The voice comes from behind me. Nadia Frost. Dark hair, pale eyes, the careful posture of a woman who’s spent years reading people’s emotional states. She was at Ravenclaw for the extractions, worked alongside her mate Jericho during two of the operations that pulled Syndicate captives out of facilities. I liked her. She’s good at her job, and she doesn’t pretend the job doesn’t cost her.
She looks at me now the way she looked at the captives at Ravenclaw: carefully, without rushing to soften what she sees.
I straighten anyway, as if posture can hide bruises, borrowed clothes, boots that don’t fit, and the fact that every part of me is straining toward the containment level.
“Nadia.” My voice cracks on the second syllable. I clear my throat. “You’re the evaluation lead.”
“I am.” She sets the tablet down. “Viktor asked me to take point because we know each other. He thought it would be easier.”
“Easier for who?”
She doesn’t answer that. Instead, she looks at the bruises on my arm, the boots that don’t fit, the way I’m holding my body like something is wound too tight inside it.
“I need to see him,” I say.
“I know you do. But not tonight.” She holds up a hand before I can argue. “You’ve been on a mountain for three days with no food, no medical attention, and a seventy-two-hour adrenaline cycle that hasn’t come down yet. Viktor’s authorized observation access, starting tomorrow morning, but right now, you need a medical check, food, and sleep.”
“I don’t need sleep. I need to—”
“Sable.” Her voice drops. Not the evaluation lead now. The woman I sat across from at Greta’s kitchen table while she told me about the captives she’d assessed and the ones who didn’t make it. “He’s sedated. He’s stable. He’s not going anywhere tonight, and neither are you. Let me do my job.”
I want to argue. My wolf is so close to the surface that my hands shake with the effort of holding her down. Somewhere below us—floors and corridors and steel doors away—Rafael is unconscious in a strange room, and every minute I stand here is a minute he might wake without my voice to anchor him.
But Nadia is right, and hating that doesn’t make it less true. Three days with almost no food, no real sleep, and too much adrenaline have left me running on instinct and teeth.
That doesn’t mean I’m surrendering.
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m in that observation room at first light.”
“I’ll come get you myself.”
She leads me through corridors I don’t try to memorize; they all look the same down here, steel and concrete and ward pressure threaded through the walls, pushing against my wolf with every step. We pass through a medical suite where a doctor I don’t know checks my vitals, my pupils, the scrapes on my palms, the bruises left by the operatives who grabbed me. He asks questions I answer on autopilot. Heart rate elevated but stable. Blood pressure high. Dehydrated. No injuries requiring treatment.
“When was your last meal?” he asks.
“I don’t recall.”
He gives Nadia a look. She nods.
They put me in a room on the residential level. It’s simple, but comfortable: a bed, a window, a bathroom with a shower and fluffy white towels. Someone has left clothes on the bed. There’s a tray on the desk with soup, bread, and a glass of water.
“Eat,” Nadia says from the doorway. “Sleep. I’ll be here at six.”
“Nadia.”
She pauses.
“Is he restrained?”
“No. Viktor’s orders. No restraints unless he becomes a danger to himself.”
“And the room. Is it—?”
“A cell. Yes. Standard containment.” Her jaw tightens. She doesn’t like it either. I can see it in the way her eyes drop. “I’ve flagged it in my assessment. But it’s what we have tonight.”
She leaves. The door closes. Not locked; I check. The handle turns freely. I could walk out, go looking for the containment level, try to find him.
I don’t. Because Nadia asked me to let her do her job, and the last time I ignored someone who said that, a child almost died in a corridor, and Brenna sent me away.
