She understands distance.
She understands that he is unconscious, restrained, and moving farther away from me with every mile.
My hands curl around the unopened water bottle until the plastic caves in.
I stop asking questions after the first twenty minutes. Not because I’m done asking, but because silence is the only answer they’re authorized to give me. The operative in the passenger seat keeps his eyes on the road. The woman adjusts her mirror, catches my reflection, then looks away.
I watch the road. Count the miles. Try to think like a healer instead of a woman whose hands still smell like the man they took from her.
Mountain roads give way to wider highways. Snow turns to rain. The sun is setting behind heavy clouds by the time we slow and turn through a security gate.
Aurora headquarters is nothing like Ravenclaw.
No warm wood, no kitchen smells, no wolves crossing between buildings with their hands in their pockets. This is cold stone and steel buried inside a mountain. Purpose-built. The road descends sharply through what used to be a mining operation—rusted equipment still scattered like deliberate camouflage—then plunges into a tunnel carved straight into the rock.
Massive steel doors seal the entrance, and as we approach, my wolf flinches.
Suppression wards, threaded through the stone itself.
Ravenclaw has locks because sometimes people need protecting.
Aurora has wards because sometimes people are the thing being contained.
I’m escorted through two security checkpoints, past guards who nod at my handlers and don’t look at me. Down corridors that smell like recycled air and industrial cleaning solution. Intoa conference room with a long table, leather chairs, and wall-mounted monitors.
Two people are waiting: a wolf I recognize as Nadia Frost, holding a tablet, and a man who can only be the leader of the Aurora Collective.
He’s seated at the head of the table, and ancient is the only word for him. Not old. Old belongs to humans, to weakening hands and softened voices and bodies giving way one joint at a time. This man looks as if time passed over him, took one look, and decided not to argue.
He’s imposing. White hair pulled back. Dark skin. One eye is clouded and seems to be sightless. The other tracks me with the calm focus of someone who’s been making hard decisions long enough that none of them keep him up at night.
Nadia aims a small smile at me. I don’t smile back.
“Sable Marsh,” the man says. “Please, sit, Healer. I’m Viktor Parlance. I oversee Aurora’s operational division.”
I don’t sit. “Where is he?”
“Being processed. Medical evaluation, blood work, resonance baseline. Standard intake for a wolf of his classification.”
“His classification.” My voice comes out flat. “What classification is that?”
“Feral. Magic-blood. High-risk resonance profile. The transport report lists restraint failures, several assaults, and a resonance event that leveled a section of forest.” Viktor’s tone doesn’t change. He could be reading a shopping list. “He was recovered from a Syndicate facility three weeks ago. He has no identity on file, no pack affiliation, and no known history prior to captivity.”
“His name is Rafael,” I say. “He’s a musician. A teacher. His family were magic-bloods living in a human community. He was taken by the Syndicate while hiking alone. He’s been in their hands for years, and before you classify him as feral, you shouldknow that I spent three days on a mountain with him. He spoke to me in full sentences. He built a fire. Navigated terrain. Found water I couldn’t hear. And when a grizzly cornered us in its den, he didn’t shift, didn’t attack, and didn’t lose control. He used sound to calm it down and walked away.”
Viktor’s focus stays on me. “I’ve read Brenna Corvus’s notes on you,” he says. “And the transport team’s report. You reduced his sedation without authorization, concealed his early surfacing, and remained with an unsecured wolf for over seventy-two hours.”
“I did.”
“Any of those would be enough to make a reasonable person doubt you.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” He leans back in his chair. Not hostile. Assessing. “Brenna says your judgment is compromised. She mentioned personal history that may be influencing your attachment. She asked me to evaluate your fitness to remain involved in his care.”
My jaw locks. Brenna told him about Jason. Of course she did; she’d have to, as part of the transfer briefing. The professional in me understands. The rest of me wants to break something.
“My fitness isn’t the issue,” I say. “The issue is that you’ve taken a man who was starting to recover and put him back in a room with restraints, suppression wards, and people who call him a classification before they call him by his name. You may have better intentions than the Syndicate, Viktor, but his body won’t know the difference when he wakes up.”
