Chapter 25
Nadia
The training yard is empty at this hour. Most operatives are on assignment or resting between shifts. The space is mine—packed earth, practice dummies, weapons racks lining the perimeter fence.
I need it to be mine right now. Need the solitude. Need to work off the energy that’s been crawling beneath my skin since yesterday.
My wolf has been agitated since Ember left my room yesterday. Not the frantic need of the heat cycle—that’s gone completely. This is different. Deeper. The bone-deep certainty that I’m not fixing something that desperately needs fixing.
I slam my fist into the practice dummy. The impact jolts up my arm. Again. Harder. The dummy rocks on its base. Another strike. Then another. Working through forms I’ve practiced for years. Muscle memory takes over while my mind circles the same thoughts I’ve been trying to escape.
Jericho.
I hit the dummy hard enough that the post cracks. Focus on the movements till my muscles burn and sweat soaks through my clothing.
“Nadia?”
I spin. Iris stands at the yard entrance. Shadow dragon energy radiates from her—usually controlled but right now crackling with distress.
“Hey.” I wipe sweat from my face. Try to look normal. “You okay?”
“I’m looking for Kieran. Have you seen him?” Her voice is tight. Strained in ways that make my wolf sit up and take notice.
“No. Not since yesterday.” I move closer. Study her face. “What’s happened?”
She hesitates. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Then: “You haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“There’s been—” She stops. Breathes. “Someone died. Murder. Inside Aurora.”
The statement takes a moment to process. Murder here, inside sanctuary walls that are supposed to be safe.
Impossible.
“Who?” My voice comes out steady despite the sudden drop in my stomach.
“Samien Khalef.”
Samien. Viktor’s advisor. Tabitha’s closest friend. Someone I’ve worked with and respected.
“When?”
“Last night. Between two and four in the morning. They found him in a maintenance corridor.” Iris’s hands are shaking. “Nadia, there’s dragon evidence. Claw marks. Fire damage. Scales.”
Dragon evidence.
“They’re saying it was Jericho,” Iris continues. Her voice is careful. Watching my reaction. “The defector. He has no alibi. Dragon evidence everywhere. Viktor’s detained him.”
Jericho. Detained. Accused.
My wolf is snarling with rage. Not at him—at the accusation. At the wrongness of it. She knows. Knows with absolute certainty that he didn’t do this.
I know.
“Where’s Viktor?” I hear myself ask.
“His office, but Nadia—”
I’m already moving. Across the yard. Through the facility corridors. My wolf is pushing at my control.
He didn’t do this. The certainty is absolute and unexplainable.
Viktor’s office is on the admin levels. I take stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait for the lift.
The door is closed. I don’t knock. Just open it and walk in.
Viktor looks up from his desk. Startled. Then his expression shifts to something harder when he sees my face.
Tabitha is there too. Sitting in the chair across from Viktor. Her eyes are red. Face blotchy. Grief etched into every line.
“Nadia,” Viktor says. Warning in his tone.
“Is it true?” I demand. “You detained Jericho for Samien’s murder?”
“Yes.” One word. Final.
“You think he did it.”
“The evidence suggests—”
“He didn’t do it.” The certainty in my voice surprises even me. Absolute. Unshakeable. Coming from somewhere deeper than thought or logic.
Viktor’s eyes narrow. “The evidence suggests otherwise. Claw marks. Scorching. Discarded scales. He has no alibi for the time of death.”
“I don’t care what the evidence suggests. It’s all circumstantial. He didn’t do this.”
Tabitha makes a sound. Raw. Wounded. “How can you say that? Samien is dead. Dragon evidence everywhere. The Syndicate defector we barely know—”
“He’s not—”
“You brought him here,” Tabitha cuts me off. Her voice breaks with grief, turning rapidly to rage. “You vouched for him. Convinced everyone to give him sanctuary. And now Samien is dead because we trusted your judgment.”
The words strike deep. True and unfair simultaneously.
“I didn’t vouch for him,” I say. Keep my voice steady. “I brought him in. Viktor and the Council decided on sanctuary.”
“After you spent days with him.” Tabitha stands. “After whatever happened between you two made you defend him even now. Even with Samien’s blood on his hands—”
“Tabitha.” Viktor’s voice cuts through. Sharp. “That’s enough.”
She stops. Breathing hard. Tears streaming down her face. But the accusation hangs in the air between us.
Whatever happened between you two.
Viktor looks at me. Assessing. Reading what I’m trying to hide. “Nadia. You need to keep a clear head about this. Don’t let whatever is between you and Allon cloud your judgment.”
“There’s nothing between us,” I say. The words feel wrong leaving my mouth.
“Then why are you defending him?”
“Because he didn’t do this.”
“How do you know?” Viktor leans forward. “You have evidence? Proof? Something that contradicts the evidence?”
I don’t. I have nothing except the bone-deep certainty of my wolf. Nothing except the knowledge that comes from somewhere I can’t comprehend.
“He wouldn’t do this,” I say instead. “It doesn’t make sense. He came here for sanctuary. Provided intelligence that we verified. Why would he jeopardize that by killing one of your advisors?”
“Maybe he was never really defecting,” Tabitha says. Voice choked. “Maybe this was the Syndicate’s plan all along. Get inside our walls. Gain trust. Then sabotage from within.”
“By killing randomly?” I shake my head. “If that was the goal, there are bigger targets. More strategic choices.” I stop before saying Samien wasn’t important enough. That’s cruel and wrong. “It doesn’t fit his profile.”
“Or he lost control,” Viktor suggests. “Dragon rage. Heat of the moment. Not premeditated. Just violence.”
My wolf rejects this violently. Snarls protest inside my head. Jericho doesn’t lose control. That’s his entire existence—discipline over instinct, logic over emotion, control maintained over centuries.
“He doesn’t lose control,” I say. “That’s not who he is.”
Viktor’s expression sharpens. “You sound very certain about someone you’ve known for less than a week.”
I am certain. Can’t explain the knowledge. Can’t articulate how the mate bond I’m still coming to terms with tells me truths I have no logical way of knowing.
“I’m certain he wouldn’t do this,” I say carefully. “Evidence or not.”
A knock at the door interrupts. Viktor calls entry.
A security guard enters. Young. Carrying a tablet. “Commander. We found something during the footage review.”
“Show me.”
The guard crosses to Viktor’s desk. Places the tablet down. Pulls up video.
I move closer despite myself. Need to see.
The footage is grainy but clear enough. Corridor on level three. Timestamp: 02.30 hours. A figure walks into frame.
Jericho.
My heart leaps into my throat. There he is on the screen—moving through the corridor with that particular economical grace. Heading toward the east wing, where Samien was found.
The sight of him triggers a physical response I can’t control. My wolf flings herself at my control with desperate need. My body aches like I’ve been crushed. I want to reach through the screen, to get to him, to—
This is wrong. The footage is wrong somehow.
“This is from a maintenance corridor camera,” the guard explains. “Time matches the estimated window for Samien’s death. That’s the only access route to where the body was found.”
Viktor studies the footage. Rewinds. Plays it once more.
Again, I watch Jericho’s image move across the screen, wanting desperately to reach him through glass and distance and the reality that he’s trapped in detention while I stand here watching proof of his guilt.
Except it’s not proof. It’s wrong. I can feel the wrongness of it even though I can’t articulate what specifically is off. His gait, maybe. The way he moves. Something subtle that my instincts recognize even when my logical mind can’t pinpoint it.
The mate bond pulses with certainty.
Not him. Fabrication. Lie.
“This is conclusive,” Viktor says quietly. “Combined with the physical evidence—”
“It’s not him,” I say.
Tabitha’s laugh is sharp and bitter. “You’re watching him on camera, and you’re still defending him?”
“There’s something wrong with that footage.”
“What?” Viktor asks. Not mocking. Genuinely asking. “Tell me what you see that contradicts this evidence.”
I can’t. Can’t explain the wrongness beyond instinct and mate bond and the unshakable knowledge that what I’m seeing isn’t real.
“I don’t know what specifically,” I admit. My hands are shaking. “I just know he didn’t do this.”
“That’s not enough,” Viktor says. His voice is firm but gentle. “I need evidence, Nadia. Not instinct. Not feelings. Not whatever this is between you two that’s making you defend him against reality.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Don’t lie to me.” He cuts me off. Direct but not cruel.
“I can see it. Tabitha can see it. Everyone in that briefing room yesterday saw it. Something happened between you and Allon. I don’t care what.
That’s your business. But right now I need you to separate personal feelings from professional judgment. ”
“My judgment is that he didn’t do this.”
“Based on what?”
Based on the mate bond I’m slowly coming to accept. Based on wolf certainty that overrides logic and evidence. Based on the conviction that Jericho—controlled, disciplined, tactical—would never commit random violence that destroys everything he risked defecting to gain.
“Based on knowing him,” I say instead.
“You don’t know him,” Viktor counters. “You spent time with him under extreme circumstances. That’s not knowing someone. That’s survival.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe that isn’t enough to truly know someone. But the mate bond knows. My wolf knows. And she’s never been wrong about threats or danger or people who deserve trust.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“Full investigation. Review all evidence. Determine if this was premeditated or circumstantial. Then decide on appropriate action.”
“And if you decide he’s guilty?”
Viktor’s expression doesn’t change. “Then we execute him for murder within sanctuary walls.”
Execute.
They’re going to kill him.
My wolf howls in response. Desperate. Furious. Heat floods my system with enough intensity that I’m surprised fire doesn’t manifest visibly.
“No,” I choke out. “You can’t!’
Tabitha sees. “You’re going to defend him even if it means betraying Aurora? Even if it means spitting on Samien’s memory?”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” She stands. Faces me directly. “You’re choosing him over us. Over the people who’ve been your family for years. Over Samien, who never did anything except trust that you had good judgment.”
The truth in her words stings. The unfairness of them does too.
Viktor stands as well. “Nadia. I need you to stay away from the detention level. Don’t visit him. Don’t try to talk to him. Let the investigation proceed without interference.”
“You think I’d—?”
“I think you’re not thinking clearly right now.” His voice is firm. “So I’m ordering you to stay away. Understood?”
I look at him. At Tabitha’s grief-stricken rage. At the video footage frozen on the screen showing Jericho walking toward a murder scene.
At the evidence that says he’s guilty.
At the certainty in my bones that says he’s not.
“Understood,” I say.
Viktor nods. “Dismissed.”
I turn and walk out. Close the door behind me. Stand in the corridor trying to process what just happened.
He didn’t do this, my wolf is telling me. Frame. Trap. Someone set him up, and I’m the only one who sees it.
But I can’t prove it. Can’t point to evidence that contradicts the evidence.
I can only stand here knowing that Jericho didn’t kill Samien and that Aurora is going to execute him for it anyway.
My hands are shaking.
I don’t know what to do.
Don’t know how to prove his innocence.
Don’t know how to stop this.
Just know that they’re going to kill him.
My wolf pushes at me. Insistent. Certain. Showing me what she’s known since the mountains. Since before the heat cycle. Since the moment we met him.
Mate.
I feel it. The physical ache when I think about him trapped in detention. The absolute certainty that he’s innocent when all evidence says otherwise.
That’s what mates feel. Recognition that goes deeper than logic.
“Or it’s just…” I search for an explanation. “Connection. Something. I don’t know what to call it.”
My wolf radiates patience. She knows what it is. She’s waiting for me to accept it.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not while Chance’s memory still weighs on me like a stone. Not while I haven’t figured out how to want someone new without betraying someone I lost. Not while the guilt crushes me every time I think about that night in the training facility.
How do I reconcile that? How do I let myself feel anything for Jericho when Chance’s ghost stands between us?
I don’t have answers. Just this pull that won’t quit. This certainty that he’s innocent. This desperate need to do something before Aurora executes him for a crime I know he didn’t commit.
I walk down the corridor. No destination. Just movement because standing still means facing truths I’m avoiding.
Like the fact that defending him means betraying Aurora.
Like the fact that I’d be choosing between the people I call family and him.
And I’m not ready to let go of Chance. Not ready to reconcile what Jericho did.
I just don’t know if I can.
But I know one thing with absolute certainty: he didn’t kill Samien.
And I’m not going to let Aurora execute an innocent man.
Everything else—the pull, the bond, whatever this is between us—I’ll figure out later.
If there is a later.