Chapter 27
Rafael
The road stretches north. Trees on both sides. No headlights behind us.
Faith is alive somewhere in the back of a Syndicate SUV with her face in pieces and the weapon she spent years calibrating taken by the woman driving this van.
I keep turning it over in my head. The monster is a woman on a stretcher. The conditioning she burned into my nervous system will be there for a long time, maybe forever, but the hand that held the blade is broken.
Sable drives. She found a jacket in the back of the van before we left the roadblock; dark, too big for her, the Aurora insignia on the shoulder. Her hair is still loose. Her knuckles are white on the wheel.
She’s never been more beautiful.
She turns her head and catches me staring. “Hey,” she says, smiling.
I smile back. The expression is beginning to feel more natural.
“You good?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. I stretch out a hand and stroke a stray curl behind her ear. She presses her cheek against my knuckles, still focusing ahead.
We drive.
The mountains pass. The sky is starting to lighten at the edges.
When the sun finally emerges, Sable reaches into the center console without taking her eyes off the road. She pulls out a phone, Aurora-issued, standard security equipment. She turns it over in her hand.
“It’s probably tracked,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“One call. Then we ditch it.”
She puts it on speaker and dials. Two rings.
“This is Brenna.” Sharp. Alert. The voice of an alpha who hasn’t been sleeping.
“It’s Sable.”
A beat. “Where are you?”
“Driving north. We’re both alive. Neither of us is injured.”
“The wolf is with you?” Brenna’s voice is controlled, but I can hear what’s underneath it. She’s afraid for Sable. Not of the situation. Of me.
“He has a name,” Sable says. “Rafael. And yes, he’s here.”
“Is he making you say that?”
Sable opens her mouth. I speak first.
“No.” My voice is rough in the quiet van. “She is safe with me.”
The line goes quiet. Brenna breathing. Hearing a man’s voice where she expected the wolf’s.
“Rafael,” she says. Careful with it. Testing it. “You broke Aurora containment. Injured staff. Viktor Parlance has been on the phone with my council for two hours.”
“He sent Dr. Fell into the room with Rafael, Brenna. The same damn room!”
