Chapter 27
Briar
Nadia takes the call on the second ring. Brenna puts it on speaker. I stand at the counter with my hand flat against it because I can’t trust my legs right now. Willow stays near me, and Conner sits at the table with his hands gripping the edge of it.
“Brenna.”
“We have a situation. I need Aurora.”
“Talk.”
“The Syndicate has taken Garrett Forrester. Alpha of the Forrester pack in Texas. He went in voluntarily; we’ve confirmed the details with his head of security. He made a deal that traded himself for the safety of his compound.”
A long pause on Nadia’s end.
“And you want him extracted.”
“Yes.”
“You think this is an Aurora Collective matter?”
“Yes.” Brenna’s voice sharpens. “Because Garrett Forrester is in Syndicate hands. Dragon hands. And they’ve been trafficking wolves across the country. Experimenting on them. It’s not just about him. This is bigger.”
Another pause. Longer. I imagine Nadia processing it on the other end — the political calculation, the operational implications, the personal weight of what she’s being asked.
“How strong is your intel?” she says eventually.
“His mate is certain of it,” Brenna says “mate” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. But hearing it said out loud takes the breath from me.
“Who’s his mate?” asks Nadia.
“Merric’s scout, Briar,” says Brenna. “She’s a reliable source.”
“Briar,” says Nadia. “From Frostbourne? I remember her from when I was in the pack. She helped Jericho and me take down the first Syndicate facility.”
“That’s me.” My voice surprises me. Steady.
“When did this happen?” Nadia’s voice changes by a fraction.
“The capture was within the last two hours.”
“You’re certain he’s alive?”
“Yes. The mate bond would feel different otherwise.”
Bond. We have a mate bond. It’s the first time I’ve admitted it to myself, let alone anyone else.
“All right. I’ll raise it with Viktor immediately. But Brenna, you know our protocols. Aurora doesn’t rush into Syndicate facilities. We plan. We confirm. We don’t launch operations on instinct.”
“I know.”
“We also have… We have multiple pressures right now. The Circle of Fire is leaderless since the Carpathian battle and is fragmenting in ways we’re having to contain.
We have internal security matters we’re still working through.
Mara is running point on a human-exposure situation that’s taking resources we’d normally have available. This isn’t a good time, Brenna.”
“When would be a good time, Nadia?” Brenna’s voice is tight.
“It’s never a good time. I’m just telling you what we’re up against when we bring this to Viktor. The answer won’t be no. But it won’t be ‘move tonight’, either.”
Brenna’s eyes meet mine. I nod. I don’t like it, but I nod.
“We’ll take what Viktor gives us,” Brenna says. “Call me back when you have his answer.”
The line goes dead. We wait.
It takes four hours. Four hours of me sitting in the kitchen because the kitchen is closer to the phone than anywhere else, and leaving means I might miss it.
Willow brings me food. I don’t eat. Greta comes in to check on me, and I acknowledge her silently.
But the rest of the time, I sit. The way I’ve done a thousand times on ridges, in forests, in crevices in rocks. But never like this.
The call comes through at dusk.
“Conference.” Merric puts the phone on speaker. Five voices on the other end — Viktor Parlance, Vanya Arrowvane, and Caleb Craven from the Aurora Collective hierarchy, along with Nadia and her mate, Jericho. Brenna, Merric, Willow, Conner, and I on ours.
Viktor starts.
“Our preliminary assessment. The Syndicate’s southern regional facility — the one your team destroyed six weeks ago — is not in play.
That means Forrester has been moved to an adjacent regional facility or transported to one of their higher-security holdings.
Based on Vanya’s intelligence and Jericho’s operational knowledge, we have three probable locations. ”
“How far?” Brenna asks.
“Two in Texas. One in northern Mexico. All within twelve hours of the grain depot where he was taken.”
“How long to identify which?”
“Forty-eight hours, minimum,” Viktor says. “Could be up to a week.”
I make a sound I don’t manage to suppress. Small. Involuntary. Conner’s hand comes up and lands on my shoulder. Solid.
“That’s a long time to be in the hands of the enemy, Parlance,” says Merric.
“I know,” Viktor says. “I understand what I’m asking you to accept.
Let me explain why it has to be that long.
The mole investigation is ongoing. We have not confirmed the source of the leak that cost us operational security in the last major extraction.
Every mission we run in this window is vulnerable to betrayal, which means we have to scrub our intelligence chain for every operation individually.
We also have a communications-intercept program running to identify which facility has shown recent activation consistent with a high-value prisoner intake.
That program produces results on a predictable timeline.
Rushing past it is how we get our people killed. ”
“And in the meantime,” I say, “what happens to him?”
Jericho’s voice. “Interrogation. They’ll want information on the corridor operation, on the internal Forrester politics, on any adjacent packs who might be cooperating with him against Syndicate interests.” He operated in the Syndicate system for decades. If anyone knows, it’s him.
“You think they’ll suspect that he’s not the only one moving against them?” asks Brenna.
“Yes,” he confirms. “He’s a significant figure, an alpha who refused them and cost them a supply line. What they extract from him has value beyond him personally.”
“They won’t kill him in forty-eight hours,” Vanya says. “That’s not how they operate with an asset of his profile. They’ll work him. Push him. But they’ll keep him intact for at least a week. Probably longer.”
Intact. Fuck.
“Unless,” Jericho adds, “leadership makes a decision about public example rather than continued extraction.”
“Who’s leadership right now?” Brenna asks.
“The Ivory League,” says Vanya. “But they wouldn’t get involved in something like this. Alastair Creed still runs ground operations.”
The name lands. I don’t know him by anything more than reputation. High-ranking Syndicate operative. A radical who pushes the agenda for world domination by dragons.
“Creed will evaluate Garrett personally,” Caleb interjects.
“He’s been evaluating high-value assets himself since before Roland Vex was taken into Aurora custody.
He’s patient. He’s also pragmatic. He won’t waste Garrett in the first week.
But if Garrett refuses to cooperate in a way Creed finds satisfactory, the timeline shifts. ”
“So forty-eight hours is a reasonable window,” Viktor says. “Not a comfortable one. A reasonable one.”
“And if you’re wrong?” I say.
Silence.
“Then we recover him,” Caleb says. “One way or the other.”
The words are clean. Professional. They drain the blood from me.
“Team assembly,” Viktor says, getting down to the details.
“Brenna, you’ll send a Ravenclaw contingent.
Aurora will send strike support. We will deploy south.
We’ll stage at a forward point closer to the probable facilities — Texas side of the border, somewhere neutral. You drive to us. Our people fly.”
“We’ll use our jet,” says Caleb. “Dorian and I will bring in support from the Craven clan.”
“We’ll have Frostbourne operatives on board,” says Merric.
“Briar goes,” Brenna says. Not asking.
“A bonded mate on the rescue of her captured partner is a liability, Brenna,” Viktor says.
“She’s the best operator we have. And the bond will give us real-time status on the asset once we’re in range. She goes.”
“Acknowledged.” Viktor sounds like he’s going against his better judgment but doesn’t argue.
“We’ll send Merric and me, Rook, Sienna, Conner, and Willow as well,” says Brenna.
“So what does that give us?” Merric asks.
“The Cravens for combat. Jericho for Syndicate operational knowledge. Vanya as secondary intelligence and Ivory League context. Our comms specialist, Mara Jones, for communications and technical,” Nadia lists off.
“How long before you can be operational?” asks Viktor.
“We’ll move out tonight.” Brenna looks at me.
“Good,” says Viktor. “Mara will have updates ready for you when you arrive.” He pauses.
“And Brenna. If this goes well, we talk afterward about the situation the Syndicate is in now versus where they were six months ago. There’s an opportunity here for a larger operational move. But first, we get Forrester.”
“Agreed.”
The call ends.
The kitchen is quiet.
“Forty-eight hours,” Conner says. Quiet.
Brenna stands. “Everyone out. I need Briar alone.”
They go. Willow squeezes my arm on the way past. Conner touches my shoulder once, briefly, and then the door closes behind them.
Brenna sits back down across from me. Studies me.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me before you fly out tomorrow?”
I could lie. I could tell her no. The bond was enough to disclose for one conversation.
But my hand has gone back to my belly without my permission, and Brenna’s eyes follow it, and whatever I had prepared to say dies in my throat.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
I don’t say it. I don’t have to.
Her expression does something complicated. Frustration, annoyance, compassion, all compressed into the alpha’s trained neutrality. She absorbs it in a few seconds. Settles.
“How far?”
“Nearly a month. Greta says since the first mating.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Briar—”
“I know.”
“You’re pregnant by the man we’re flying into a Syndicate facility to extract.”
“Yes.”
“And you understand what the risk calculation is for a pregnant woman in an active Syndicate facility.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still going.”
“Yes.”
She’s quiet. I look at her across the table, and I can see her turning the problem over — the operational risk, the pack’s interests, the responsibilities of an alpha to her wolves — and finally she exhales through her nose.
“Whatever else you are to each other,” she says, “he doesn’t know he has a child. You’re going to bring him back, and you’re going to tell him. Yes?”
“Yes.”
He’s going to know anyway. It’s not something a wolf can keep from her mate.
“Fine. But let’s make something clear: before you go in, you will do everything in your power to protect the pregnancy. Your wolf will want to throw herself into the middle of whatever we find. You’ll override her when you need to. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“Go pack.”
I stand. My legs are unsteady, but they hold me. I reach the door, and her voice stops me.
“Briar.”
“Yes.”
“You love him.”
I don’t turn around. I don’t answer. I don’t have to, and she isn’t asking, and we both know what the silence means.
I walk out of the kitchen and across the yard to my cabin.
The sun is almost down. The compound is moving into evening — fires being lit, dinner being served in the lodge, the family from the Forrester handoff sitting on the bunkhouse porch with bowls in their hands, the mother speaking quietly to her daughter.
Normal wolf life, continuing. Around me, in spite of me.
My room is dark. I don’t turn on a light.
I sit on the bed with my hand on my belly and the bond taut between me and the man somewhere south of me.
He’s in a room now. Not moving. The restraints are still on.
He’s alert but trying to keep the bond muted on his end.
He doesn’t want to send me what he’s feeling.
Too late. I’ve already felt enough.
I press against the connection. Let him sense me.
We’re coming for you, Garrett.
The bond warms for a second. Long enough to tell me he’s still there. Still conscious. Still receiving.
Then it dims again. He’s pulling back.
Tomorrow, a journey. Seattle. A team. And after that — if Viktor’s intelligence works, if the mole doesn’t sabotage us, if Creed doesn’t decide to make him an example before we arrive — a Syndicate facility somewhere in the southwest where the Forrester alpha is ready to sacrifice himself.
Forty-eight hours.