come because you got away from him once, and he can’t allow that.
And when they all come charging in here to get you back…
” his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, “…we’ll wipe them out. All of them.”
“You’d risk the base for that?”
“I won’t be risking the base,” he said. “The British government is already en route. They’re sending special units. Heavy weapons. They’ll be here before your friends make landfall.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “You’re bringing the military here?”
He stepped closer, the injector catching the light. “When your wolves hit the shore, they won’t just be met by the Watch. They’ll be met by an army. And when it’s over, there won’t be anyone left to argue about which side you’re on.”
Before I could curse him out, he pressed the injector to my thigh and depressed the plunger. The cold rush hit my bloodstream like ice water, spreading fast, but there was a steady sense of heat that followed quickly in its wake.
Dane stepped back, pocketing the empty device. “Now,” he said, “we wait.”
He turned and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. The lock turned, heavy and foreboding. Another door lifted open, revealing the green of the great outdoors through the frame and my breath hitched.
I was alone now, and the slow burn of my oncoming heat ignited in my veins.