Chapter 29
Nadia
I wake to warmth and the steady rhythm of breathing that isn’t my own. Jericho’s chest rises and falls beneath my cheek. His arm is wrapped around me. Our legs are tangled under the blanket. Morning light filters through the dirty window, turning everything pale and gray.
For a moment, I just lie here. Feel his heartbeat. Inhale him.
Something shifted between us last night. Not just the physical intimacy. Something deeper that I’m still trying to understand.
His breathing changes. Waking. His arm tightens around me slightly before he seems to remember where we are. What we’re doing today.
“Morning,” I murmur against his chest.
“Morning.” His voice is rough with sleep. His hand moves up my back. Gentle. “How did you sleep?”
“Better than I expected.”
We should move. Get up. Prepare for what’s coming. Instead, we lie here for a few more minutes. Neither of us quite ready to let go.
Finally, I move. He releases me reluctantly. We both sit up. The morning is cold. Our breath mists slightly.
Getting dressed is quiet. But I’m aware of him in ways I wasn’t before. When he pulls off his shirt, I notice his bare chest. The places where yesterday’s wounds were are smooth now. Healed completely. Dragon metabolism erasing minor injuries overnight.
My eyes trace the lines of muscle. The old scars that remain. The way his body moves with fluid strength. He’s a giant of a man, in every sense, lethal power rippling beneath his skin. Not just his dragon. Him.
He catches me watching. Our eyes meet. Hold. Heat flares between us despite the cold air.
He looks away first. Pulls on a clean shirt that I’d packed into the supply pack I’d stashed in the truck. But not before I see his lips quirk up in the hint of a smile. Something in me answers. It doesn’t matter what happens next. We had this. This moment of… heaven.
I finish braiding my hair. Check my weapons. Lace my boots. All practical motions. But I feel his attention on me too. The weight of his gaze tracking my movements.
We don’t talk about last night. Don’t discuss what’s happening between us. Right now, there’s death on the horizon. Examining feelings seems pointless when we might not survive the day.
Still. Part of me mourns the possibility. Dying before we can explore this. Before I can understand what he’s becoming to me.
My wolf knows. Has been certain since the beginning. But I’m still wrestling with her certainty.
“Coffee?” Jericho asks. He’s in the small kitchen area, holding up instant packets he must have found in the cabin supplies.
“Please.”
He heats water on the camp stove. We both need something to do with our hands. Something normal.
When he hands me the cup, our fingers brush. Brief contact that sends warmth through me.
I think about Chance while sipping the terrible instant coffee. The thought doesn’t bring the sharp pain it used to. Instead, there’s a dull ache mixed with understanding I didn’t have before.
Jericho was a soldier. So was Chance. Both fighting for their people. Both believing their cause was right.
The order that killed Chance wasn’t personal. Wasn’t targeted. Just tactical decision in a war where both sides thought they were justified.
I take another sip and watch Jericho check ammunition.
He was wrong about what the Syndicate told him. But he believed it. Committed to it with the same conviction Chance had to our pack’s cause.
How different are they, really?
The question sits uncomfortably in my mind. But it’s there. And it’s changing how I see everything.
“Your pack,” Jericho says. “Will they trust me?”
“No.” Honest. “But they trust me. That’ll have to be enough.”
He nods. Accepts that.
We finish our coffee. Clean up. The morning passes with agonizing slowness. Every minute stretching as we wait.
Finally: eleven hundred hours.
I power on my phone. Dial Merric. He answers immediately.
“Nadia.”
“Merric. Status?”
“We landed two hours ago. Currently en route. Five of us total.”
Five. More than I hoped. “Who?”
“Me, Rook, Sienna, Dane, and Briar.”
My breath catches. Those are some of our best. Rook’s tactical mind. Sienna’s speed. Dane’s raw power. Briar’s precision.
“That’s good. That’s really good.”
“What are we walking into?”
I give him the essentials. Syndicate research facility. Hybrid prisoners. Heavy security. Jericho’s intelligence on layout. The plan we’d developed before everything went wrong.
Merric listens. Asks pointed questions. Jericho adds details when relevant.
“Timing?” Merric asks.
“Guard shift change at Fifteen hundred hours,” Jericho says. “Security gaps for approximately eight minutes during rotation. That’s our window.”
“Tight.”
“Very.”
“All right,” Merric says. “We rendezvous at your coordinates. What time do you need us there?”
“Fifteen forty-five at the latest,” I say. “We need time to coordinate before the window opens.”
“We’ll be there. And Nadia?”
“Yeah?”
“You trust the source?”
“I trust him.”
Silence. Then: “Okay. See you at fifteen forty-five.”
The line goes dead. I power off immediately.
Jericho is watching me. “He sounds solid.”
“He is.” I check the time. “We should move. Scout the facility. Be in position.”
We gather gear. Load the truck. Move with efficiency born from years of operations.
The drive is tense. We’re heading directly toward a facility that might kill us all. Toward impossible odds that only got slightly better with five more fighters.
But we’re going anyway.
Jericho drives. I navigate using coordinates from his memory. The facility is remote—deep in the mountains north of Aurora. Hidden by forest and terrain.
Smart placement for something Syndicate wants kept quiet.
We don’t talk much. Both preparing mentally. But there are small moments. His hand finding mine briefly at a stop. My fingers brushing his shoulder when I lean forward to check the map.
Small acknowledgments. We’re in this together.
The facility comes into view just after fourteen hundred hours. We stop well back. Hidden by trees and elevation. Jericho pulls out binoculars from my supply pack.
“Security looks standard,” he murmurs. “Guard rotation on perimeter. Six visible. Probably more inside.”
I take the binoculars. The building is larger than I expected. Three stories. Industrial. Surrounded by fencing topped with razor wire.
“A lot more inside,” I say.
He doesn’t argue. We both know the real defenses are inside. Whatever Vex has protecting his research.
We settle in to wait. Find a position with good sight lines. Both checking weapons. Going over the plan again.
The wait is excruciating. Fourteen hundred hours passes. Then fourteen fifteen.
At fourteen thirty, I check my phone. No messages.
“They’ll make it,” Jericho says quietly.
“They have to.”
Fourteen forty arrives. No sign of my pack.
I scan the approaches. Nothing. Just empty road and forest.
“Nadia.” Jericho’s voice is tight. “Guard shift starts in fifteen minutes.”
“I know.”
Fourteen forty-five. Still nothing.
My heart is pounding. Where are they? They said they’d be here. Merric always keeps his word.
“Something’s wrong,” I say.
“Accident? Roadblock?”
“Maybe. Or Aurora caught up to them. Warned them off.” I scan again desperately. “Or they’re just delayed. Traffic. Something.”
Fourteen fifty.
The facility guards below are starting their pre-shift routines. I can see movement through binoculars. Preparation for rotation.
“Window opens in ten minutes,” Jericho says. “Eight-minute gap during shift change. That’s all we get.”
“I know.”
“If we miss it, the next shift change isn’t until twenty-three hundred hours. By then—”
“I know.” My voice is sharper than intended. “By then, there are captives who might be dead. I know.”
Fourteen fifty-five.
Still no sign of my pack.
“Nadia.” Jericho’s hand finds mine. “We need to decide.”
I look at him. See my own conflict reflected in his face. We can’t do this alone. Two people against that facility is suicide.
But those people inside. Kaylin Foster, the young wolf who might not survive another procedure. The others in critical condition. They’ve already waited too long.
“Five minutes,” Jericho says quietly.
I scan the approaches one more time. Nothing. Just empty road and the facility below starting its shift change preparations.
“Four minutes.”
My wolf is snarling. Torn between altruism and mate protection. Between saving those captives and keeping Jericho alive.
Because if we go in alone, we’re probably both going to die.
“Three minutes.”
The guards below are moving into position. I can see the shift supervisor near the main entrance. Everything happening on schedule.
Our window is coming. With or without backup.
“Two minutes.”
Jericho looks at me. Because we both know what our choices are here.
Go in now and probably die. Or wait and let people who are depending on us suffer and possibly die instead.