Chapter 8
Varek
Colonel Maelor didn’t touch me as he escorted me out.
He didn’t have to. He walked half a step ahead, hands behind his back, the quiet weight of nothing more than his rank doing the herding for him while two soldiers trailed us like bookends.
We moved through the med wing doors into the main artery of the base.
The hum of the vents swallowed our footsteps, but not the whispers of soldiers as we walked by.
“I heard one of those feral human girls killed seven wolves.”
“Shot her with three tranq darts and still took five of us to take her down.”
“A human girl did that? Bullshit.”
“Tell that to Reimann’s arm. Rumor has it she broke it in three places.”
Maelor kept his eyes ahead. “You’ll see her again,” he said to me, cutting through the murmurs, his tone as casual as a blade sliding back into a sheath.
“I know,” I said, and didn’t break stride.
He glanced back at me, testing. “You didn’t turn the med bay into a slaughterhouse. I appreciate that.”
“You prefer control.”
He didn’t deny it. “Control wins wars.”
“No,” I retorted. “Smart wolves win wars.”
A sort of smile touched his mouth and disappeared.
We broke into the central concourse, the old missile control vault that had once been the heart of a Cold War silo.
Floodlights bore down from overhead. Patrols moved in tight lines.
Maps covered the far wall near the tactical board.
Noise rolled through the space and then pulled back, like a wave sucked off the shore.
That’s when my squad saw me pass by.
Joren peeled off a pillar and fell into step without asking permission, that scar down his cheek catching the light. “Sir.”
“Report,” I said.
“Rumors are breeding faster than rabbits,” he said under his breath. “Half the barracks says you throttled five of Colonel Maelor’s men with your bare hands.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” the colonel said mildly.
Joren didn’t even blink at him. “Other half says the Council finally brewed up something that they can’t contain.”
We stopped near the edge of the concourse.
Rafe and Gareth drifted toward us like iron filings to a magnet.
Brenna slid along the far edge of our group like a shadow, knife already palmed with no one seeing it happen.
Maelor had the courtesy, or maybe it was instinct, to take two steps back and pretend he wasn’t listening.
Which simply meant he was listening perfectly.
Joren rolled his shoulders. “Sir, you should know about the other rumors moving throughout the base.” He tipped his head toward a cluster of wolves huddled together. “They’re saying the feral girls are… karmic vengeance.”
“Karmic vengeance,” Rafe snorted. “Like the world finally sent us wolf shifters a bill and it’s time to pay up.”
Gareth, quieter: “Or maybe it’s a curse.”
A low, unhappy ripple went through the hall from somewhere behind us. I caught fragments of conversation as another squad moved past.
“They say she smiled—Cartwright swears it—smiled while she pulled his ear off with her fucking teeth.”
“Shut up. You didn’t see shit.”
“Council says stay calm, Council says stay the course. Fuck that! Council wasn’t in that hallway.”
“Hush your mouth.”
“Why? So the walls don’t hear? Maybe the walls should.”
“Sir,” Joren said, tone gentled a fraction as he caught my attention again. “She’s your mate, isn’t she?”
I kept my eyes on the far doors to the med wing. “Yes. And she’s in the med wing. For now.”
Rafe looked like he wanted to spit. “The Council doesn’t know what they’re doing anymore.”
“Watch it,” Maelor barked without looking.
Rafe shrugged, eyes never leaving me. “Just saying what the men are saying.”
“What else are the men saying?” I asked, because I wanted to know.
“That the hunters are being hunted,” he said. “That when the Nyktos took one of our outposts, that we could swallow. But this? Human girls ripping our throats out in our own base? We’re supposed to be the ones breeding them. We’re supposed to have the upper hand. Not them.”
Gareth blew out a slow breath, eyes on his boots. “Others are saying that the men think the Council’s been dosing humans. Trying to make their own super soldiers. Trying to replace us.”
Brenna’s knife twitched in her hand. “Maybe they’re not wrong.”
Maelor turned at that. “Careful,” he said.
She smiled without humor. “I always am.”
Maelor stepped closer, not aggressively, just jamming himself back into the conversation like a wedge. “You keep your squad tight, Commander. I won’t have agitation on my concourse.”
“I’ll handle it, Colonel,” I said flatly.
Silence ticked like a metronome. Maelor’s eyes flicked to Brenna’s knife, to Rafe’s bruised jaw, to Gareth’s scarred brow, to Joren’s assessing stare.
He nodded once, his eyes respectfully calculating, and eased back.
He watched me for a long moment, then flicked two fingers to his escort. “Back to posts.”
I gave the smallest tilt of my head, and my squad knew what it meant.
No orders were spoken, no words wasted as we moved as one together.
Joren fell in beside me, as dependable as ever.
Brenna slipped her blade out of sight with a twist of her wrist. Rafe and Gareth drifted close, whispering quietly between themselves.
We peeled away from the center of the concourse, moving casually, unhurried. To anyone else, it looked like nothing more than soldiers regrouping after a long night.
I didn’t have to glance back to know Maelor was watching.
I could feel it, the gravity of his stare tracking us as we climbed the far stairs.
Suspicion rolled off him like heat, heavy and sour.
I kept my stride even, my expression still as if it were carved from stone.
If Maelor wanted to stare holes into my back, let him.
And when the time came to rescue my mate, it would already be too late for him to stop me.
Once we were alone and out of Maelor’s sight, Rafe blew out a thin breath. “Permission to be frank, sir?” he asked, speaking softly enough that I could hardly hear him myself.
“You’re never anything else.”
A quick smirk crossed his lips. Sobering, he shifted half a step closer to me. “Can you get her out?” His words were barely a whisper.
My jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“When?”
“When they turn their backs.”
Brenna’s eyes cut back down the stairs, then back to me. “You going to let me pick the lock, Commander?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Not yet,” she echoed, like it tasted good.
I’d bide my time, just like Mariah asked for, but I would break her out soon enough.
It was simply a matter of timing.